Pets are the antidote to Guns, Banned Books, and Crazy People

April has been a hard month for me. I've had knee problems, our heating unit failed, and our water heater needed to be replaced. But nothing could compare with the sadness that's consumed me in the aftermath of the passing of my beloved dog, Bogie, who’s been by my side for almost ten years, who slept with me, followed me from room to room, and loved me without reservation. I know I’m not alone in this situation. I’ve read the stories of friends on Facebook who have gone through the same thing, lamenting that they’ve lost their best friend, that there was and never will be another pet like theirs. I feel the same way. Our pets just don't live long enough.

I asked myself if there was anything more I could have done or steps I could have taken to extend Bogie’s life. The answer is no, and even the vet said I had performed a miracle to give him the extra few months he lived. I bought special food for his renal failure, gave him daily injections of fluid and pills to ward off that failure. I wrapped his pills for congestive heart failure in chicken livers because he loved them so much. But no matter what I did, after a few months, nothing stayed in his stomach for long. That last day that I didn’t know was his last day, I gave him his pills, then decided to give him a plate of chicken livers. He lifted his nose and walked away from them, then moments later threw up the pills. That’s when I knew.

The weird thing is on that day as I was preparing to take him to the vet, he ran down the driveway and disappeared. He did that only one other time, the first day I got him. Every day since that first day, he stayed in the yard, and when he was finished visiting with the standard poodle next door through the fence and finished doing his business, he’d come to the door and bark to come inside. I’ve read that when dogs know the end is near, they do strange things, like run away or show anxiety. Bogie did both. He was telling me the one thing I didn’t want to hear.

Pets, whether dogs or cats or birds or any other of nature’s beautiful creatures, are what we need when we feel frustrated by a world gone off the rails with crazy people wielding guns at babies and schoolchildren, despots invading sovereign countries, and politicians threatening our democracy if we don’t heel to their wishes. For those of us who have sent our sons and daughters off to their own adventures and perpetuate the cycle by having kids of their own, leaving us without that daily contact, we turn around and hug our pets. When they’re not there, it’s like we are in the biggest black hole in the universe. Let’s not forget another distraction that brings solace to our grief: a book to read, and for those of us who write, a story waiting to be told. That’s why I wrote this blog post, and it helped a lot.

I wish I believed in that apocryphal Rainbow Bridge people mention where Bogie would run and play and eat plates of his favorite chicken livers. I wish I believed in an afterlife where we’d meet again and he’d run up to me and beg for the warmth of my embrace and a soft pat on his head. But I don’t. So when I get past the wrenching sadness and the hallucinations of seeing him on the sofa in my office or in his doggie bed or next to me watching TV and realize he’s not there, I’ll just have to remember the good times I had with my sweet boy by looking at the hundreds of photographs I have of his precious face.

I thought I could never have another dog because he or she wouldn’t be Bogie, and the pain of losing another dog would be more than I could bear, but I’m warming to the idea when I see pictures of puppies and cuteness. I’m not there yet, but what is the saying? Time heals all wounds? Somewhere out there is a dog that’s never been loved, waiting for that magic feeling. Waiting for me.