| It is a story about
the loss of my first dog. She wasn't really my first dog - as a child
growing up, my family always had dogs, dogs I loved, dogs whose passing I mourned.
This dog, Erikka, was more like a soul mate. This dog was my daughter. I had
always wanted a large dog, so when I graduated from junior college and moved
into an apartment with my first girl friend, Jane, the time seemed right. Our
apartment had been broken into; we felt we needed to do something to protect
ourselves. So we each decided to get a puppy. One Sunday morning we looked though
the newspaper classified section. Jane found an ad for an Irish setter which
sounded good to her, and I found an ad for German Shepherds which sounded great
to me. That very evening we both had puppies: Simon, a male Irish setter and
Erikka, my silver female German Shepherd.
In junior college, psychology courses had
been my passion, and I had decided that I wanted to be a psychologist. I know
that my obsession with understanding behavior stemmed from wanting to understand
myself. I was fascinated with the principles of behavior modification, and
quite naturally applied them to training my new puppy. Wow, did it ever work!
Erikka loved her lessons as much as I did. We were equally impressed
with what she was capable of learning and to this day, I've not known another
dog as smart or as knowledgeable as she was. In the twenty years since I have
been without her no other dog has taken her place.
You can't replace times and loves that have
passed. Erikka was there for me. She was my buddy, my partner at work as a
dog trainer, and my protector. In fact, she kept me alive in my suicidal years.
Overwhelmed with grief, and still too young to know how to rise above it, I
wanted to leave this planet. There were a few things that kept me from taking
that final step such as not wanting to hurt anyone I knew. But most of all,
I knew I couldn't leave Erikka behind, which meant I would have to take her
with me. And there was no way I could take her life. Because of my love for
her, it was easier to stay alive.
Erikka worked with me every day, and it is largely because
of her I became a professional dog trainer. I quickly grew so close to her
that I hated going to work without her. I therefore started looking for a job
to which she could accompany me. My first job working with dogs was for a guard
dog service. I did that for a couple of years while I continued going to school.
Then I applied for a job with a dog training company in Phoenix. The man who
owned the business hired me strictly on Erikka's performance, so impressed
was he by her. So Erikka continued to work with me daily. She and I were as
one. I knew her and she me. With and without words we communicated.
In Erikka's sixth year I started thinking about the fact
that she was getting older; attached to her as I was I dreaded the thought
that one day I'd be without her. So I got another German Shepherd puppy and
I named her Ingrid. Ingrid was a very different dog. From the start she was
totally fixated on Erikka: she was as bonded to Erikka as Erikka was bonded
to me. Poor Ingrid was less than a year of age when she came down with valley
fever, and it hit her hard. Valley fever -coccidial mycosis -- is endemic to
California's Central Valley, southern Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, and
is caused by fungal spores found in the soil and blowing dust. Certain
people and animals are more susceptible to it than others.
When Ingrid contracted the disease the treatment in use
today was only at the experimental stage, and not available to help her. I
realized Ingrid was dying, slowly and painfully. When she became paralyzed
in her hind quarters, and in such pain that she would snap at me if I went
to move her, I knew the kindest thing I could do was to take her in to the
vet and have her put to sleep. But even though I knew this was the right thing
to do, it was one of the hardest decisions and the most difficult action I
ever had to take. Usually when you do the right thing, it just automatically
feels good. But not this. It takes a lot of justifying to come to peace with
euthanasia, particularly when you really don't know what happens to your animals
after they die.
To make matters worse, shortly before Ingrid got so very
sick, my Erikka was diagnosed with the same disease, valley fever. I was devastated.
Luckily Erikka remained pretty healthy until her last day. There were mornings
where I knew she was feeling poorly, but still she wanted to go to work with
me. She loved her job. I have a hunch that Erikka and I had one thing in common:
our work was a big part of our self-worth.
But there came the morning when I woke up, looked at Erikka,
and could tell right away she had taken a turn for the worse. She really felt
awful. I remember the panic. I called the veterinarian and made an appointment
to take her in at once. But before bundling her into the truck I called Beatrice
Lydecker, with whom I had once spoken about Erikka, to see if she could give
me any insight.
Beatrice Lydecker is the author of several books, among
them What The Animals Tell Me, and Stories the Animals Tell Me.
When I first had heard about Beatrice and her uncanny ability to communicate
with animals, I had been skeptical, but having used her services I had become
a believer. She had worked with several veterinarians in puzzling cases where
perhaps a horse was having difficulties and the vet couldn't figure out what
was going on, and Bea was sensitive enough to be able to feel how the animal
felt, where it was hurting and help the veterinarian to locate the problem.
She would also do phone consultations and communicate with pets and help their
owners over the phone. Distance was immaterial. So I called Beatrice, told
her what was going on with Erikka and that I was about to rush her to the vet.
I asked her what she thought. Should I cancel all of my appointments
and stay at home with her all day? Yes, Beatrice replied, that would be a good
idea. And so that was decided and off to the vet I went. The doctor was clearly
concerned when she saw Erikka, but could not tell exactly what was going on.
She drew a blood sample and gave her a huge injection of vitamins as an interim
measure. You could see Erikka felt better almost immediately. As we drove home
to await the results of the blood test Erikka was obviously happier, sitting
up and looking out the truck window. Once home I tried to make her comfortable.
