Guarding the perimeter

On a cold bright November afternoon, Patti, Amy and I gathered around Gus on the couch. At 18 years old he had reached the end of the line with crippling arthritis in his deformed legs.  Gus lay in Patti’s lap wrapped in his blanket. Amy held his head, now heavy from an earlier dose of narcotic. I knelt in front of him, inserted a small gauge needle into his leg vein, and delivered an overdose of  barbiturate. His breathing slowed, became erratic for a few seconds, and then stopped. We wrapped him in his blanket and made the short trip to the garden where a pre dug grave awaited in a sunny corner by the fence.
Earlier, before Amy arrived, Patti and I had taken a short road trip. Mojo, the Brittany, jumped into the back of the truck and Gus took his usual place atop the console between the two front seats. Now, if you don’t know Gus, he is a 17 year old neurotic chihuahua.  (I think the stranger they are the more you care for them). Draped in his blanket, he looked like Yoda. Our destination was McDonalds where the two dogs and I had shared many double cheeseburger meals. Two thirds of a burger each, proportioned more like the senate than the house. If Gus loved two things, they were truck rides and cheeseburgers.
We stood around his grave. We agreed he was a strange little dude and refrained from saying a lot of mushy stuff. Gus was not a mushy sort of dog. We returned home and dispersed Gus’s possessions to the other pets. This morning there is a decidedly empty space between me and the arm of the couch.