Loving a Dog

“A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A water-logged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. It is really quite that simple …”  From the movie, “Marley & Me”
I just watched the movie “Marley & Me”.  The story is based on the life of a dog & his owners. It’s a great story, although with a sad ending, especially for dog lovers. I warn you that the ending might make you cry. I hadn’t cried like that in years. Unfortunately I could relate to ending where he had to put Marley to sleep. In my 50 years and caring for countless animals, I never get use to their life ending. The difference for me is when I put a dog down that has had a happy and full life as opposed to an animal that had to suffer due to illness and end his life too early. The pain and suffer haunts me for years. I still get pain in my heart every time I look at a picture of dogs I had and lost.

Today  I own five adopted  dogs.  I never planned on having so many, especially running a dog boarding business. I have enough dogs to take care and get paid for it. Yet somehow they enter into my life and I’m always grateful they had. I swore I would not take another dog after my chocolate lab, “Little Man” died. I had  two other dogs, getting older and when they were done I was done taking care of animals. Its not that I don’t love animals, I do, but if you own animals you know how difficult it is to get away , especially if you own a lot of animals. If you have two dogs, no problem. Get a friend or board them. When you have FIVE dogs, a pet pigs, chickens and a cat,  its pretty hard to get a family member or friend to volunteer to watch your animals. Forget about the expense of boarding.
There are days when I want to pull my hair out. I just can’t listen to another bark, crying, bed hogging and cleaning up piss & poop. Sometimes I get in my van just to get away from the farm and escape. I admit that there are those days when I wonder why in the hell I ever took on such responsibility. And then I’m sitting at my computer and my boxer with a serious under bite, tongue hanging out, walks over to me and lays his head on my arm while looking up at me with sad eyes. “Kiss me mommy.” No matter how busy I am this gets me every time. I stop what I’m doing and kiss his little face. My dogs can do the silliest things and make me laugh when I feel like crying. The amount of loyalty and love a dog gives is like none other. People come and go. Dogs stay as long as you allow them in your life.