He's not just a memory

Yes, Charlie fills my life with delight but I still miss my Ollie and my Rocco, not to mention all of the other pets who have crossed the rainbow bridge. Little dog Ollie was a character. To look at him you would have thought that he was a frou frou dog but looks can be deceiving.

Ollie loved water and puddles and mud. He also loved taking a rolled rawhide outside and leaving it somehere so it would get rained on turning it into an almost indestructable flattened piece of hide. Usually by the time that happened, it was covered with dirt and who knows what all but, to Ollie, it was a treat. Not that he actually chewed it. Once it was all soft and floppy it was then hidden away somewhere for later. Thinking of it now, Ollie must have been part pirate always hiding his treasure to dig it up and rebury it elsewhere so his crew (Rocco) couldn't find it.

We have had three days of down pour. Downpour so massive that every muscle in m y body ached for days before it started. Today there is sun shine and little humidity just the kind of weather Charlie adores. He was in the yard and I needed to bring him in so I could open the gate and leave and when I called his name he came bouncing toward me, eyes bright, and this square of god knows what hanging out of his mouth. When he got closer I knew he had found one of Ollie's treasures.

I do mean treasure. You would have thought that Charlie had found the holy grail so thrilled was he with this dirty floppy bit of skin. He tossed it in the air, the pounced. Grabbed it, somehow managing to twirl it around his head only to let go and have to go pounce on it one more time. No flapping rawhide was going to get the best of HIM! I eventually got Charlie into the house after the rawhide had escaped his mouth and had to be recaptured another couple of times and once Charlie and the rawhide made it into the house, Charlie threw it down and rolled on it, thrilled that he had this wet, spotted thing all for his own.

I know when Ollie hid this away, he was saving it for himself and not for some fuzzy eared dog tween. (Not quite puppy, not quite grown but somewhere in beTWEEN) I don't know why Ollie hid it, in the first place, he never did chew it once soggy. Maybe he was just hiding and rehiding it to tease Rocco. Whatever the reason, it now comforts me. I feel as if Ollie isn't as far away as I thought. He's still here. Still around in the things he hid, the puddles he used to run through, the sher joy of puppiness even when he was an old man of 14.

A part of me wondered if I was unfair to Ollie's memory getting a puppy within a month of losing him (Ollie) But now I see, in a square of wet rawhide, that Ollie has bestowed on Charlie a gift, a memory for me,. A message that he understands and is glad that Charlie is here. A gift to Charlie to tell him he is welcome. And here I thought it was only a square of wet rawhide.