--QUIET MY HEART, I’M LISTENING

Unless you have a pet, and one you love to your core, it’s probably impossible to understand how attached a human being can become to an animal.  In fact, that attachment can be so thorough that the animal transcends the pet-owner relationship and in turn becomes more human than most people, more loved and valued and needed.

I know that’s how it is with Lucy, the little six-pound fluffy-scarf-of-a-thing, presently curled up like a question mark just inches from my feet.  I spend more time with her than I do anybody on the planet, and she and I know each other as well as any two people can.

So, I wanted to share the lovely tribute below.  It perfectly captures what I’ve been trying to say thus far.

I didn’t know Flint, but I do know Sara, who has one of the sweetest hearts ever. 

Reading this aloud to my daughter had me nearly weeping.  I know I’m a softy, but this is touching in so many ways:

...I had to inform my son the next day that he'd lost the buddy he'd had since age 7. My good girl Dakota is learning to be the only dog for the first time since our big lovable doofus Flint ambled into our hearts and made a general mess of things for a long while about 10 years ago. She became deaf about a year ago, and things are awful quiet around here. 

Found by my in-laws who live on a dirt road long frequented by dog dumpers, Flint was skinny and missing hair, and came packing a shit ton of hidden anxiety that we were not properly prepared to deal with. He ate my yoga mat. I had a hefty bill to pay to the library because of all the books he destroyed. He scattered bird seed throughout the house, including our bed. I have pictures of the scenes of utter chaos that would ensue when we left him for any length of time. It was always a dadaist collection of destroyed things. Maybe a bottle of sunscreen, a banana, and a computer monitor one day. Crate training didn't work. He busted out like a gorilla on PCP. John secured it with tap cons to the concrete floor. He broke those loose too.

We were forced to build a six-foot-fence around our little property that we could scarcely afford. He proceeded to scale that fence. I bailed him out of doggy jail. He got maced by the cops and has a mug shot on record with the sheriff, under which is the word "Anxious." 

We strongly considered re-homing him, but came to the (I believe correct) conclusion that no one would love him as much as we did. We postulated that he might have been bred to be a fighter (It's a big problem in these parts) - otherwise, why would anyone want to assemble such an awkward creature? 

Ultimately, that 130-pound doughball loved nothing more than to snuggle and wrestle on the floor. He loved every single human being he ever met, and every single person who wasn't freaked out by his huge jaw and stocky features came to love him too. I wish you could have met our Flint. He was mixed up, expensive, misguided, and the sweetest animal I ever put in a playful headlock. He was a terrible swimmer. He was an unbelievable farter. I miss my knucklehead. He was a good, good boy.

Sara