Poor poor Five-Dog!

Motivation comes and goes quickly these days. I ran 6 miles this morning, and I'm hoping my base is strong enough to withstand a little downtime at this moment. Atlanta was tiring, and a few days off have been disruptive as always. I'm tired, and I think I'll take a nap right now.

Well, my poor dog, The Five-Dog!, finally passed away shortly after I got back from Atlanta. His fever had returned, even while taking two different kinds of powerful antibiotics. It seems the infection was too much. I've tried to keep myself busy and spend some time with some very good friends.

He was a runner too, but like most, he never reached his full potential. When I adopted him from the track, they gave me his racing history, and his 5/16 mile PR was 31.52 seconds (1:40 m/m : 35.7mph)! It also shows his last place finish in his last race. Apparently he got tangled up in the first turn, fell, and broke one of his back legs. The comments for the race still show that he "trailed in." The injury ended his running career, and he got to retire early and spend 23+ hours per day on my couch.

He always had a limp from that injury, but at times, it seems he would forget about it, and run around like a crazy animal, jumping and spinning around, more than 360° in mid-air. And when I rented a room in a house near the medical center, he could get excited about something, and bound up and down the stairs repeatedly, three strides to the top, and two to the bottom, and repeat. I'd grab him to try to calm him down and he'd be so wired, I couldn't contain him and he'd continue his rampage.

He scared me another time, when I found a pool of blood on the floor. I looked all over him, and couldn't find any cuts of any kind, and I couldn't find any cuts on myself either. I concluded that he ate something and was bleeding internally, and probably only had a few moments to live. But it was very confusing, because he was so happy, and excited. Later on I found his injury, in the one place I didn't look, which was at the very tip of his tail. Apparently he wagged his tail and beat it against the wall enough to open it up. Then, I looked around and saw the blood on the walls where streams of blood had flown off his wagging tail and left streaks on almost every wall in my apartment.

My old lady friends and everyone else around here always ask about him, so I'm not really looking forward to those conversations over the next few days. He was always happy to see them, and he would have been happy to see you too.

Listening to: Michael Nyman - Unnamed

Keith.