What a beautiful piece - thanks for sharing it. My dogs are a big part of my life. They can be real pains sometimes - barking, shedding, tearing things up, throwing up, etc. etc.! But then again, when I come home, and they are so excited to see me and just want to be close to me and give me "kisses" it makes up for anything annoying them might have done or will do.
I became a "dog person" about 20 years ago. I had never really bonded with a pet before, but my husband at the time acquired a stray beagle puppy from a friend and brought her home. For some reason and for the first time in my life, this puppy loved me instead of him or my daughter. Wanted me, not them. And I just fell in love -- no other way to describe it. We named her Ninja (my teenage daughter's choice for some reason) and she became the love of my life.
A couple of years later, we were going through a divorce and I would have never survived without my Ninja. She would sit on my lap and look at me with her big brown eyes as I sobbed my heart out. She would give me kisses. Actually, she gave me a reason to get up in the morning and to keep going. I felt abandoned by all of the humans in my life, but my little beagle baby was there with me, and we survived!
Then several years later, after we had gotten over the bad stuff and started out on a new life, when she was about 10 years old, she started acting funny. She would walk with her head down and her neck stiff and just didn't act right. At first the vet thought she had arthritis in her neck and started treating her for that. But she kept getting worse and moving around less and less. One day I could just tell that something was very, very wrong so I bundled her up and headed to the vet. Luckily my sister was able to drive me there, because as soon as I picked her up she went limp in my arms.
At the vet's office, she was basically in a coma and after some x-rays the doctor realized that she actually had a brain tumor. She was already in such bad shape that there was nothing we could do. The hardest thing I have ever had to do, hands down, was to let the vet put her down. She had suffered enough.
Some people would say, well it was only a dog. The emptiness I felt and the tears that I shed that day may have been for a dog, but in actuality she was much more than that. Her little soul had met my soul and we bonded in the same way that one bonds with a fellow human being only more so.
I will never forget my little Ninja dog and hope to meet up with her someday in another life. She was/is the best friend I've ever had.
