Goodbye, Lucky

Post by Lara

21 March 2013
A few months ago the oldest of our neighbors' three dogs, Lucky, stepped on some broken glass and injured his paw.  I spent somewhere around 2 weeks chasing him around with Neosporin, gauze pads, a bandana, and medical tape trying to keep his paw from getting infected, much to the entertainment of all of the Sierra Leoneans who witnessed it.  After that, he stopped hanging out on the neighbors' verandah in favor of ours, and sometimes didn't even go to their house at dinner time.  They joked that he was my dog now.

Lucky's paw healed into something that didn't require him to sport a red bandana every day, and he spent the next few months faithfully guarding our house from any suspicious visitors.  Then in January he started coughing a lot, and finally the last week or two he wasn't able to eat. We suspect heart worms.

Today we buried Lucky, the Alpha dog at our house, and will sorely miss him.  We're relieved that he isn't suffering anymore, but the place is certainly not going to be the same from here on out.  Goodbye, Lucky.