I was having a conversation with an online friend from my sports group today about how his dog died...he wasn't coping well with it.

I think it has affected him moreso than it otherwise should because he had recently separated from his longtime girlfriend and whom is also the mother of his child.

But it brought back an interesting memory for me. I can't remember, but I'd guess I was around 13.

We had an old overweight beagle that was "on borrowed time", if you will. Myself, my father, and my step-mother were going to a family gathering for some reason or another; upon returning, our beagle was found unresponsive in the grass lying on the ground in our fenced backyard.

If I recall, the dog still had some limited ability to move her eyes. I want to say 20% capacity. I'm not sure if she was still alive or if the movements were post-death relate. because my memory is fuzzy on that.

I found myself saddened, immediately knowing something was wrong when we opened the gate from afar. Sure, she could have been laying in the grass like any other day, but it was just one of those things you could sense.

I laid down next to her for a few minutes, trying to say goodbye and such. I hoped for one last pet-to-owner happy interaction but she was just pretty well gone.

The weird part was...

My father and step-mother seemed indifferent to the matter. It was just so strange; and even then it felt like it was more than just an instance of it hitting me harder because I was younger.

I had this irrational thought that they knew the dog wasn't going to last much longer so they poisoned her or something. Which doesn't make sense and I knew I had to not really bring that up to anyone because it was unrealistic.

Maybe they did. Probably they didn't. How would someone even pull that off?

This was just a memory that came to me today, of which I decided to blog about here because I always wanted to tell someone that story, but never did.

Like I said, I'm sure my parents did nothing to our dog, but I'm so far removed from the responsibilities of having a pet and/or child and the decisions that come with...that maybe there is a humane way that puts a dog out of its misery that people commonly do- and I'm just unaware of it?

And I don't mean taking the dog out back and simply shooting it. For all I know, people meet with the vet in the preceding weeks and obtain a pill. What do I know?

But yeah, that was an interesting day. Maybe someone will enlighten me about something or another in the comments section.