It's Tough On a Dog

One of the saddest poems I've ever heard...heard this on the radio one night as we were coming up on Speedy's gas station, never knew who wrote it until I just looked it up on a dog website; the listed author there was a Jean W. Sawtell. Reminds me of "The Giving Tree", one of my favorite picture books in all history. Mimi would have enjoyed this, I think.

"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy grows up,
When he no longer romps and frolics like a pup;

"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets old,
When they no longer cuddle on his bed when it gets cold;

"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets tall,
When he's off with the boys playing soccer and baseball;

"They no longer paddle through the mud and the bog,
Hoping to find a stray turtle or frog;
They no longer run through the grass up to their knees,
Or roll in piles of fresh fallen leaves;

"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets tall,
When he's off to school, and looking at girls in the hall;

"It's tough on a dog,
When he has work to do,
And forgets to play as he used to do;

"It's tough on a dog when
Instead of the woods or the fields or the pond,
His boy becomes a man -
And the man is gone."

It's tough on the boy, too.