Re: Dogs' spirits

When I was a little girl, my dad took my sister and me on a trip to the dump. Of course we brought our dog Lady along. We loved the dump. Full of sandy hills to run up and down on and interesting discarded stuff to look at. When it was time to go, my dad whistled for Lady. She ran across the road to get in on the driver's side, like she always did. But this time, a dump truck was coming up the road just as she was approaching our car. The truck could not stop in time. I was all of 5 or 6 and I saw our beloved Lady die. Then one night in bed, I don't remember how long afterwards, I woke up and saw Lady asleep on the floor by my bed. I ran downstairs excited telling my mom and dad that I'd just seen Lady. My parents tried to tell me that I'd dreamed it. I know I did not.

More than 30 years later, I had to put down my frail cat, Augie. He was 18 and in renal failure. He was barely eating and was just a fur coat hanging off of bones. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. I kept praying that I'd wake up one morning and find that he'd passed in his sleep, saving me from making the decision about when it was his time. I'd had him since he was 4 weeks old and had seen him through many bouts of cystitis and cardiomyopathy and had pulled him through it all to have him in good health for the remaining 11 years. I could do nothing this time and yet I didn't want to loose him. After I released him from his suffering, he would wake me up in the middle of the night with pats on my hand for me to lift the covers up so he could snuggle next to me in bed, just like he used to do. This went on for weeks after he passed. I desperately wanted him to come back to me.

I kept waiting for another kitten to come into my life. Finally when my daughter was four, we decided to get her a kitten. In fact, one weekend it suddenly became my mission. I reasoned, we needed a little cat for her to cuddle. Our other two cats had grown up with her and now at ages 3 and 3 1/2 were too big for her to pick up and hold, even though she tried, constantly. So off she and her dad went to Pets Mart to look for a kitten to adopt. It was dog adoption day. The next day, Sunday, in the paper there was only one ad in the paper for kittens. So off we went. There were four identical black tuxedo kittens to choose from. They were all adorable. We brought home the one that played with my daughter. She named him Bounder. He was to be her cat.

A year or two later, I was in my bathroom, looking into the mirror when I saw at the bottom of the mirror the tail of a cat walk into the bathroom. It was tan. I said "hello Max" because Max is our orange (more tan than orange) tabby. I turned around to greet him properly with a quick scratch on the head and found myself looking at Bounder, our black and white tuxedo!!! Augie was a light colored tan tabby with white markings and very faint stripes. At first, I couldn't believe what I'd seen in the mirror and went out into the bedroom and hallway expecting to find Max. No Max anywhere. Augie has come back to me, it seems, as Bounder.

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