....This is the third post you've written in a row that has something to do with dogs.

I got an e-mail this morning from Amazon.com stating:

Because you've recently purchased books about dogs from Amazon.com, we
thought you might like to know that we offer more than 30 magazines about
dogs, from general-interest titles to newsletters on specific breeds.
They're perfect for yourself or as a gift for the dog lover in your life.

I don't really actually know anybody else who loves their dog as much as I do, well maybe Miss Nobody but she's not around to defend me when I bring up my son, I mean, my dog at least 3 times in conversations with my friends and even people that I don't know.

The book that I bought that Amazon is referring to is called The Official Dog Codependents Handbook: For People Who Love Their Dog Too Much. That pretty much sums it up right there.

I mean, it physically hurts me to leave in the morning when I see Gus sitting on the landing watching me walk out of the house. He doesn't understand that I have to go to work everyday to make sure that he gets the best organic dog food on the market. He thinks that days should be spent curled up next to me on the bed while I read or racing around the house chasing after a ball I've thrown for him.

I'm pretty sure he's figured out now that when I come home and he's more excited to see me than a heroin addict is to see, well, heroin, that I get the biggest ego boost. He's a dog. But he seems to make my whole world just that much better.

Last night my mom was talking about taking her oldest dog Ziggy to the vet because his back leg was almost completely lame on his after dinner walk. He's 17. Obviously, that's old in dog years but he has all of his faculties. He eats plenty, poops, eats poop (gross!) and goes for "walks". He kinda staggers all over the place but seeing as he can still actually move (just maybe not in a forward direction) it doesn't seem worth upsetting my mom by having to put him down. She says she'll be all right when he does die because she knows he's had a good life.

But I remember when she brought home our old Chihuahua Jake after his final visit to the vet back when I was about 10. She wanted to bury him, which is understandable because I don't even want to think about what the vet does with the dogs if you leave them there. She was so upset and he was really old. He'd lost all his hair and we knew it was the end when the night before he started walking into things and just started going a tad bit crazy.

Now he's buried under the bird bath at our old house. I had to hold Ziggy in the house because we didn't want him to see where my dad had dug up the little hole. Obviously that could have had disastrous affects if he had known where that hole was. It's amazing the sense of intuition that dogs have. He knew that it was Jake and that he was gone.

My mom cried the whole time. My dad was typically unmoved. He thought it was pretty crazy that my mom insisted on burying the dog in the first place. Especially under the bird bath in the front lawn.

She marked out Ziggy's spot under a gorgeous tree in our yard when we moved in to our current house about 6 years ago. He was getting old and sick back then so we thought he probably wouldn't be around for much longer. We've brought 2 more dogs into the house and he perked up a lot after that.

One day he will probably end up under that tree much to Floyd's objections. Mom will probably make him dig up the flowers he's planted at the base of the tree to make room for Ziggy.

We somehow seem to leave a legacy of dogs everywhere we go. Maybe we are a little crazy but I can't imagine what my life would have been like without constantly having a loving, endearing dog in my life. I think they do more for us than we want to readily admit. I know they've taught me how to love unconditionally and I hope that they at least can understand that.