If you ever love an animal, there are three days in your life you will always remember ...

The first day is a day, blessed with happiness, when you bring home your young new friend.
You may have spent weeks deciding on a breed. You may have asked numerous opinions of
many vets, or done long research in finding a breeder. Or, perhaps in a fleeting moment, you
may have chosen that silly looking mutt in a shelter -- simply because something in its eyes
reached your heart. But when you bring that chosen pet home, and watch it explore, and claim
its special place in your hall or front room -- and when you feel it brush against you for the first 
time -- it instills a feeling of pure love you will carry with you through many many years to come.

The second day will occur eight or nine or ten years later. It will be a day like any other
Routine and unexceptional. But, for a surprising instant, you will look at your long time friend
and see age where you once saw youth. You will see slow deliberate steps where you once 
saw energy. And you will see sleep where you once saw activity. So you will begin to adjust
your friend's diet -- and you may add a pill or two to her food. And you may feel a growing fear
deep within yourself, which bodes of a coming emptiness. And you will feel this uneasy
feeling on and off, until the third day finally arrives.

And on this day, if your friend and God have not decided for you, then you will be faced with
making a decision of your own -- on behalf of your lifelong friend and with the guidance of your
own deepest Spirit. But whichever way your friend eventually leaves you -- you will feel as
alone as a single star in the dark night.

If you are wise, you will let the tears flow as freely and as often as they must. And if you are
typical, you will find that not many in your circle of family or friends will be able to understand
your grief, or comfort you.

But if you are true to the love of the pet you cherished through the many joy-filled years, you
may find that a soul -- a bit smaller than your own -- seems to walk with you, at times, during the
lonely days to come. And at moments when you least expect anything out of the ordinary to
happen, you may feel something brush against your leg -- very, very lightly.

And looking down at the place where your dear, perhaps dearest, friend used to lay -- you will
remember those significant days. The memory will most likely be painful, and leave an ache in
your heart. As time passes the ache will come and go as if it has a life of its own. You will
both reject it and embrace it, and it may confuse you. If you reject it, it will depress you. If you
embrace it, it will deepen you. Either way, it will still be an ache.

But there will be, I assure you, a fourth day when -- along with the memory of your pet -- and
piercing through the heaviness of your heart -- there will come a realization that belongs only to
you. It will be as unique and strong as our relationship with each animal we have loved, and
lost. This realization takes the form of a Living Love -- like the heavenly scent of a rose that
 remains after the petals have wilted, this Love will remain and grow -- and be there for us to
remember. It is a love we have earned. It is the legacy our pets leave us when they go. And it
is a gift we may keep with us as long as we live. It is a Love which is ours alone. And until we
ourselves leave, perhaps to join our Beloved Pets -- it is a Love that we will always possess.

                                                                  ***
                                                                                        Author Unknown - from the Internet
                                                   (published in The Basenji Club of America's Bulletin Board Newsletter - August 2001)