Finn Hill: A Life Well Loved

I knew this day would come, and I’ve been dreading it, but I didn’t think it would come in such a sudden and horrific way (Caution: what follows may be as tough to read as it is to write..)

Finn, our 13 yr old border collie/shelti cross was a delight and was loved by our broader family. But he was my dog; he would follow me around the house, and lie down outside my home office door.  God, I loved him to bits.
 
We moved to South Surrey last week and he was introduced to the house this past Friday. Yesterday (Sunday) he got outside through a door that I left open while we gone.  He didn’t know the neighbourhood and must have gotten disoriented as he explored his new surroundings. We searched for hours last night and learned this morning that he had most likely been hit on the BNSF tracks below the bluff. My son and I went down and found him between the rails, mangled, but remarkably, alive, but barely. He gave a little yelp as we neared. We carried him in a blanket off the tracks as he yelped in pain and laid him on the beach. My wife joined us as we stroked him, talked to him, and cried in grief. He was hanging on, eyes open looking at us as we talked him and touched him. We knew that the carry out would be brutal for him, and with the extent of his injuries recovery was almost impossible, so we euthanized him, together, on the beach. It was awful. The family that loved him had to end his suffering. My son and I then carried him out in the blanket back up the bluff trail
 
We are gutted. It was a horrific ending to a life well loved: him to us and us to him. 
 
How he survived the night, I will never know. It was like he was waiting for us. It pains me to think of him lying, alone, scared and in pain in the middle of the tracks while I slept just a several hundred yards away.  But he died in the loving embrace of a family that deeply loved him. 
 
I might stop crying someday.
 
Cheers to Finn, an extraordinary dog and family member.
 
Finn's border collie herding instincts extended to waves and he used to race back and forth along the beach barking and nipping at the waves. So fun..

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