this photo is of ivy & me & blue.  blue raised ivy from a kitten. ivy loves to play into the dog’s fur, piled high after brushings.

the photographs below are of hobbes & blue…they are brothers. the Saab pack. blue helped raise hobbes up from a kitten.  whenever they were outside together, hobbes would dash off in hopes that blue would give chase.  blue always did & blue always lost.  on this day, a few days before halloween, we were all outside for our annual jack-o-lantern carving.  the animals hung about the people. i had my camera out for the event.  i wasn’t prepared for this event…although i’d seen blue do this to hobbes before. blue looks like he is going to break hobbes apart as easily as a dry twig.  i looked to hobbes to make sure he was not afraid.  hobbes didn’t care, i never once saw him try to escape blue’s jaws. i looked to hobbes tail for signs of stress, it never moved.  I looked at his claws, they remain sheathed.  they were brothers.

when blue died in our home, suddenly of a heart attack, my husband wrapped him up in a sheet & carried him to our living room.  i was not at home, but my children were.  when i came home i got on the floor & buried my face in his fur, as I had done throughout his live, and covered him in my tears. the two cats were not in sight, nor was our other husky, nala. as I held him, the animals came to him.  the cats touched him nose to nose, nala touched him nose to nose. our pack had lost our champion.  my cats mourned him for over a month.  nala still does.  The ache in my heart hits me like a freight train at strange times.  for my dog blue.  the 100 pound Siberian Husky who was scared of trash cans. a dog who loved his cats. a dog that tucked his people into bed. a dog that would howl because it made us laugh. a dog that followed me for hours at a time as i walked around the house.  a dog, i considered my shadow.

after he died, i hung photographs of blue in almost every room.  so that when we walk into a room, he is there.  he lives in my heart & i see him everyday.  my advice to anyone who has an animal that holds your heart, is to photograph them.  have others take pictures of you with your animal.  memories fade over time, but photographs keep them in focus.