A Post from Dale

The following is a piece that Dale recently posted on his blog:

"I am such a sucker for dogs. Joe and I had a black lab named Sophie who appeared in our life in January 1999 on a frigid Minnesota night. She was probably 2 months old and we think someone dumper her in our neighborhood, likely far from theirs, so she couldn't find her way back. We figured she was a Christmas gift and they couldn't handle her energy and they didn't want to take her to the Humane Society. We searched for her owner for a week before we called off the search, and accepted that we had adopted a dog. Or was it that we had been adopted? Regardless of whether the backstory we created to explain how she came into our lives was really true or not, she became an integral part of our family until we had to put her down last May."


"We loved that dog so much. Her last few months were difficult for us emotionally because her spirit was always so fresh, life was always so exciting for her, and she loved being with us a much as ever yet her body was deteriorating. She had cirrhosis of the liver because of the Phenobarbitol she took to control her seizures. She had a torn-and-rebuilt knee from blowing out her ACL a few years ago and her other knee's ACL was tearing. She was putting on water weight because of the cirrhosis and it became difficult for her to take the walks she loved so much. The last couple of months were gut-wrenching for Joe and me because we knew where it all was leading. But she seemed content and happy. And that did give us solace."


"Anyway, we knew we weren't going to get another dog until sometime this summer to give us time to grieve her and have the emotional space for a new dog.  I've been checking out the American Kennel Club's books on different breeds and tonight I was looking at this one on Golden Retrievers:"

"I want a dog again, but now that we're within a few months of getting a new one, I am surprised to find myself experiencing some anxiety about it. How will we housebreak the new dog? What if I keep comparing the new dog to Sophie? Am I forgetting how much a dog changes your life? And, the real crux of it, can I watch another dog die someday without my heart breaking? I know the answer, of course, I will no doubt see this new dog die and my heart will break. But it can only break because we let it in and loved it and let it make our lives better."