{"id":870,"date":"2006-03-04T14:08:08","date_gmt":"2006-03-04T19:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacefulhippo.wordpress.com\/2006\/03\/04\/why-dogs-dont-live-long\/"},"modified":"2006-03-04T14:08:08","modified_gmt":"2006-03-04T19:08:08","slug":"why-dogs-dont-live-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/2006\/03\/04\/why-dogs-dont-live-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Dogs Don’t Live Long"},"content":{"rendered":"
Being a veterinarian, I had been called to
\nexamine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners,
\nRon, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to
\nBelker and they were hoping for a miracle.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
I examined Belker and found he was dying
\nof cancer.  I told the family there were no miracles left for Belker,
\nand offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their
\nhome.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told
\nme they thought it would be good for the four-year-old Shane to observe
\nthe procedure.  They felt as though Shane might learn something from the
\nexperience.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
The next day, I felt the familiar catch in
\nmy throat as Belker’s family surrounded him.  Shane seemed so calm,
\npetting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what
\nwas going on.  Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully
\naway.  The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without
\nany difficulty or confusion.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
We sat together for a while after
\nBelker’s death,wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are
\nshorter than human lives.  Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped
\nup, “I know why.”<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Startled, we all turned to him.  What
\ncame out of his mouth next stunned me.  I’d never heard a more comforting explanation.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
He said, “People are born so that they can
\nlearn how to live a good life — like loving everybody all the time and
\nbeing nice, right?” The four-year-old continued, “Well, dogs already know how
\nto do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”<\/p>\n

– Anonymous
\n<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle.   I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer.  I told the family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}