It's a quiet and cool autumn noon. It's been a few weeks now since he left. The scent of his hair still floats around in the house, and I can still see some hair on his chalky smelling, dry clay paw print that sits on the counter drying away and gaining texture each day. His warm soft velvet hair sticks to furniture like a never ending hug of warmth. He is still here. I take a whiff of his warm smelly hair as the scent carries me back to before he was gone.

“Here Klammer!” I call out. “Good boy!” I say as he reaches me “How was the water?” I ask. “Was it too cold?” I take a few steps back on the rocky shore. “Ready set go!” I shout as we pounce into the water, not giving a care for the fish or plants below the surface It's just me and him: master and commander, puppy and master, brother and brother, man's best friend and dog’s greatest companion. “Okay let's go home now it's getting dark.”

The shock of reality slings me back to the present. I look over to his bed where he once lay. I walk over and smell that too, as it takes me back once more.

“Who's a good puppy!” I ask as a tiny little bark breaks out from his baby muzzle. “Who's a puppy wuppy?” He barks again as if saying, “Me! Me!” I say, “Come here.” He lunges onto my legs like a grasshopper in the fresh summer morning dew. Playing, running, tugging, and hugging, we were together for a lifetime.

The shock of reality hits me once more. There lay his collar, his hair encompassing the blue fabric. I hold the ragged collar with both hands careful not to break it.

“One more sniff,” I say to myself as I’m taken back once more into the past.

“That's him” my mom says as tears start to leak from her eyes.

I open the door as the other two dogs bark and charge, ready to protect their old mentor. “Come here puppies,” I say. Soon enough they run into the other room, and I close them in there.

“Couldn't get into the car huh?” the vet asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. The vet kneels down and introduces himself to the old hound.

“I guess you’re Klammer” he begins to rub and pet the hound lying on his side “How old is he?” the vet asks.
“Thirteen,” my mom answers.

“A good long life” he answers back “Well, let me take a look at him for a few minutes.” Later he spoke once more.
“The reason why he’s not using his leg is because he has bone cancer, and it’s advancing rapidly. I'm sorry” The flood gates burst open, releasing the thousands of seas held back in our eyes.
“You called to do the best thing we can do for him.”

The anesthetic is put on and then his heavy sleep begins “He won't feel a thing I promise.”

The final needle slowly slides into his shaved wrist, and the old grey hound is subsided at last as he lets go.
“I'll give you a few minutes.”

Hours pass and we are still not ready to let go but we had to anyway, as he was carried off to be cremated. “He went peacefully and didn't feel a thing” mom says.

“I know,” I say.

“He’s at the other end of the bridge with Sasia, Newark, and everyone else,” Mom says again.

I reply with, “Now he's running in those fields he used to dream about, and he can now walk free, be free, and run free, forever.”