Life is Your Story

(Laurentians 2010) It's 1AM, I can't sleep and neither can my dog so I grab a headlight and we go out into the night. He leads me along a wooded path covered in memories of paw prints and explorations with dogs of past and present.  We are surrounded by giant pines and we can hear the whisper of everything that is alive and dancing through the forest. We find a spot unobstructed by trees where we can sit and take in the starry, country sky.  A deep, warm silhouette of colours and shapes waltz their way across the canvas and every now and then a star loses its grip and falls.  I feel a wave of emotion come over me. I wonder where stars learn to twinkle and why some fall while the others stay in place. I hold my dog close and kiss his head. I hold him never wanting to let go because my love for him is so great and our time together so brief. As we head back toward the house, he nudges my hand with his head, barks and gestures. Suddenly, we are startled by a  strobe of light racin

Last night my dog Buddy came to me in a dream the way sometimes dearly departed souls visit you when you least expect it and the experience is so visceral, so deep that it both hurts and heals. I was in the country with a friend checking out a farm for sale. I exited one of the many tattered barns and as I came around the bend Buddy was just standing there.  He appeared as a hologram floating in the mist, in the fog. It had been 7 years since we last were together. I thought of him every day and while most of the thoughts were happy and provided me with wonderful memories of our life together; there were always those waves that washed over me at night - a tide burying me somewhere in the sand. But now he stood in front of me and the hologram transitioned into all of Buddy and his beauty - just the way I remembered him -- healthy, handsome and goofy of course. Buddy was quite a character. He was my birthday present when I turned 30 ( a Flat Coat Retriever we adopted from a shelt

I know you love me more than you love yourself. I know that you think of me all day when you are at work and I am at home thinking about you. I know you would skip a weeknight out because I have been alone all day and weeknights are for me and you. I know that if I wait on the floor beneath your chair that sooner or later you will drop some food and I will grab it and gobble it down before you can take it away from me. I know all of your pain and have counted all of your teardrops and I don't like anyone who has hurt you or anyone who may hurt you. I know you made sacrifices when you rescued me and that you gave me a second chance. I know that when you came to the shelter I noticed you right away and I wanted you to take me home. I know that when you saw me in the shelter, you thought I was cute and you heard my story and you felt badly and as much as you wanted to save me you were concerned as to whether you would be the right parent/home for me but yo

Your dog is there for you Not sometimes Not maybe Not never But always He waits for you He watches you He is your best friend And when you are alone Living alone A marriage or relationship in the past Your dog is your present Your dog is your future He is your Saturday night date Your excuse that is not an excuse For just staying home He will watch your favorite TV show He will listen to your ongoing commentary He will tilt his head and do his best to understand Whatever dribble is coming from your mouth                                               R.I.P. Buster  He will want to share all of the moments of his life With all the moments of yours And then he will want more More than time can give In the short life he lives A dog is a gift He comes and goes He teaches you to love life To love unconditionally To love him To love yourself Even if you feel no one else does There are no stronger fee

I have lost 4 dogs in my lifetime. I can’t convey the pain, the loss, the feeling of hopelessness but I can tell you that through this devastation, I became a believer. Actually I became a crusader. I prayed that some kind of Dog Heaven (such as  Rainbow Bridge)  existed; I proclaimed it the best place on earth where the most incredible souls roamed – a place too sacred and spiritual for those of human form.                                                                          Buddy One of the things that stuck with me after my dogs were gone was who will take care of them and how will they make it to wherever they go next? After all dogs need to be cared for their entire lives, they don’t grow up and move out and start a life of their own.  I decided to Google "Doggie Heaven" and “Rainbow Bridge” and I read all this great stuff that other believers had written. Many were keeping in touch with their dogs as if they were skyping with them from earth

Dogs are incredible souls. They are gifts. We don’t have them for long but while we do have them they bless and enrich our lives. They love us from the time we bring them home until the light leaves their eyes and we become so accustomed to having them around that without them our lives become silent and empty.                                                         Buster (2007-2010) F*ck Cancer Dogs don’t care if you are fat or skinny, old or young, having a really bad hair day or if you are rich or poor. They just love you. They miss you the second you leave the house and they are there to greet you the second you open the door. They think that the greatest thing in the whole wide world (aside from rawhide) is spending time with you. They are funny not knowing they are funny and not meaning to be funny. They each have their own unique personalities and traits. Some like to eat your socks, others your sho

 This is a tribute, a pool of memories and a heavy heartache. It's the one year anniversary of the passing of both of my dogs. We never would have expected to lose them within a month of one another. For all of those who know me, my family and friends, you also know this story too well yet it is a story I relive, day in, day out and as a writer, I write about what I live. I had two dogs and they were the loves of my life. They were my children. Buddy was 13 going on 14 yrs of age. We adopted him from a shelter when he was 4 months old. He was a Flat Coat Retriever, actually a sought after and very expensive breed. The people who gave him up were living in a small apartment, leaving him there for 10 hours each day unattended and he consistently barked and destroyed things while they were absent (big surprise). He was a wild puppy. He barked all the time. He definitely mistaken me for a fellow canine and wanted to play with me and throw me around. He destroyed my bik

Think of your childhood in a flash not at length. Close your eyes. What do you see? I see myself at 7 yrs of age. I am with my grandmother who was in the early stages of a devastating disease - MS. At the time she has a walker but 5 years later she would become paralyzed from the neck down and condemned to a hospital bed. We are on a picnic by a large fountain that shoots up from the mossy base so high that I can see it catch the rays of the sun. My grandmother is smiling and laughing and she affectionately brushes my cheek with her hand and kisses me on the forehead and says "I am very proud of you and I love you." I close my eyes again and I see my dog Buster who passed away last fall just before his fifth birthday from Cancer. This is a constant vision I have of him. He is sitting on the top stair waiting for me to come home. I open the door and there he is just waiting - no matter how long - he waits. He runs down to greet me and pushes me into the wall with