Mark, I am 62 yrs young and my husband is 76 yrs young. I have had only four pets in my life. And what a joy. My first dog, a tiny toy poodle, Pooh, and yellow Tabby, Cat. Pooh lived to be 14 yrs and Cat 23. I swore I wound not have another pet, it was heart breaking to lose them both.

But six months later I found a 2 mo old border collie mix. Took her home and I husband had a fit. She was everthing we didn’t want, long haired, and was absolutely crawling with fleas. We cleaned her up and of course I wanted to name her, but my husband wanted none of it. “We are NOT keeping this dog, let her NEW owner name her”. We just referred to her of “Girl” dog; and it stuck. Three years later we moved to farm in Caldwell, TX. Girl bacame a real country dog and loved every minute of it. She and my husband became “attached” at the hip. We reaised miniature donkeys and she helped herd (donkeys don’t need herding) and also help with the neighbor’s cows.

She was in doggy heaven and so were we. During this time we also acquired a cat. We found him literally on the church house steps where my husband was the Pastor(Black Jack Baptist Church) (Black Jack is a type of tree). We locked up the baby kitten in the ladies restroom during church service until we could get him home. That little black kitten meowed during the whole service. Everyone said he just liked the sermon and was shouting “Amen”. So we named him Black Jack. We would always tease instead of John the Baptist, he was Jack the Baptist. To make a very long story short, the longhaired, flea infested dog we didn’t want and a lost kitten ended up being our most loved friends and we had their friendship for many years. We had to put Girl down after 17 years of sheer delight (May 12, 2005) and had to put Jack (14 yrs old) down seven months later( Dec 31, 2005). I was very hard losing them both so close close together. We miss them so much and still grieve. We will never forget them. We truly know how people feel who lose their pets.

Thank you for letting me share and maybe help me with the grieving process.

Carol from TX