2 YEARS

There's a lot to be said about our relationship with our dogs (and animals), how they affect many life decisions, activities, influences on what we say, and do.  If we've brought them home at a very early age, how can one refute the unassailable aroma of "puppy breath".  We gather them in our arms after their first feeding of puppy chow and then watch them surreptitiously gander about our house looking, searching, sniffing to lay their first load.  As we rush to pick them up, shout "NO, GO POTTY OUTSIDE", little do we think of the inevitable and how this bundle of joy that has given us so much joy, happiness, excitement, will one day break our hearts.  They will travel a road we will not be able to follow.  But, for ever how many years they will be waiting anxiously at the door, greet us with that wet, cold nose, longingly look us in the eye, and tell us there is no greater love we will ever experience, we have reached heaven on earth.  

For 15 years I was so graced and blessed.  I recall my first ride home with her, how she got car sick from the long drive home, how she was the last of the litter.  Was God trying to tell me something even back then.  Did He "save the best for last" for me?  I think so.  

It was during our last "communique" that she reminded me how she had loved our trips and not just our short, fragmented trips around town, but our many vacations off to the see the country with her fine furried friends and how her place in the front seat had to be.  How, she learned this mysterious game only at her choosing to deceive me into thinking this is what she wanted to do.  I should have known-a Border Collie is smarter than the average owner.  I was no different.  I should have understood that when I tried to teach her frisbee. Little did I know, she played only at her whim.  

Yes, 2 years seems like a long time.  But, in human years, I know she waits for me along with her other friends till I arrive.  Miss ya' Piper girl.