My Teacher, My Best Friend

Everyone has heard all this before, of course. You can get T-shirts with the snappy mottos, like “The more people I meet, the more I love my Dog”. It’s pretty much an accepted fact that our pets are members of our families, and all the health benefits that comes from having a dog. It lowers blood pressure. It makes us laugh more. We are more open to change and acceptance. Dogs love us unconditionally. But sometimes dog teach us about the world in ways we never though imaginable.

Cosmo

I come from a family where we always had dogs. I got my first dog at the age of 2, and it was pretty much accepted that it was my dog. We had at least one dog, often two, after that. We definitely became a dog family, and we were all dog people. We still are.

In 1995, my aunt came over to visit with a little fluffball that both me and my mother fell in love with. He was fuzzy, golden, and adorable. We found out she had gotten hers from her sister, and made arrangements to get one of our own. I have always been the knowledgeable dog person, and so I am usually the one to pick one out. I went to the house, saw the mother, looked the puppies over. Checked their health and weight, and attitude. I brought him home, and he was named Cosmo, and we were inseparable. He didn’t have his teeth yet, so I would soak his puppy formula in warm water and feed it to him by hand. He slept by my bed. I walked him, brushed him, and loved him.

Friendship

Cosmo taught me many things. He taught me that friendship is honest. Friendship is true. He taught me that friendship is meeting you at the door, tail wagging, eager to see you and ask how your day was. Friendship is cuddling together under the blankets at night during a lightning storm. Friendship is sharing everything you eat, even it’s just a tiny enough bite for a taste. Cosmo taught me friendship was eternal.

Anger

Cosmo taught me that anger is pointless. Getting angry at an animal makes no sense, because the animal most likely has no idea what he’s doing wrong. Cosmo taught me that anger is destructive. That when you are angry, you do things you would never consider doing, saying things you would never consider saying. Cosmo taught me that in a dog’s world, anger is short lived, and once the cause is over, it’s over. There is no point dwelling on what made you angry. It is gone. Let it go.

Laughter

Cosmo taught me that living should be a good time had by all. He taught me that there is joy in everything if you just stop and look. There is joy in the sunset. There is joy in the rain. There is joy in the brief flash of a rabbit bounding past the trail we walk on. There is joy in getting up in the morning, and there is joy in going to bed at night.

Love

Cosmo taught me to love. He taught me to have and to hold. He taught me the utter bliss in sitting in my chair, watching TV, having a furry animal on my lap, sleeping, sharing his warmth. Cosmo taught me there is a smile in sparkling eyes, a smile in a wagging tail. Cosmo taught me to love. He taught me to understand that there are creatures who share this world with us, willingly, and to always treat them kindly, because they are so often at our mercy.

Time

Of all the things Cosmo taught me, he taught me about the passage of time. It was easy to look at him and still see the little puppy that I carried around in one hand, and now he had arthritis, and felt the cold more. He still loved to go for his walks, but I learned to walk a little slower. To be a little more gentle. To be a little more soft.

Nothing stays

Of all the things Cosmo taught me, my most recent lesson was in grief, and that nothing stays. Cosmo, at the age of 10, died in his sleep on his little dog bed one Sunday morning in the sun. How I grieved for that dog. I cried for him with my soul, because I missed him, and now he was no more. I remember patting his soft shoulder, and saying to him, “This part of your journey you must do alone.” and how much that scared me, because up until now I never left Cosmo completely alone. Cosmo taught me that while love is forever, sometimes grief is too, because while the savage hurt left, I still carry with me, two years later, a sore, aching place within me that is missing a white face and two bright black eyes. He taught me to be kind to all living things, to be kind to the animals I now have, because tomorrow they could be gone. He taught me that once you know someone, you can never un-know them, and my life has been blessed for that. I still miss him very much, because Cosmo was not my dog, not my child, not my Fur-Baby, as some call them, but my best friend in all the world, and I still shed tears when I think of him, because it seems wrong he is no longer here. I learned that I am capable of not only grief, but a savage anger that he was taken from me.

The clearing at the end of the path

Cosmo taught me one more thing too. He taught me I am stronger than I thought. That I was able to eventually cope with the pain. And when my own wanders are done, and I see him waiting for me in the clearing at the end of the path, I hope to thank him for the valuable lessons his bright black eyes imparted to me through his love.