Was runaway dog keeping vigil at gravesite?
Ever since his owner died, Kirby has been running away.
He has been passed from home to home because of that bad habit.
Recently, it was discovered where Kirby might have been going — the gravesite of his former owner, Sharon Rattery.
“There’s no other way to explain it really, he’s just sad and lonely and misses his mom,” said Dave Wills, Rattery’s grandson.
Sharon Rattery inherited the dog from her daughter, Susan, who passed away just two weeks after bringing him home in 2003, according to this NBC report.
She was said to spoil Kirby, and her other dogs, too. They were at her side when she passed away in April.
“She’s had him since he was a little puppy so it’s got to be pretty hard on him,” Wills said of Kirby. “He hasn’t been the same since my grandma died,” Wills said.
At Kirby’s latest home, he recently escaped again — and was found to have wandered several miles to the graveyard where Sharon and her daughter Susan are buried side by side, and where Kirby had attended both funerals.
“I’ve never seen a pet come up to visit a grave, just people,” said Matthew Cadaret, who works as the grounds foreman at the Atascadero Cemetery and found the dog.
Sharon’s grandson said they are trying to find Kirby a new home, preferably with a senior.
Posted by jwoestendiek July 29th, 2011 under Muttsblog, videos.
Tags: animals, atascadero, california, cemetery, death, dog, dogs, grave, gravesite, grieving, kirby, loyalty, mourning, pets, runaway, sharon rattery, vigil
Comments
Comment from smoketoomuch
Time August 1, 2011 at 4:01 pm
When are we supposedly ‘smart’ humans going to wake up to the fact that our dogs are intelligent, feeling creatures, and not just jolly slabs of relatively dumb meat?
We do both them and ourselves a huge disservice by being so dismissive of our best animal friend’s qualities and abilities.
They think, they feel, they dream, they experience the same kinds of emotions that we do, and they are a hell of a lot smarter than most of us give them credit for.
“It’s just a dog”? I think not.
Comment from Anne’n'Spencer
Time July 29, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Well, we’ve had a bit of first-hand experience along those lines over the past couple of weeks. Here is what my son wrote after being around Spencer for a while: “I have never seen a dog grieve like this. Anyone who says dogs or companion animals aren’t noble, sensitive creatures is a fool.”
We took Spencer out for a walk together the Sunday afternoon after it happened, and he picked up Greg’s scent trail, began to follow it, and would not be deterred. It broke my heart all over again. Now he seems content with guarding me–he’s never more than a few feet away. I have given him one of Greg’s old shirts for his bed, and that makes him happy, too.
Kirby needs a human who will take him to the cemetery every once in a while. He is obviously a dog like the much-loved Hachiko.