I’ll try hard to not make this a big depressing sob story, but it felt wrong to not acknowledge the life and death of one of my best friends!

You can really tell pet/animal people from non-pet people by the way they react to the last part of that sentence. If you furrow your brow at that, you just aren’t a pet person. You just don’t really ~get it. Through no fault of their own! It’s a circumstantial, experiential thing.

It was so interesting to see the commenters and what they commented on my post about our dog on Saturday. For the most part people who commented were pet people – you can tell. And even amongst them you could tell which people had a family/childhood dog that they too had lost. Their condolences were particularly heartfelt and understanding. Not that everyone else wasn’t sincere or so so kind! They were, and the nice words were honestly helpful.

Because somehow losing an animal is this different plane of loss and sadness. It’s hard to describe exactly. It’s almost like they’re too innocent to have to die. Too pure and juvenile and you just know they don’t fully understand what they’re going through. People are smart and have made mistakes and know what they’ve done and what is happening to them (for the most part). But dogs? Animals in general? They just shouldn’t have bad things happen to them.

You don’t know if they really ~knew how valued and loved they were. You don’t really know if they’re in a lot of pain, or scared, or sad. They’re just tiny and worried about you to the very end. You spend so much of your life loving them, but loving them so passively, taking them as a granted part of your daily life. And then they are just gone.

I hated animals. Did you know that? My sister Brooke was the big time animal lover. She primarily loved cats, so we always had a cat or two growing up. I liked them while they were kittens, but became crazy allergic as they became bona fide cats so I never developed into a cat person. Brooke wore my parents down with frequent requests for dogs, so we tried a couple of those – unsuccessfully. I did not have great experiences with the dalmatian or the chocolate lab; they seemed big and dangerous to me at the time.

When my little brother Mitch was like 6 years old he asked Santa very earnestly for a dog. He even played the “I don’t have a little brother” card if I remember correctly. Santa couldn’t quite deliver that Christmas, but when a local family mentioned that their shih-tzu had puppies just 3 days after Christmas my mom felt right about it. I will never forget going over there when those little fur loaves were just the size of my 11 year old hand, squealing over them as Mitch chose the one he wanted – the dark fluffy one with a bright white line down his forehead and belly (hence the name Blade). I couldn’t believe how obsessed I became with those fuzzy caterpillars, asking constantly when we could go back over to the breeder’s house to visit in the month before we could take our home for good.

I think everyone expected Mitch to love him – as he was kind of ~his – and Brooke to love him since she was the labeled animal lover. I was as surprised as everyone to discover how much I LOVED that dog. I LOVED him, you guys. I had never taken to any animal in my life; not even my “own” cats I had picked out in the past. But this dog was somethin’ else.

I sat on the floor in the laundry room, with Blade playing or sleeping in my lap, while I talked on the handheld phone (for you young ‘uns, that was like a super huge and clunky cell phone that only worked inside your house) to my middle school besties and boyfriend.

Once he was fully potty trained I would sleep with him in my bed a couple of nights a week, at least. Anytime I ran an errand that didn’t require me to leave my car (i.e. 2,000 approximate trips to Sonic, if you’ve met my family you understand), I took Blade with me.

One time I took a solo trip to St. George, just me and Blade. When I was in England I missed him more than anyone, because I couldn’t talk to him! I begged my parents to bring him to the airport so I could see him right away.

This sounds so freaking stupid but I literally had a moment when we took pictures outside the temple on my wedding day where I thought “Blade should be in these pictures.”

Blade is the only reason I was able to talk The Beard into getting a dog, because as you might imagine he is NOT a dog person. He, like everyone, loved Blade though. It was quite the bait-and-switch though, because Blade was the best dog in the universe so Glen Coco was doomed to fail. Especially since he also happens to be the dumbest and most anxious dog in the universe. Sorry, Beard.

I have a million memories with Blade. But one of the sweetest and most comforting parts about the last few days of grieving him has been the outreach of family, friends, and especially all of my mom’s salon clients who have known and loved Blade nearly as much as we did for 14 years. I am still getting comments and condolences on my post from Saturday. It’s kind of nice to hear that you didn’t just think your dog was awesome because he was yours – he actually WAS awesome and you have like a hundred people beyond your family to testify to that.

Losing a childhood/family pet hurts in it’s own weird and raw way. The grief is obviously different than a human person’s, but the ache is real and unfortunately I know we will miss him a lot for a long time. But every time it starts to hurt so bad I just think “but was he worth it? Was having him worth this pain and loss?” Of course the answer is an infinite yes.

So despite the loss and ache I feel for my Blader Bug, I can tell you and your family and everyone else out there that having a dog is worth their loss one day. The 14 years of memories and love and snuggles and anecdotes are worth the ugly crying of the last several days, and the grief of the next several months.

If you don’t get this, it’s ok. You just aren’t a dog person, a pet person. But if you ~get this, thank you. Thank you for your kind words of understanding and condolences, and not rolling your eyes and saying things like “it’s just a dog,” because quite frankly NO he wasn’t and you’re an a-hole.

Squeeze your pets. Take more pictures of them. Spend some time just playing and loving them. They’re an enrichment to our lives that I can genuinely say I believe came from the direct design of God. All dogs go to heaven. I believe that sh*t in my soul. Pardon my french. I’m grieving.