Lessons in love, loss and life: Thoughts from Bill and Tara
Lessons in love, loss and life: Thoughts from Bill and Tara
You never know what life has in store for you. You may think you do; I mean you have that great plan and all. That plan based on personal experience, disciplined and consistently applied action and well thought out forecasting. But you know, sometimes life just has other plans. Curves, kinks and twists leaving you clinging to your grand plan by the fingernails. What can you do? Well, I knew a pretty cool guy named Bill who seemed to have life all figured out. I’ve shared his advice below:
1. Build a community. Run over that family to meet their cool dog! Try to join their family! Realize your 4th and 3rd families are sticking with you and stick to just making friends with your big smile and bigger ears.
2. Love hard. Love who you’re with. New people and beings can come in and change your whole world. Be a bit weary and guard your heart at first, be sure, but life is too short to not love and be loved. Do it again. And again.
3. Communicate your boundaries. Scream at pitches that shouldn’t come out of an indoor horse because your person was lovingly stroking your paw. Your other person is looking like they may want to make you come inside the yard? Scream! Vet tries to give you a needle? You got it, scream and get written up. Maybe you won’t have to come back then.
4. Every morning is a gift. Sneak up on the bed and gently lower your 90lbs onto your person in a starfish formation, release full weight, touch noses. Once they finally wake up (you were so sneaky), roll all over elbowing and headbutting them just to ensure they know how great this day is. They love this.
5. If you love something, do it often. You love stuffing your best friends whole head in your mouth? Do it every 15minutes. They get upset? Try again after a fast 3 count. They love it.
6. Always push your capabilities. Your family was told you had bad hips and didn’t like exercise? Drop the rouse and make them get long johns for Christmas because -20 Christmas mornings are meant for 9k of on-leash parkour baby! Maybe even a PR! And the next day, Hankin! There are cool dogs there.
7. Be a Hero. See a mother bear and cubs ahead on the trail? Quietly tree them and block your people because they aren’t paying attention. Protect your family. Don’t harass wildlife, just other cool dogs.
8. Take care of those you care about. Someone feeling sad? Go and lay with them. Worried about everyone but they are on opposite sides of the house? Sleep in an uncomfortable spot in the hallway to keep an eye on everyone.
9. Be grateful. Your best friend won’t share her toys? No problem, I found these cool nuggets in the backyard snow that you can throw around like a ball and show off to your people (“Ugh, Bill what are you... IS THAT A TURD?”). And there is so many sticks! There are enough sticks for me to share with Stevie. I have so many toys.
10. Find the joy in everything. There’s always a reason to smile. Your favorite Pitbull finally caved and let you clean her teeth for an hour? Smile. Running like a gazelle down the bluff after your person’s bike? Smile real big. Your people are sitting on the couch? Squeal-scream. Hop up on the couch. Smile.
11. Live in the moment, that’s all we have. Don’t even let your backend know what your front end is up to. That’s how in the moment I am.
I thought I’d share some Bill advice, because we could really use it ourselves. Our beautiful Bill joined us 2 years ago at 11 months old. Now 3, he was the marathon training partner, backcountry companion, and kept Stevie’s head well moistened. Then one day in early March, he was a bit a slow on a run, the next day his back legs weren’t quite working, and he was salivating constantly. A long and rather traumatic 3 weeks later, he had no muscle control left. We had to let him go.
Well, what would Bill do? Be grateful. I can’t imagine the last two weird years without him. Knowing I’d be “surprised” by a large starfish at 5am, made the pandemic manageable. Pure joy right in front of me likely changed the whole experience of 2020-21 for our family. When I would feel the weight, I’d look over and watch Bill rediscover his tail for the 485th time and be brought right back to the moment and the good.
March sucked but our community is amazing. I’m so grateful for all of Bill’s friends and family that were rooting for him and so supportive of us. I’m grateful for having lived here for 20 years and had the same vet for 17 of those years since Porter got into his first Porcupine during his trial adoption. Thanks to the Babine team for their level of respect and care for their clients and their emotional human companions.
And this is NWAS’s facebook page, and Bill wasn’t even an NWAS dog. So, what would Bill say here?
Bring more love into your life regardless of the risk. Sometimes when you aren’t really looking, your next family member just shows up. Some pretty cool dogs can end up on their 4th family for no real reason. Some pretty cool dogs might only share your life for 2 big years. All worth it. Because of Bill, I will go on and love other dogs in the future. And in the meantime, I continue to love those in our temporary care as they pass through. I won’t be scared off. There are so many cool dogs out there.
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