Our dog is thirteen. A thirteen-year-old dog, and especially a big thirteen-year-old dog, shouldn’t make too many long-term plans. She is still cheerful and loving, and a joy to be with, but she has slowed down. She has a hip condition, dysplasia, which entails degeneration of the joints and muscles. We’ve put her through various treatments but at her grand old age anything invasive seems graceless.
Thomas wrote the poem about his father giving up. He had a rocky relationship with this austere schoolmaster of English, who must have despaired of his wild child. Thomas himself gave up very quickly, an alcoholic and a narcissist. Maybe the poem is about a self-warning that he too was weak. Have you read his Fern Hill? It is crazy with nostalgic memory and a sense of forbidding.
I have no dog info on the Welsh poet. But thoroughly enjoyed your lovely canine story and musings. My best part? You never mentioned the expense once.
Dogs are the best. Children vex you while dogs just love. (Not a knock on kids, I have two.) We are dogless right now, having put down our old Rottweiler who had an incurable spinal condition. It’s tough. We will get a new puppy soon and life will start again.
Thomas wrote the poem about his father giving up. He had a rocky relationship with this austere schoolmaster of English, who must have despaired of his wild child. Thomas himself gave up very quickly, an alcoholic and a narcissist. Maybe the poem is about a self-warning that he too was weak. Have you read his Fern Hill? It is crazy with nostalgic memory and a sense of forbidding.
I have no dog info on the Welsh poet. But thoroughly enjoyed your lovely canine story and musings. My best part? You never mentioned the expense once.
Dogs are the best. Children vex you while dogs just love. (Not a knock on kids, I have two.) We are dogless right now, having put down our old Rottweiler who had an incurable spinal condition. It’s tough. We will get a new puppy soon and life will start again.