Andi, when my Max died the whole neighborhood came to me with their sympathies. Some stuck cards in the door (store bought and home made), some of the kids made pictures for us. One neighbor approached me and burst into tears. Her son is learning disabled and had been afraid of big dogs, Max got him past that. It amazed my husband and me how much everyone cared for us and Max. And it helped me in a huge way.Â
I wonder if your neighbor would actually appreciate a visit from someone who cared for Nikki. And I also think you should take Koby over once in a while for the boy to play with. In a way Koby is probably special to them as well because Koby and Nikki were such good friends. I remember when my parent's Dobe died they asked that we bring Max with us everytime we came over. He helped them heal.
Poor Koby, lossing his best bud. And, for you too, I'm sorry for the loss.
Tina
I totally agree with Tina...If it were Samson or Pippin I'd appreciate a brief visit so I knew someone cared..If you can, print this out, & tell them Samson & Pippin & their mama send their most heartfelt condolences:...Please read closely.
Where To Bury A Dog
There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.
For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.
If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.
People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.
The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.
by Ben Hur Lampman