Dianaa,

I believe that they are messages. We have had a few since Woody passed and I believe that they are from him tyring to tell us that he is okay. There are those that deny the possibility that those messages are really contacts from our pets but when you think about them for a while (and I have, in my case) they have to be more than a coincidence. I have had similar experiences when my dad died and my sister had such an experience when our mom died. Why shouldn't such an experience involving our lost pets be possible, too? Yogi wants you to know that she is okay and that you shouldn't worry.

Best wishes,

Steve

Hi Diana,

I'll have to look up the necklace plant. It sounds beautiful. I love the color yellow as well as watching how graceful butterflies move. Do you know if this plant will come back after a hard winter like we have here in Michigan? When you described how velvety the leaves are, I also thought of how soft my Goliath's ears were and how much I loved stroking them and he loved it too.

This last Spring we planted a dogwood tree as a memorial for Goliath. Forget-me-nots surround his tree for a good ten feet. I also took a piece of slate and made a plaque. On the plaque I wrote "Goliath...I will love you til the after forever" with outdoor acrylic paints and added pawprints with my stencils. His tree flourished and grew all summer long and the forget-me-nots never did stop blooming. I spend alot of time there keeping it free from weeds, talking with Goliath, and nourishing the ground with egg shells, coffee grounds, and peelings from vegetables.

I know your sweet Yogi sees and loves your gesture of love each time she looks down and sees you and the beautiful necklace plant at her gravesite. Yogi will always be with you Diana.

Hugs of love,
Beth

If you look in the Shooting Star thread you will see that Bubba had a very similar dream from his pooch. I have had dreams like this about other passed pets (not Zita or Ziggy though for some reason) and I do believe it is their way of telling us they are happy and they want us to know this.

What a beautiful gift from Yogi.

Jan.

Dear Jan and Beth,

Thank you both-- it's so good to "see" your kind voices. Jan-- thank you for letting me know about Bubba's dream and the others. I had another dream last night-- I was walking Yogi and we had paused at the top of a very steep hill and I was filled with a feeling of the most extraordinary love for her, it filled me and I can still feel it this morning. In my dream, I let her off her leash to prance around and then I woke up!

Beth-- I looked up the Necklace pod last night but it looks like it's a fair weather friend-- zones 9 -11-- you'll just have to come to Florida to see them! But your Dogwood and Forget-me-nots sound amazingly beautiful. It seems as if plants are another piece of this mystery-- as if the trees and flowers can help provide another link between us and our babies somehow. I find it soothing to be outdoors, around the green things.

I go to Yogi's grave every day to put down seashells and there's a big weathered conch shell at the head. I like to touch it while I talk to her-- it reminds me of her nobby little head.

With love,
Diana

I just came across this lovely quote and wanted to share it:

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."

~Anatole France~

***
Diana

I love that quote....it is so true!

~Shannon

Dear Friends,

I've been away from the internet for a while and I feel remiss. It's been two weeks since we lost our sweet little Yogi and I can sense that the healing process is finally starting to begin. I still have many periods of deep grief that surge up-- sometimes for hours and hours-- but I can also perceive the beginnings of hope and renewal and gratitude for all that my darling girl brought us.

We've also had some big news that I've been really debating over whether it's appropriate to share in this forum or not. The thing is that my husband and I decided we'd like to adopt a baby earlier this year-- we finished the paperwork this spring and...after months and months of nail-biting suspense, we learned just ten days after Yogi's death that we're going to be brand new parents very soon!

This will be our first "human-child" and I hope this doesn't sound too mystical or odd, but I feel haunted by the sense that somehow Yogi has sent this baby to us, or in some fashion, cleared the way. It doesn't diminish the pain of Yogi's passing, but it has given us new moments of joy and wonder at the mysteries of it all.

And it's also strange because obviously none of us has ever met, but I've come to feel such gratitude, friendship, and even love for the wise voices I've encountered in this place. Please forgive me if this isn't the appropriate forum, but I wanted to express my very deep thanks to everyone who has shared a bit of wisdom on how to survive this stunning loss.

(And now if anyone has any wisdom on how to survive a newborn -- please send me a private message!)
Love,
Diana

I am overjoyed at the news of your impending parenthood! Some people have to wait years for all the paperwork to go through. This baby is truly a blessing sent from Heaven above to bring you and your husband years of happiness and joy. Our dear Lord does work in very mysterious ways and I think the timing was perfect. I'm sure Yogi is smiling just as much as you are right now.

