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SAM AND THE HUMANE SOCIETY

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Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 12/28/2007

We had to put Sammy to sleep on Christmas Eve morning. He was our faithful dog for 14 years. He was so beloved by all our children, grand children, and great grandchildren that we thought he should be properly remembered. I took a picture of him the last morning while he was peacefully sleeping. That will be in our scrapbook.

The separate story of 'Sammy's Last Christmas Picture' is here on the Old Colorado City Hub.

I thought of the new 'Faithful Friends Memorial Garden' that the local Humane Society recently dedicated. I had followed the recent trials and tribulations of this long lasting humane society of the Pikes Peak Region when the City of Colorado Springs, trying to save a buck, awarded their contract for animal services to a different, out of town, organization.

I remembered that the change was controversial enough. I and many others questioned dumping the long lasting, private, non profit, tax exempt local organization which had many volunteers and volunteer Board members, never had been controversial as it carried out all that was involved in taking in 14,000 lost or abandoned pets, getting adopted over 8,000 of them, returning nearly 5,000 to their owners, and putting to sleep 6,500. That costs nearly one and a half million dollars a year. I also knew that if no private animal services organization bid to do the work, that the city would be forced to do all those tasks itself, using city employees, inevitably at higher cost if it were done with in house taxes. For it would not be likely that over 800 people would volunteer, much less induce 7,000 supporters to raise $1.5 million in donations as was raised in 2006 after the local Society was awarded the contract by the City again.

The controversy continued, with people questioning the practices of the 'new' organization. Eventually, the contract was re-awarded by the City to the original humane society.

The loss of the contract to the outside organization made it difficult for the local humane society to create something much needed in this large half million person metro area - a pet cemetery. It got back on track in 2007.

When the pet Memorial Gardens was announced - down at the end of Abbot Lane off 8th Street on the Westside - I emailed one of its spokespersons to get the details, saying that our pet Beagle was near the end of the trail and I just needed to know what it offered. Randy Harrelson, Director of Development of the Society answered me fully.

So three days after Christmas, after the cremated remains of Sam were returned to us from the Belcrest Vet Clinic I knew it was time to get the job done. I also knew I wanted two of our grandsons, David 12, and Justin 8 - who really had loved that dog Sam -to help me properly dispose of his remains and at the same time take steps to remember him beyond the 'last photograph.'

I visited the Society facilities, talked to Randy, who showed me around the grounds, from the 'Faithful Friends' garden, to the public Dog Walk, and the plazas where various flat stone plaques of varying sizes from six by twelve inch, to twelve by twelve inch ones (which could take more lines of text), vertical marble slabs which can hold etched metal and where the urns of cremated animals can be buried. I even looked at a number of obviously costly stones the size of cemetery markers - all of which were paid for by pet owners who not only wanted their pets remembered, but knew that what they paid would largely be a donation to the Humane Society.

I took digital pictures of the grounds where Sammy's remains would be put to rest. Those pictures are attached to this hub article.

I decided we would pay $120 for a 6 inch by 12 inch flat stone which would be engraved with two lines of 15 characters each of text.

And that we would 'scatter' Sammy's ashes over the garden grounds, rather than have them buried in a container.

So when the boys David and Justin came by our house, I showed them the pictures, and we all sat down to draft the simple inscription for the stone, 15 characters, including spaces, a line, for two lines.

Then the boys, and I and my wife, looked at the offerings, and voted on the best one. Which young David came up with

SAM THE BEAGLE
OUR DOG FOREVER

So I wrote out the check to the Humane Society, filled out the application card, and we drove to the Society, David carefully holding the white ceramic box with Sam's 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' remains in it.

Each of us in turn scattered the ashes, - I photographed David efforts - and went into the Administration building to deliver the application for a marker stone and the text to be engraved on it. It was accepted by Mr. Harrelson.

Then young David asked about what it takes to 'adopt' a pet dog from the Society. Already we were all discussing getting, sooner or later, another dog. Patsy wants a small lap dog. David and I want another Beagle. Justin want a 'very small' dog. We shall see. There is no rush.

So we left, Sam's cremated remains now in the Faithful Friends garden, and a memorial plaque is being prepared.

Sam will be remembered.

And I made note to speak up at any future City Council meeting regarding the future of the Pikes Peak Region Humane Society.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFO

Dave Hughes

Colorado Springs , CO

Dave Hughes has posted 80 stories and 87 comments since joining on 3/1/2007. Dave Hughes 's average story rating is 4.9.

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