Austen Risolvato

Some Thoughts on Life and Dogs….

I miss my dog, it’s been about four months since my sweet girl left this world.  Dogs are magical creatures, they can save your life, I know she, Snoopy, saved mine.  I got her for Christmas on December 23, 1995.  I was the odd kid out at that point in my life.  Twelve years old and not many friends.  Enter this sweet beagle puppy to lift my spirits and love me everyday for the next sixteen years.  She made it all OK, she made it OK that twelve year old girls were mean.  She changed my outlook on life.  

Over the the years she watched me leave and come home, first for boarding school, then for tour, then for a move to California, then for tour, then moving back to Atlanta, then back to California, then back to Atlanta, and finally back to California again.  There was more tour in the mix as well.  I could never take her with me to California because she was epileptic and we decided the move would be too hard on her.  But I always came back to her, until it was time for us to say goodbye on January 9, 2012.  She left a couple weeks later. 

My first experience with losing a dog happened when I was twenty years old, when we lost our 17 year old Shi-Tzu, Hoser.  He’d been  my first experience with a dog.  As Snoopy was mine, but also our family dog, Hoser was my sister’s but also our family dog.  Hoser opened the door to my lifelong affinity for dogs with under bites, as Snoopy made me love dogs with a little extra curves.   Losing a dog is very different from losing a person.  Time heals everything for sure, but for some reason losing a dog never seems to heal as much as losing people.  Maybe it’s because the love that comes from a dog seems unconditional.  Surely there are conditions, food being one of them.  But it just feels different.  I can’t explain it fully. 

In this time since I’ve lost these angels there have been others, who belong to the amazing people I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by.  They help ease the pain and for them I’m grateful.  I’m not ready to get another dog, just not there yet, though I’m sure the time will come.  In the mean time, these wonderful creatures seem to sense that there’s something missing in my life, and they gravitate toward me.  Without them this time would be that much darker in my life.  For them and their owners, I am grateful.