Training After Loss

As many of you know, we recently lost our fifteen-year-old dog, Tucker, to liver cancer. It came from nowhere and hit hard (he had full tests done in January after he ate a cat toy and there was no cancer then).

He was my heart--and for so long. It took me two years to get over the loss of his brother, Kelsey, and I don't expect this grief will go away much sooner. He was Perfect in Every Way. He never did anything wrong in his life. Truly. He chewed on kitchen molding once as a four-month-old puppy. That is IT. Hard act for nutty Tommy the Cheech to follow.

We're all managing to keep distracted, which seems to be the only way to survive.

What shocks me is how fine I am training other people's dogs. With the exception of a short session meeting three rescue dogs, I canceled all my training appointments for a week. Now I'm back with my furry clients and loving every minute as usual. I would have expected to have strong reactions to being around other dogs, but it's business as usual.

They're not Tucker. They're all individuals, too, and full of love and joy and friskiness.

It's a great life. Though it was better with Tucker in it.

Good-bye, dearest, sweetest, gentlest, most patient friend. No one ever loved a dog the way I loved you.