a very good, but very sad poem

A wonderful poem if only someone had spotted this dog sooner the link to the original work is here
http://www.gotpoetry.com/Poems/l_op=viewpoems/lid=53376.html

Only a mongrelby Ozymandias
He was only a nameless mongrel,
his coat a dirty brown,
but something inside me died
when I had that dog put down.
I saw him there, abandoned,
unwanted and unknown,
resting beside his only friend,
a cold and meatless bone.
No longer had he any hope
to glimmer in his eye,
for all those passing on the street
walked purposefully by.
But some attraction made me pause:
I saw him as my kin,
and so I bent and gently stroked
the body weak and thin.
He raised one drooping eyelid then
and took a look at me -
I often wonder what it was
he thought that he could see.
He reached out with one paw to touch
my old and dusty shoe;
his eyes spoke volumes to my ears,
like one whose words are few.
He was too weak to walk, and so
I took him in one arm
to carry home, and set him down
where he’d be free from harm.
I found some rags and spread them out
as a bed upon my floor;
I gave him milk and bought some food
at my local corner store.
But for the most part it remained
uneaten in the bowl;
it seemed his mind had turned itself
to some different, distant goal.
From time to time he’d whimper
a quiet, near-human wail,
responding to my words of care
with faint flickering of his tail.
And so I took the dog to see
a vet just down my street,
who saw how he was thin and weak
and did not want to eat.
The vet took me aside, and said,
“He hasn’t long to live -there’s nothing I can do for him -there’s nothing I can give.
His life is not for you or I,
or even him, to keep:
it’s best if I inject him now
and let him go to sleep.”
So I went back to say goodbyeto the dog who’d been my friend
for just one day in both our lives,and his about to end.
He stretched a paw to touch me
with a meaning in his eyes
that would be understood by those
who know where beauty lies.
I reached and stroked him gently,
and I knew he’d understand
what fate decreed for him and me
in the world of dog and man.
I turned my face away then
and walked back home alone,
my heart heavy with a sorrow
that only I could own.
He was only a nameless mongrel,
his coat a dirty brown,
but something inside me died
when I had that dog put down.