One of my favorite dogs growing up was my one uncle’s malamute. My uncle used to tell me that Caramel allowed me to do things that no one else was allowed to do, like use her as a pillow and sleep with her.

My main story for this though is of my last cat. Being hard of hearing I don’t always notice when someone knocks on the door, or other sounds. Apparently as a kitten my sweet black cat realized this and became my “hearing cat”. Whenever anyone called me, knocked, or any other noise that I did not respond to immediately occurred he would come get me and walk to whatever made the noise.

Goes to show that cats can be just as intelligent, amazing, and loyal.

It was only after it was removed that I realized our daschund had been sniffing our lab’s abdomen regularly for months beforehand. He clearly could smell the cancer and was trying to let us know. We were very lucky we caught it in time – the vet told us that she had a collie who died when the same type of tumour the size of a golf ball had ruptured.

And every time we brought the lab home from the vet, from the surgery to checkups, little Spike was sitting right there at the back door waiting to greet his best friend. I shudder to think what will happen when one of them does finally go. I can’t imagine having any less than two dogs anymore.

There is a reason why Dog is just God spelled backwards :) They are beautiful, unconditionally loving creatures that deserve nothing but the same from us.

I grew up hearing the story of Sandy, my family’s German Shepherd who barked and bothered my mom, running back and forth between her and my then-infant brother, until my harried mom realized that Mike had an extremely high fever. Sandy also bumped my mom out of the way as they crossed the street when a car was headed for her. I hadn’t been born yet when Sandy lived, but I loved hearing these accounts as bedtime stories when I was little. We did not have dogs after Sandy died. I do not know why. I do know that my children’s dog, Bodie, has seen us through some very difficult times and some very joyful ones as well.

I’ve loved reading about all the doggy-love. A good antedote to a lot of today’s news.

Peace.