LS isn't about just bringing sad news Diana. Each of us brings our grief and sadness as well as our hopes and share our dreams. You've just had a dream come true in finding a little baby to have to hold that will be your very own. You won't be biting your nails anymore because you aren't going to have time!

Much love and many hugs from my heart to yours,
Beth

Hi, Diana, congratulations to you and your husband on your upcoming "human" baby parenthood. It is probably wise you are not going to adopt another furchild right away - - particularly a puppy - - because you would truly be overwhelmed with two "babies" to take care of at the same time - - one needing immediate potty and other appropriate training - - and one needing "different" immediate needs. You need to give yourselves time to catch your breath. And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that your precious Yogi helped to pave the way for this spectacular event. May you and your husband and your precious "human" baby know blessings and peace and love through all the seasons of life now ahead of you. By the way, do you have a name for your baby yet?

Peace and blessings,
moon_beam

Dearest Beth and Moon Beam,

Many thanks for your sweet thoughts and kind wishes--it's great to be able to share good news with this wonderful community. Yes, we've really been thrown into a quandary about getting a new furbaby with the news about a new non-furbaby! We had thought we'd visit the idea of a new doggy in a month or two, now I'm not sure if we can manage both sorts of additions within such a short period of each other-- but I miss having a dog sooo much. Perhaps an older rescue friend?-- is that just wildly unrealistic?

Oh, and it's so much fun to think about names-- animal and human! We don't yet know if our human baby will a boy or girl so right now we need both sorts of names -- any suggestions???

Big hugs and gratitude,
Diana

Hi Buddies,

Three weeks have passed since Yogi's death. I've had good and bad days, but the bad days are decreasing now. I read in one of the books on mourning a pet's loss that our animal family brings us so much love and happiness during their life times that we owe it to them to follow their example, to find the beauty and joy in the world. Those words really spoke to me, and I've started trying to remember them. One thing I did was to sit down and write a tribute to my darling girl. It's a little shameless, a little gushing, but it's one hundred percent heartfelt, and I knew that if anyone in the world would understand, it's the friends and compassionate advisors I've met on this website. So I'd like to share it with whoever doesn't mind reading a slightly shameless, slightly gushing tribute to my little dog Yogi.
~Diana

Yogi, Amen

We brought her home at six weeks: she fit in the palm of my hand. A grey and white snub-nosed Italian greyhound pup, the one out of her tumbling litter who correctly identified us as her true parents and curled up to sleep in our laps.

As soon as we got her to her “true home” she began crying like a maniac. Especially at night. The dog book said, “Don’t give in!” They have to learn to sleep on their own, the book admonished.

She cried so long and so loudly we gave in and brought her into the bedroom. It would be the first of many emotional and mental cave-ins.

Still she cried.

After several sleepless nights, my husband declared that Yogi was “ruining his life” and took out an ad in the local paper: Italian Greyhound puppy, cheap!

Every time the phone rang, I told callers, very quietly and gently, that I was so so very sorry, but we’d already sold her.

After a week, Scotty marveled in pure astonishment that no one wanted such a such bargain, pure-bred puppy. But somehow, for some reason, he didn’t take out another ad the following week.

I took her everywhere; I took her out on errands with me. One day, after we’d had Yogi a few months, I had to park the car and dash into a store to buy a paper. It took possibly three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. When I got back to the car, Yogi had not only pooped, she’d somehow raced through the pile (again and again) and smeared it all over the inside of the car. It was behind the steering wheel, under the visor, under the passenger’s seat. A professional poop-smearer using a professional poop-smearing device could not have done a better job of it. When I opened the car door, she was covered in poop and crying her head off, as if to say, “You beast! Look at what you made me do!”

As a lanky adolescent, she was such a trembler and shiverer, strangers were constantly giving us dark suspicious looks. A police officer in Joseph, Oregon asked if we were feeding her enough. The second the temperature dipped below 73, people demanded to know where her coat was.

