There is an old saying that “nothing lasts forever”.  I can’t say that I fully agree with this sentiment.  There is one thing that perhaps does last forever.   That is love.

For anyone who has ever loved a dog there is a kind of silent empathy and understanding for what my husband and I have gone through today.    Our dear border collie Bea passed her final hours in the warm sunshine streaming through a window, on this otherwise very cold day.   After 16 1/2 years, Bea had finally run out of time.

There are people in this world who feel that grieving over the loss of a pet is silly.  For those people, I am truly sorry.   There is no bond more magical than that between man and dog.   Anyone who has shared their life with a four legged friend knows exactly what I mean.

Bea was my husband’s dog.  He got her as a puppy several years before he and I met.  He raised her and trained her himself and did a stellar job.   She became an outstanding American Kennel Club tracking dog.  He trained her to find lost people and indeed she did…she found him a wife!   It was at Bea’s tracking test that Alan and I met.  I too, once trained tracking border collies back in the days when they were not a common breed.  Ours was a match arranged by the Gods.

It is most unusual for a border collie to mature to the age of 16 1/2.  Our Bea had all the right ingredients to travel such a long journey.  She possessed a strong inner spirit, a spirit that sometimes didn’t serve her well.  But overall it did serve her well, as it takes a spirit like hers to hike mountains at age 14 and to live to see a time frame of well over a decade and a half.

We now feel the enormous hole she leaves behind…

Rest in peace, dear girl. Track on…