Sweet Friend

This is my Shadow. What a wonderful fuzzy friend. We were gal pals; gave the "boys" heck when they misbehaved and had a lot of great road trips together. She was my shadow in more ways than one. I always had to be careful when I was working in the kitchen if I stepped back to quickly and wound up stepping on her !

Shadow was diagnosed with liver cancer almost a year ago. The vet, who happens to be my brother-in-law guessed she had only a month or two at most. She hung out for almost a year. Yes, she got slower and slept more. There were horrible growths visible on her side and ear, but they didn't seem to be painful. She was always happy to be petted and cuddled and loved as much as anyone wanted to. We had a tradition. After I finished dinner and cleaning the litchen, my husband would take our male Gordon Setter downstairs to check emails, etc. Shadow and I would wander into the den. I would sit down on the floor and she would throw herself down almost on top of me and we would just sit and love each other. What a great way to end the day.

As she became weaker, she wanted to sleep next to my side of the bed, with a fan on her. She loved cooler temperatures. HOwever, she was restless and had a hard time getting comfortable, so she would move around on her bed, off her bed, in front of the fan, whereever ! I often get up at night and had trouble avoiding stepping on her in the dark, so I began to keep a flashlight by the bed and checked on her everytime I got up.

Last week-end I went to New Jersey to visit my Dad, who is also fighting multiple cancers through out his body. I wanted to visit him while he knew I was there. It was the right thing to do, but on the day I traveled back home, my Shadow left us in her sleep. Quiet and good as she always was.

In reading over this, I don't want you to get the idea she was a marshmallow lap dog. she was a trained hunter and even had a short career as a show dog. She had her show prance down pat. It was adorable, but she was comparatively small for a show dog. She was raised on a hunting preserve and was a great little hunter. I hunted pheasant over her many times and she was patient with my poor shooting skills, but retreived the bird when I did hit it, prancing back, as excited as I was over our success.

So I had a dream last night. She was patiently staring at her lead, meaning she wanted to go for a trot. I would sometimes be a very slow human about her desires on this so she would make a point of getting me out to the garage by pretending she needed to go out. then she would stop in front of the rack that held the leads and stare at the lead, teh stare at me and go back and forth until it sunk in that a potty stop was not what she wanted. In the dream, I put the lead on her and off we went. somehow we wound up in this beautiful golden field. I had no doubt there was plenty of birds out there so I stopped and took off her lead telling her we sure didn't need it anymore. She ran off through the field, galloping along looking more like a dolphin leaping through waves than a gordon setter bouncing through a golden field. Then there was someone else in the field. I couldn't see the person, but I knew it was OK. It was more than OK. this person was going to be better for my Shadow than I could ever be. She stopped and saw this person and stared for a long time. then she looked back at me..for a long time. I told her she had to go. it was allright, and I would be along soon. Off she went and that very Good Shepherd turned and they both walked away.

It was actually a very good dream.