She had always had a thing about keeping her eye on me every second so I made
her a bed on a couch and sort of positioned it in the middle of the living
room so she could see me wherever I was. I made sure to not be out of her sight
for long: I didn't want her to have to come looking for me.
Alas, the improvement from the vitamins shot was short-lived.
As the day wore on and I kept checking on her I could see she was feeling worse
by the hour. She was gradually losing her ability to move, and by the hour
I could see her loosing her vision. She was going blind, she could barely lift
her head, and I myself was almost blind with grief. I was in tears, humbled,
powerless and totally in Gods hands. I remember praying, crying "God,
you're the only one that can save her." Then, I heard these words: SHE
WILL BE REPLACED WITH SOMETHING MUCH GREATER... That was a shock! Where did
those words come from? The voice was loud and clear. I looked around the room
in wonder, trying to see who had spoken these words. They weren't my words.
Replacing Erikka was certainly not on my mind at that moment. But this experience
actually shocked me out of my grief and panic until later that evening. Around
nine o'clock my girlfriend Cindy came home from work. She took one look
at Erikka and she too knew that this was it. By this time the poor dog was
almost totally blind and unable to even lift her head. Again panic grabbed
and shook me. I couldn't just sit there!!
Grasping at straws I called Beatrice again, not really
thinking she would answer the phone at that time of night since she had strict
office hours. To my surprise she did answer. And her first words, even before
I spoke were "Yes Karyn,". I told her Erikka was dying and I really
didn't know what to do. There really was nothing I could do, she replied adding,
"You know when you called this morning I felt like she was dying but I
really didn't want to say that over the phone till I was sure."
"Karyn," she continued, "do you believe
in Heaven?" "Yes, why?" I answered. She said, "Well, it
might help you to know that dogs go to heaven too! I said "What?",
thinking what kind of story is this? Then she described how when dogs are very
near death they see this big green grassy hill with a bright white light behind
it. When they go over the hill into the white light they go to heaven too.
And again I'm thinking, "yeah what is this lady telling me?"
Beatrice continued: "Karyn, whenever a dog dies some
dog that it has known in their lifetime comes down to lead it up over the hill.
Right now you have a solid black, little female German Shepherd there with
you to lead the way for Erikka."
"You mean Ingrid?", I said. Immediately on hearing
me mention that name, Erikka started screaming and throwing her body struggling
to sit up. "Erikka, is Ingrid here?", I asked. And she screamed again,
trying to sit up saying to me as clearly as if she spoke English, "YES,
YES INGRID IS HERE!.
I got it! I was astounded! I had never mentioned anything
to Beatrice about Ingrid and Ingrid, who had died approximately a month and
a half before, was indeed a solid black little female German Shepherd. I got
off the phone with Bea, still dumbfounded. Of course to test what I had just
heard I asked Erikka one more time and she again told me in the same way, YES!
Still not satisfied, still wanting to save her, after
I got off the phone with Bea I called the veterinarian at home. "This
is it," I said, "she's dying. What are we going to do? We talked
for a moment and then I said "Shall I bring her in and maybe you can give
her another shot?" All at once Erikka started screaming at me again but
this time she was saying NO, NO, and it was only when I told her, "It's
OK, you can stay" that she relaxed. The veterinarian heard her screaming
over the phone and cried, "My God, Karyn, is that her?" I said yes,
and she intuitively knew what Erikka was telling me. She said, "Karyn,
you've got to let her go!"
That was it. I got off the phone. I knew the time had
come and there was nothing I could do to stop things.
I lay down beside Erikka. She really did not want to go.
But I told her, "It's OK, you can go now." She was terribly tense,
so I started calming her with my voice, telling her to relax. Speaking quietly
to her I soothed her into a relaxed state and she seemed to slip away. Sure
that she was now gone I sat up, but she came back again, so once more I went
through the whole procedure of relaxing her, and the next time I felt her slip
away I just lay there and stayed still till she was gone. I helped her leave.
God was everywhere in that room at that moment. And as sad as it was, there
was a joy that it was over. Erikka had climbed that grassy hill into the light,
and God was there everywhere. I didn't go to bed sad that night; on the contrary,
I was full of peace. I was overwhelmed, astounded by the miracle of God's presence.
Of course, when I woke up next morning I held Erikka close to me, and cried
for hours over my loss.
Years later I was involved in a seminar by the Shanti
foundation, an organization which operates as a support system for people who
are terminally ill. The seminar gives you training which, upon completion,
qualifies you as a volunteer for the organization. The concerns and feelings
of someone near death are brought to light, so that you in turn can understand
them and be a good support system. You can well imagine the gravity and sadness
that training of this sort would bring up for those attending.
I thought I was faring quite well through the program
until they showed a video of people being interviewed who were very near death.
Over and over again the dying reported experiences such as seeing a deceased
aunt standing at the foot of the bed, knowing the aunt had come to show them
the way. It was during this video that I burst into tears as hearing from the
lips of humans what my Shepherd had told me so many years before. I know dogs
go to heaven, too. After all, as Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The
Hidden Life of Dogs, once said, "It wouldn't be heaven without dogs!"
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