My Dog’s Special Day
For everyone who has recently lost their dog friend!
Today was my dog’s special day. It is the day when she found Paradise, a place where she no longer feels pain, or suffers the loss of vision, hearing, and good strong legs. Where all her organs work properly and where she does not have to go through a day full of medications, special diets, or that special harness thing we used just to lift her up to walk. Her body, like all our bodies, had finally betrayed her. She is on her way to Paradise and I hope to see her again – I believe I will.
I think she felt life was teasing her, that she was trying to stay longer than the plan allowed. She knew, full well, that it was her time to say good-bye because any longer and the pain would be too hard for her or for her family to bear. She knows we would, as we had for many months, but dogs don’t hold onto life like we do. They live in the present and they don’t fear death. They accept it as a part of life, not as something to dread or something terrible.
Where she is going I don’t know for sure, but I want to believe it is Paradise where she will always be that young beautiful dog with a perfect body and no aches – where everything works like it should. I believe she will now spend her days playing, sleeping by the fire, and taking walks to the lake. She is in a place where she can curl up in her blanket and remember her time on earth and recall the deep love of the humans that rescued her from a really bad start.
Peace, at last is a sure thing and after all, it is time to rest that sweet giving heart with eternal sleep on earth, and a new existence full of new dog joy.
I think she is afraid that because we loved her so, and this loss was so painful, that we will not even think of getting another dog. Probably this is why she left her leash and her bowl and her collar and that harness – just in case another dog needs that same rescue from a bad situation again. We believe that is why those things are still here. She also left behind lots of pictures, her love and limitless memories because those are the most valuable of all. When we think about it, having lived with such a sweet spirit for the time we had her, how could we ever not have a dog in our lives? She knows that that’s why she left her stuff. Her legacy leaves an emptiness that only another sweet dog, who needs a home, can fill.
What does she know? She knows how deeply we loved her and all the things we did to keep her with us. She knows how our lives were changed because of her life and her exemplary form of dog love. She knows how she changed us.
When I think of her and listen closely what does she say? I believe I hear her saying; “No matter how long its been, how deep I sleep, no matter how powerful some think death is, nothing like that can keep my spirit from wagging its thankful tail every single day, as I think of you and all you did for me… and I’ll be there waiting for your on your special day”.
Written by Dr. Humphries on the day he lost his sweet dog Taylor