When she was happy (which was constantly) happiness communicated itself to every single part of her being. She didn’t walk, she percolated, she effervesced; her toes didn’t seem to touch the ground. She halted every walk to stick her nose in her favorite flowers. It was a pleasure to watch her sinuous prance before me on the sidewalks, her ears in neat origami folds against her head; Scotty said she did that to listen to us talking behind her.

I took her to puppy obedience school: she refused to socialize with her peers. We weren’t allowed to let our pups into our laps, so she’d cower under my chair. The instructor made me stand on the other side of the room and not make eye contact: Yogi cowered then waded through the gamboling puppies to cry at my ankles, accusing me of heartlessness, once again. I brought Scotty to puppy school to see this. He was so astonished, he said he felt like the father of the class sissy. We flunked puppy school, but then they gave us a mercy-diploma anyway.

Yogi spent so much time crying and trembling and accusing in those early years, we felt like we were living with a Gothic heroine.

But something about her sweetness and delicacy summoned people: our friends called her a butterfly, a hummingbird, an orchid. We also called her Light bulb Head, Needle Nose, and Shiver Buckets. Boss.

A friend told us about a vet near our house who was supposed to be very good. Dr. Park was a brawny ex-rodeo cowboy who worked with large animals: there were pictures of cows and horses on his walls. Somehow I talked him into taking Yogi on. I cupped her shivering body between my hands as he gave her her very first puppy shot and she let out such a piercing shriek that we both accidentally burst into astonished laughter.

“Is that normal?” I asked him after we’d guiltily reestablished proper decorum.

“No,” he’d said. “That is not normal.”

But it was normal for Yogi; as we’d discover that not only every injection, but every rough touch, every hissing cat, every cold breeze could elicit one of her cries. She found tall weeds menacing and certain shadows intensely alarming. She was terrified of other dogs, of children, and she found elderly women pushing strollers absolutely spine-tingling.

Despite, his best attempts, Dr. Park ended up becoming hopelessly, romantically ensnared by Yogi. He loved our visits and was heartbroken when he heard Yogi was moving to Florida (and taking us along.) He thanked me for introducing him to Yogi and told me it had been such a pleasure to know her, in part, because he no longer allowed himself to have dogs.

I asked him why that was and he told me, “Because it hurts me too much when they die.”

Looking at her delicate, triangular face, I felt an intimation of fear, knowing that what he said had to be true—that the pain would come, that it would be terrible. And yet I knew I was helpless to resist taking this path—just like it’s well nigh impossible to resist all sorts of crazy love affairs that come without warning, that are hopelessly ill-advised.

And there was no resisting Yogi. We called her “the Boss.” She was commander-in-chief: if someone dared pass in front of our house, she’d bay as if calling in reinforcements. If a feline slunk into the yard, she’d race after it, then yank herself to a weird stop a few feet away from the bored cat while barking crazily-- the implication being that the only thing that stopped her from savaging the cat was that darned invisibility leash holding her back.

In her free time, she lived the life of a Mastroianni-style movie star, lolling indolently in the sun until the white patch on her chest turned pink. She’d lie on the warm bricks of our patio, but really preferred that we’d spread out her sheared fleece blanket for maximum sunning comfort. She didn’t merely “greet” guests, she molested them, flinging her forepaws around stunned visitor’s necks, mashing her tiny chest into their faces, wildly licking ears and daintily nibbling at nose tips (we were forever yelling, “no chewing the nose!”) Woe betide, anyone reckless enough to yawn widely in her company—at any moment you might feel her tongue flicker at the roof of your mouth.

She loved mouths (or “food holes”) she loved eyes, she loved hair, noses, teeth, ears, gazing, staring at times as if desperately in love or as if to will you to do her bidding. She hated the water; she hated all outerwear; she hated jingle bells; she preferred to lie on cashmere if faux fur was unavailable. She woke us in the mornings by wildly battering the sides of the bed with her paws, as if doing a sort of ecstatic half-dance, her lower half pattering along the floor. It seemed as if her joy at seeing us each morning was uncontainable, as if she was afraid she’d dreamed us and then awakened to find it was all true.

We thought we knew her intimately, still we often found ourselves asking, “What is she doing? What does she want? Why is she doing that?”

I try not to dwell on the last images: the speeding white car that appeared almost magically at the wrong moment; the young man in his button down shirt and glasses—respectable, clean-cut, crouching, hands trembling over her broken body, on the street in front of our house.

