Dog is God spelled backwards my son pointed out while struggling through Prototype school up in New York 2002.
I adore dogs and animals in general. Dogs have been part of my emotional healing when I was a scraggly teenager and knew I was the last person to be noticed or respected in the high school years.
It was a dog who had been a reject. He had been returned to the breeder due to barking and aggression. (We never saw that in all the years we owned him.) Because he was a reject I knew we had a lot in common. I would have been called ADHD back in the 1950’s, if there is such a thing. I slept only 3 hours per day and was so active it drove my parents crazy. My mother literally gave up on me at age 2 1/2 years old. I grew up feeling as if I had very little to offer the community of family or at large.
King, a purebred Border Collie, had the heart of a champion and the love of God in his soul.
I would cry into his soft black hair and tell him how unfair life was.
King brought me through my teen years with some kind of strength. (I believe God gave this dog to us for me.)
When I left for college in October, 1966 my father would not allow me to go to King’s kennel to hug and kiss my best friend good by. The next month, while I was away at school, King was hit by a car in front of our farm. Even though it is 42 years since that magnificent animal left our circle I can still cry for what he left behind as a legacy to one teenage girl with a lot of “hang ups” and one SUPER dog named King.
I don’t cry very often, but King is still worth the tears that I sit here and shed in his memory.
I am writing a short story about King as there are so many things to tell about him. I hope to submit it to a magazine some day.
Thank you for sharing your inner pain, strength, and passion with those persons that you will never meet.
I for one thank you for your tenderness within your “Redwood” strength.

Ila from KS