Photo•Graphie

I am posting these pictures in honor of a friend of mine who is having to deal with doggy old age. It sucks. Totally sucks. It’s always too soon and always unfair. This is not her dog but I posted these from a recent assignment because thinking about her situation and how painful it must be for her to watch her dog deteriorate (and watching my dog’s limp appear more and more frequently and obviously more painful these days), I am reminded of how much dogs can really mean to us. And how they really do make our lives better on a daily basis. I love the subtle communication between Taos and Julie and I. (I think he reads us better than we read him). It seems as though we have our own language at times. I love how intune he is with us and how much he loves being included in our weird little world. It’s cliche and trite, but immeasurably true: Man’s Best Friend. Period. And yet when they want to be, they can be so much more than that.

Case in point this is Jake and he is a 10 year old rottweiler. Huge too as I found out after he playfully knocked me down several times. He is one of the elite dogs in this world that actively seek to make life better, not just for his owner/companion, not just for himself but for others. Other people that he doesn’t even know. He is a search and rescue dog who last year persisted in convincing the Sheriff’s dept. not to give up and keep looking further and further down river for the body of a child who had drowned. He was found 16 miles away. The Sheriff’s dept. (I am told) thought searching anywhere past 5 miles was worthless as his body could not travel that far away in a canal. This dog knew better. And his owner, Patti knew him well enough to believe what he was trying to communicate to everybody. She was the one to convince the Sheriff’s dept. on Jake’s behalf.

Recently, Jake has learned something more impressive. Something simple and yet impactful on a global scale. Something PEOPLE in our infinite wisdom and sophistication rarely ever do. He goes to the park, picks up the trash he finds and THROWS it away in the garbage bins. And he loves it. I would love to tell you that it’s because he is smarter than the average republican who still thinks climate change is fuzzy science. And hell I will even claim that too if nothing more than to raise the hackles of some repubs. But of course he doesn’t perceive the world like this. He doesn’t care and it doesn’t matter. He is still making a difference in the lives of others. In simple tasks and complicated ones that require a sophisticated level of communication.

And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Jake is competing in the Today Show top dog competition this week. If you would like to learn more about Jake go here.

Dogs are nothing less than amazing creatures.

As always thanks for looking.

Cheers,

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