We dog people are a special kind.  We sign up for heartache. We offer our hands willingly to be bound by the monumental cycle of love and loss. We do it again, again, again.

The grief we feel when our dogs’ lives come to a much-too-soon close is as real as any grief, because the love we feel for them is as real as any love.

I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is

always grief more than enough,
a heart load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.

~Mary Oliver

Kelso, my love, my wisest teacher, my brightest light.  I will miss you every day until we meet again.