Those are just the seconds after an ending, and we had a decade of pure life with her. We had so much more with Yogi than we ever imagined possible.

So I try to encapsulate her, to lasso her with words, to capture one perfect moment of her supreme dogitude, but she remains as intangible and ephemeral after life as she was during it. Silly, funny, elegant, bratty, coy, guilty, demanding, flirtatious, willful, worshipful….She floats on the corner of my eye, just out of reach. There is no containing her; still, she remains a part of both Scotty and me.

And if I knew how to sew or knit, I’d make a beautiful blanket with all her colors in it; if I knew how to hammer or paint, I’d build a cabinet and fill it with stars and feathers. Mostly, though, all I know is words, so these remembrances are for Yogi, for Yogi and all her brothers and sisters in the peaceable kingdom, who’ve taken us beyond our imagining, created a true family for Scotty and I, a beautiful home, a sense—if it isn’t too grand to say so—of the eternal.

Because she made parents out of us and made the three of us a family, in a way that is never unmade. In just the same way she reminded me that we are, all of us, beloved and divine children, creatures of the earth, the solar system, the universe. All of us, the living and the dead. All of us, in this together.

Yogi, our Yogi. Amen.

For Yogi A-J-E, January 1st, 1998 – October 20th, 2008.

Dianna, That was so AWESOME!!!...The way you wrote this was like I was watching a movie, getting to know the character, growing attached, only to have the story end in a sad way. There were so many emotions in your tribute. I only wished the outcome was a happy ending. Maybe in some ways it was, for you snuck her into your life and had her love to yourselves. I hope you print this and save it, frame it, put it somewhere special, for those senior years when the memory plays tricks. Thanks for sharing..Ann

I laughed, I cried...I laughed. What can I say. Consider writing a book! I was drawn into your story. So much of that reminded me of Penny -- but Penny was actually pretty fearless with others and other dogs...but waking in the morning, greeting guests, tongue in mouth, giving you the guilty eyes, gazing at you....

It is clear the imprint Yogi has left on your life. It is amazing how much an animal can teach us, show us, illustrate for us. My husband said to me a couple days ago..."Perhaps Penny (and all pets) are destined for something so much greater than this world -- they see, feel, and sense the world differently than us and whether it was for 4 years (in my case) or much longer, they give us a bit of that gift...one we never would have had without them. And they will continue to give us that gift eternally."

Just as they lived a loving, relaxed (lounging in the sun..we always called penny a muffin out of the oven), adorable (you said lightbulb head...pen was applehead), carefree, in the moment life, perhaps that is what they try to bring to us "humans" who tend to live in a state of anxiety, deadlines, making our relationships difficult, financial stress, and allow ourselves little peace. Who would we have been without them?? I know a great deal of my changed outlook on life and increased happiness has undoubtably been because of my pets. They are my zen:)

Thanks for your story. I continue to think about you, your husband, and Yogi...

Peace, ~Shannon

Thank you so much, Ann and Shannon,
It's meant everything to me to be able to share some of the intense emotions of the grieving process with my new friends here. In the very beginning especially, it's felt like some of you magically lifted just a bit of that dark, heavy blanket of sorrow that was covering me on to your own shoulders as well, so just a ray or two of light could peep in. Learning your stories, reading about your sweet furbabies, and thinking about how you've managed to live with both the sweetness and the grief and then sweetness again, has all been so restorative for me.

I'm so grateful that this site exists and have learned so much from you.

Love,
Diana

Your welcome!. That's what we're all here for, the support, understanding, and help to pick up the pieces when we fall completely apart...Hugs.. Ann

Just popping in to say hello, and send you peace as the holidays approach. I know pulling out Penny's stocking will be tough for me, and her not getting her little scrap of turkey! Then I thought of my friends on here and just wanted to wish you a happy holiday season and hopefully we can have a happy thanksgiving and give thanks for our doggies.

One of the other members on here, Steve, mentioned that his dog Woody, and my Penny will probably enjoy thanksgiving together...and I'm sure Yogi will be there with them. And let's be honest...I know our little dogs gain weight so easily they didn't get that much "human" food...but this year they can eat a whole turkey, the pie, and cranberries:)

Just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you and little Yogi,

~Shannon