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Harley

(MS)


by csmith3

This image is of a Boxer in a raft.

This is my favorite dog that I have ever had. It is partially because it’s one out of the only two dogs that I have had in my life, but it is still the best out of those two and probably the best that I have ever known and will ever know. His name was Harley, and he died in May 2015. Even though he is dead he is still better than the dog that I have now for many reasons, but that does not mean I do not love the dog that I have now. His name is Winston. Winston is just not as well behaved yet as Harley was, that is why I liked Harley better, because Winston annoys me sometimes. 

My family and I used to live in Helena but now we live in Winston, which is between east Helena and Townsend. In Winston we live on my mom's uncle's property, and we moved there because it is on a ranch and my great uncle needed help changing the water lines during the spring to grow the alfalfa. Harley used to change water with my dad and great uncle every morning and night. He would run behind dad’s old dirt bike and even if he got behind, he would know where to go because he did it all the time. 

Harley was my best friend, and he always protected me, at least that is what I thought and said every time I went outside at night to get something out of our car in Winston when we first moved there, which means I was about four or five. Since there are not any other houses right by our house, and there are some coyotes by our house, and I used to be scared of that so when it was dark Harley always went outside with me to “protect me.” 

Something that was really funny about Harley was that he did not like to lie in the dirt. Whenever we went camping, we had to lay a blanket down for him to lay on because he did not like to get dirty in the dirt which is weird because whenever he would change water with my dad on the ranch and he would run behind my dad's bike a tone of dust would fly back right at him, and yet he would not move so the dirt was not flying right in his face. Another thing that he did not like was taking a bath and even being in other waters like the river or lake. Whenever we went rafting on the river and we took a stop on the side and would get in the water we would try to get Harley to get in too, but he did not like it and would not stay. And then when we got the raft ready the night before he would be super exited because he knew what we were going to do, and he could wait to leave the next morning. So, it was funny that he did not like to get in the water but liked to go on the raft in the water. 

One night my mom was out of town on a business trip and my dad and I were getting things ready for work and school the next day. While we were getting ready Harley was acting kind of weird. He was pacing around the house, but we did not know why, so we tried letting him outside to go to the bathroom, but he did not have to go so then we tried to give him more food and water, but he did not want that either. Then we realized that it was eight o’clock at night, which is the time that we give him his treat usually, so we gave him that thinking he as wanting that since it was that time. But when we gave it to him, he had a seizure type thing and then I was really scared because I was, I was still fairly young, and I did not know what was going on. Harley hopped back up off the floor like he was perfectly fine afterwards, so we were wondering what that was because it looked like a seizure, but we were not sure what it actually was. After that we went back to get our things ready for the next day because he was acting fine after but then he came out into our dining room and had a heart attack right in front of my dad and me. I was just standing there watching my dad look at him, checking to see if he was actually dead. My great uncle lives on the same property as us since it’s his property so my dad took him over there to see if he could bury Harley the next day while I was at school. While he was gone, I was calling my mom because I was super sad and needed to tell her what had happened.  

The next day after school I went to my great uncle to see if he could show us where he had buried Harley. He showed us where he was and said that he placed some tarp under and above him in the dirt because he knew that he did not like the dirt and said that he did not want him to be unhappy in the dirt there. When my brother was there the next week, we made a tombstone for him to put where he was buried. 

Although he died a lot sooner than we were expecting him to and we were not ready for him to leave us, Harley had a really good life and spent every moment of it enjoying life and doing things that he liked to do like playing outside and going rafting, but not getting in the water. So, I would say that he lived his life to the fullest until the very end. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This image is of a Boxer in a raft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUBMISSION TITLE
Harley

IMAGE LOCATION
Helena | Montana | United States

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CONTRIBUTOR
csmith3

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