After a brief but severe illness, our family had to yet again say goodbye to one of our pets. As I am getting older, I look back on the several times this has happened, as unfortunately most dogs and cats, and indeed most pets in general, just don’t live as long as we do. It’s a hard process to endure.

The feelings that take hold when the end is near are strong. The memories flood back, and, just like with a family member, you hope against all reality that you are mistaken and they will “snap out of it” and again be healthy, that you are just imagining or overthinking their clear declining health. You want desperately to be wrong, while all the time, deep in your heart ,you know you are not. It’s heartbreaking.

Why do we keep putting ourselves through this process? Why do we seek out this companionship that, objectively, we know will end sooner than our own demise? Why don’t we just save ourselves from this stinging pain?

If you have ever had a pet – whether a dog, cat, guinea pig, or even a hedgehog – you know the reason. You know that the love they give you, and, just as important, the love they compel you to give to them, makes your life fuller and you a better person.

How can you not smile and laugh when your puppy turns itself into a pretzel to get it’s tail, or growls at a stuffed animal, not quite sure what it is seeing? Or when he runs up to you so fast on the hardwood floor to see you when you get home that he slides like a baseball player into your leg because it can’t stop in time? How about when your crazy cat chases the reflective light across the living room while you’re trying to read your book, and you just have to laugh and play along for a bit?

Conversely, when your pet is sad for reasons unknown, and you wonder what they are thinking as you hold them tight, whispering things that would make you sound crazy to an outside observer. You check their food and water, give them your best pillow, and sit quietly beside them, forgetting your own problems as you are solely focused on giving them all of your care, love, and affection, praying and hoping for the moment when they perk up, as they most often do, and the magic begins again.

If you’ve ever taken a walk with a dog, you know that it is a vastly different experience from walking alone. When the dog is with you, with it’s curiosity, constant sniffing and exploring, and the occasional growling at squirrels, the world again seems a place of wonder. You find yourself noticing things again, things that you miss when you walk alone and with a singular purpose – to get the time in and get home. Dogs see walks, and indeed life, very differently.

Dogs, cats, and other pets, live very much in the “now”. Having a limited sense of the passing of time, every moment they are awake is a new moment – one to be savored, enjoyed, and to be experienced. Whether it’s a nap on the couch (or your lap), a quick run up the stairs when they hear a new sound that needs investigating, or waiting with tail-wagging anticipation while you make dinner, ever hopeful that by some miracle a small morsel will fall from your grasp to be quickly whisked away and joyfully consumed, pets compel you to be ever-present. You cannot dwell on the unchangeable past or unknown future when in the very real present moment with your pet.

When you leave in the morning for work, they look at you so longingly, not able to comprehend that you will be back in the blink of an eye. As they live in the “now”, they only know you will not be here right now. And for the next now, and the now after that. But when you come home, their world is again whole and brand new again – they don’t care how long you’ve been gone – like the father’s joy in the return of the prodigal son, they only care and know that you are back home in the new right now, and ready to play, or walk, or nap, or just be together.

We call them pets, we call them by funny names, like Winnie, or Angel, Tannis or Mittens, or Ricki, and somehow they come to fit their names as though it was all meant to be and pre-ordained, as though they could never have carried any other name.

But they can. They can carry another name as well that also fits them, and encompasses all that they are – Friend.

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