Multiple stories, including personal experiences, novels 
and newspaper articles celebrate dogs’ amazing journeys to return home. An old dog knows the home place! An old dog is always ready and eager for one more walk in the neighborhood, to go to the beach or hike on the trail. One more frisbee to catch! One more swim in a lake! Then home to relax with their friends and families.
FAITHFUL FRIENDS
“Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know
how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.”
Pablo Neruda
WALKING WITH HATTIE
Ted Kooser
Arthritic and weak, my old dog Hattie
stumbles behind me over the snow.
When I stop, she stops, tipped to one side
like a folding table with one of the legs
not snapped in place. Head bowed, one ear
turned down to the earth as if she
could hear it turning, she is losing the trail
at the end of her fourteenth year.
Now she must follow. Once she could catch
a season running and shake it by the neck
till the leaves fell off, but now they get away,
flashing their tails as they bound off
over the hill. Maybe she doesn’t see them
out of those clouded, wet brown eyes,
maybe she no longer cares. I thought
for a while last summer that I might die
before my dogs, but it seems I was wrong.
She wobbles a little way ahead of me now,
barking her sharp small bark,
then stops and trembles, excited, on point
at the spot that leads out of this world.
Credits: A very special thank you to the following for contributing photos for this post: Maureen, Michelle, Toni, Paul and Lorelie.
The “old” dogs: Sandy,Levi, Zodiac, Nanook, Greta, Snowball, Lacey, Kayla and Tricia
To view previous SPIRITLIFTER post – click here
Wonderful poem and photos.