PetWise #2

No guilt, no regrets!!

“Me, me, me! I’ve been shouting in Mom’s ear since she was invited to blog…sure hope she lets me go first,” Katie Lou shouts but is gently interrupted by Olga’s deep booming baritone. “You’ll get your turn, since your story is very important, too, Katie. But remember how it took our working together to get Mom to just finally receive the message we tried to deliver to her after you died? You would come to her and bark night after night trying to let her know you were okay—then eventually we came together that last night and I did the ‘woof’.”

Katie responds, “Yes, Mom thought you were just reinforcing my trying to tell her that I was okay. I see where you’re going with this now,” she says, suggesting that Count might help tell some of this important story.

Count the Basset Hound is indeed ready to share his part of this story! “I was Mom’s very first dog and quite a character I might add. I ruled the roost as they say, helping myself to clothes off the line and barking like mad when my humans were at work—until the neighbor’s complained. One time Mom came home to a house filled with blankets & down from pillows—seems I’d decided I wanted ‘my’ bed in the living room. I was quite the entertainer, even sitting up on my haunches to ‘beg’. But, man, I didn’t want anything to do with that miniature human they brought into the house, seemingly to replace me. Since my humans thought I was no longer happy in my own home, I suddenly found myself ‘shipped out’ to a large farm with lots of children and boy, the rest of my days couldn’t have been happier!”

Olga continues, “I was Mom’s second dog and so we got to learn lots of things together. I was a very large Great Dane for a female, almost as big as Mom, but so gentle that our lessons were of a different kind, like my awkward learning to go up steps and what carpeted floors were. I used to sleep beside their king sized waterbed and my twitching at night would awaken her. The pot roasts ‘mysteriously’ disappeared when left on the counter, and the sheer size of my ‘droppings’ seemed something my humans had to get used to. Then there was my fondness for lying on the basement steps and chewing on them—the hot seasoning they tried to stop me with, making them even tastier!”

“I loved finally escaping from my custom built kennel to run in the mountains near their cabin. I’m told I was so graceful I looked like a deer and so my humans were concerned for my safety from hunters. Those were the days,” she says fondly.

“But all too soon as is often the case with us big gals, my health began failing. My family was so distraught they didn’t know what to do for me. So when they found a family who lived in a rural area claiming to be able to improve my condition, they very sadly agreed I should live with them. I did get lots better and loved roaming every day on the ranch. Mom was so happy when she would get those reports, thinking that had been the best choice for me.”

Her tone changes, “Then one day out of the blue several neighboring dogs decided mine was their turf and attacked me! My mild manner and aging body made it impossible for me to fight them off… Needless to say when Mom found out my end had been so brutal she never really recovered.”

“Katie and I were not only trying to reassure Mom that Kate was okay,” Olga explains, “but when I came with her that last night we wanted her to realize all of us are whole, happy and healthy now, here on the other side. You see, no matter how peaceful or tragic the end of our lives on earth may have seemed, all of that is forgotten and forgiven here. So any judgment, blame, guilt, remorse, regret is really just wasted energy on the part of all truly devoted companion animals’ guardians. Please, humans, we’re here to BE love whether it’s returned or not—that’s called unconditional love. Everyone’s lives change so your loving intention to be with us forever, providing what you feel is the best possible care is what really matters. I can say this because I loved my family enough to crawl partially sedated after I was ‘fixed’ attempting to get home to them. We love you completely—when will you get that?! We keep trying to show you that those useless emotions like regret (that we’re wise enough not to even bother with) serve no purpose. So to see and hear you spending precious time wishing things had been different is not the way we want you to live. Let’s move forward remembering the wonderful times!”