A Heartfelt Tribute to Shadow

I am like most men I know. I like to think that I am my wife's best friend. This weekend, I sadly accepted the title by default.

Fourteen years ago, my wife brought a new puppy home. This new bundle of joy was a mix between a golden retriever and an australian shephard. This was long before I entered the scene. She sat up nights with a scared puppy and came home from work every day at lunch to check on her. This love and attention was returned many fold over the next fourteen years.

Shadow was a constant companion. My wife shared the ups and downs of jobs that came and went, a marriage that did not work, a few "how about me" gents that came by and me. Shadow was always there. Looking back with soulful eyes and offering a well timed nuzzle when sorrow turned to tears.

Shadow accepted life for what it was. She loved to play fetch in the spring, sleep in the shade through the summer, chase squirrels in the fall and prance and roll in the winter's snow.

Shadow loved to chew sticks. I have no doubt she could have chewed her way through trees from here to California and back again. She was smart, she never chewed shoes or tables or other things.

A new playmate and I arrived on the scene at about the same time. The new playmate was a chow mix named Yuengling, I was the "man". We became fast friends and I understood her relationship with my wife.

I can not share all the joy she brought to us over the last few years. She was our constant companion on road trips and one day journeys. She loved to walk and ride. Like Robin, she had a passion for food, loved cats and dogs and almost every person she met. There were only two things that bothered her, fire crackers and thunder. Either of the two could send her seeking the comfort and safety of the bathtub.

Last week, she came up lame. We took her to the vet. The initial thought was that she had sprained her leg. The phone call four hours later contained much sadder news. She had cancer in the bone in her leg and the leg had broken. The cancer had spread and she had a few days left.

We brought her home and hoped that everyone was wrong and she would rise above the dire predictions. It did not happen. She got worse. We contacted a wonderful vet named Dr. Weiss, who agreed to come to our home Sunday and put her to rest.

Sunday morning came too quickly and her final hours were spent sitting with us in the back yard. It was overcast and gloomy. The Doctor came and gently put her out of her misery. She laid in our lap and as her last breath escaped her lungs, the sun peeked through clouds.

I will always be grateful that she set such a wonderful example of unconditional love. It is something we all need to stop and remember.

Now I have the official title of "my wife's best friend" and I only hope that I will be as good a friend as Shadow has been all these years.