Five reasons I'm thankful for my dog this Thanksgiving
This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for my dog Cleo. Yes, you may have read she passed away surrounded by salmon treats and love in late September, but I’m still so very thankful for her presence. You see, she is still with me. I feel her positive influence every time I engage with Grouchy Puppy followers on Facebook or Twitter, or readers of the blog here.
Since I've always been a "glass half full" kind of girl, I thought I'd share why even in my grief, I can find reasons to be thankful for my dog [...]
Five reasons I'm thankful for my dog this Thanksgiving
I’m thankful for taking thousands of photos from our time together, on every possible device you can take a photo with, and saving them on external hard drives, CD Rom disks, flash drives and in the cloud.
I’m thankful for the memories of holidays with Cleo that include many large extended family dinners. It was during those that she shined as the perfect hostess. She monitored the front door. She worked crowd control and kept bottlenecks from happening in front of the refrigerator and oven. She made sure we didn’t forget her dinner. She told us when people were too loud and rambunctious during football games, and she knew when it was time to escort people to their car so she could go to bed.
I’m thankful that I am still finding her hair on my holiday sweaters from last year.
I’m thankful our years togethers created so many wonderful experiences that I have a mental file cabinet and bookshelf of photo albums in my head to refer to whenever the need arises. She’s right there again, making me laugh or trying to teach me something.
I’m thankful she existed at all. Cleo gave her all to her family. I was her guardian but she sheltered me from harm and overwhelming situations. I’m so thankful she understood my weaknesses and still loved me the way she did.
Rather than focus on my loss, I’m giving thanks this Thanksgiving for my dog. She remains a member of our family forever, and honestly my heart simply feels better when I focus on her positive influence, and for that I'm thankful.
How would you cope with pet loss during family gatherings? Have you found ways to focus more on the positives from your life and dog?