The problem with dogs...is they just don't live long enough!

Tattie asleep on my down jacket

The problem with dogs is that they don't live long enough. Today  J had to put down his dog Socks. There was nothing else he could do. Even though you know it is the right thing, it is a hateful thing putting an animal to sleep. Putting a friend to death. For as much as we try to tell ourselves it is for the best there is a bit of us which cries: "Murderer!"
We know we shouldn't anthropomorphise animals but a lot of us cannot help it. There is an imperative to love and if we cannot love another human then a pet will do just as well and sometimes even better. For the love an animal gives is utterly unconditional. They don't care what we look like, how we sound whether we have bad breath or not, they just love us as we are and for whatever reason however awful we may be it is sometimes the love of an animal that is the only thing that makes us remotely human.
So when one of these earth bound angels dies, and they die far too soon, the breaking of the bond can totally paralyse us. We are unable to cope and the grief is as bitter and sweet as if it were  our parents or even our children. We would like to think that no one should grieve over a mere animal but for those who keep animals, who love their pets the grief is all consuming and never really lets up as grief has a tendency never to go away. It can fade with time, as all grief does, but a scent, a movement, a touch can bring it back as strongly as if it had just happened even though decades have passed.
There is something magical about it; something unexplained. And why the question one always asks do they put up with us? Why do they love us so unconditionally?
Tonight all I could say is: "All dogs go to heaven", and then reminded J that there would be an awful lot of them to welcome us when it was our time and would they knock us flat as we entered? And was it one huge joke and would St Peter laugh at us as all these dogs and cats come bounding up?