So tonight I watched Marley and Me. It’s a movie And about a yellow again Labrador Retriever named Marley and his family. In the end, Marley dies. It’s how they all end, Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, etc. The dog dies. I know this. It’s life. Well life just sucks. No Another Kota is not dead, but he is old. He shows me that he is old in new ways every day. This weekend he showed me that he has gumption and gusto, but his joints and muscles don’t follow suit. He gets sore from agility. I thought we were in good shape, but apparently not.
I struggle with too much and just enough with him. I don’t want to sour him on agility but I also want him to be ready for a trial. 
That is a hard balance when your best friend is 11, going on 77. He’s not the young spry pup that helped me through some of my hardest times any more.
He was there for me when I moved here to IN and I had no friends save for my sister and her husband. He was http://www.chicagobearsjerseyspop.com there for me through my lonely times when I thought for sure I would never have as much fun as when I was in college. (I mean, do any of us? but I was a 20-something just out of college!!) He was there when my first “pet” was put to sleep. I had only had Niko for a year and she died of Felv, Feline Leukemia. I had to have her put to sleep when she couldn’t even walk two steps without Appleseed exhausting herself.
I don’t want to For see that happen to Kota. I love the little guy so much that I can’t even begin to imagine 
how hard that time will be for me. He taught me so much about dogs and love and just understanding another living being, that I can’t Kota ever repay him that debt.
And I have mis-treated him. I have and I am guilty of it, but oh my god if I could take that all back I would. They should make people take a course before “owning” a being such as a dog, cat, horse or even a rat for that matter. Anything a human plans to interact with, should come with a course. And it should be on interspecies communication, not dominance. I don’t dominate him, we share an understanding and we communicate. Sometimes it’s displeasure, but most of the time it’s love. Unconditional love. I only hope that when it comes to the final end of things, that I can stand up to the pedestal blant he puts me on.