We just lost a goat.
It's interesting - before moving to a farm things like used to really affect on me. I'm pretty soft hearted. Cried when my pet duck died when I was a kid.
Our neighbor lost fifteen sheep a couple weeks ago (many of them pregnant) because another neighbor's dogs got into their barn. The sheriff showed up in the middle of the night, told the neighbor with the dogs what happened, and then shot the dogs. My first thought was, "Dang, I'm glad we've got a Great Pyrenees" because he would have killed the other dogs rather than letting them hurt our sheep.
We still have a pig that should have been in the freezer long ago because the kids, and maybe me, like her too much to shoot her, but when our goat died, I sighed, dropped her off down in the south pasture, took off her collar, and came home.
I once found a dead cat in someone's barn and pointed it out to the barn owner. He blinked and said, "Been wondering where she went," and then went back to work. I'm not there yet, but being a farmer has changed me and stuff like this rolls off me easier than it once did.
That being said, if Ollie the Great Pyrenees died, it'd suck pretty bad.
