I Lost a Dog

 

Around 10 years ago, I wrote a piece for this column called I Love a Dog. The article told of taking care of my daughter and son-in-law’s dog, new puppy Penny, and about how I, as someone who have never had a pet before, was clueless when it came to dogs. As I stated in that article, I did not have pets as a kid because my brother was severely allergic to them, and while I liked dogs, I had never spent much time with them.

Penny, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, was the first dog I ever cared for. I went from someone who gagged when picking up her “presents” left in the yard to poop-picker-upper pro. I learned to sense what she wanted and knew where to look for her if it thundered—hiding in the bathroom behind the toilet. I marveled at how she could collapse her stubby legs and scoot under a bed that had less than a foot clearance. She was such a sweet, gentle pooch, she paved the way for our family getting our first dog, Mickey, three years later.

There was something else I was clueless about when it came to dogs—and that was how sad it is when you lose one.

After 11 years of furry love, Penny left us on June 28. Nearly two years ago, she was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on her paw and had surgery to remove it. Although she was advancing in age, she was still the same lovable dog as ever. During the last six months, however, she began to experience these distressing episodes where she got severely sick, falling over and ceasing to eat. Thinking that the cancer had spread, we were warned several times that she may be dying, but she always seemed to rally. However, in June she declined rapidly, and her vet advised that the merciful option was to put dear Penny to sleep.

Fortunately, this allowed everyone who loved her to say goodbye to her, petting her, telling her how much we loved her and giving her belly rubs. I don’t know if she sensed this was the end and wanted to leave us with even more good memories, but on her last day Penny seemed to be infused with energy and spent her waning hours with my daughter’s family doing all the things she loved: fetching balls with the enthusiasm she had when she was younger, snuggling with my daughter during my granddaughters’ nap time, and having a last dinner of her favorite, roast turkey, before my daughter and son-in-law lay on the floor with her as the vet administered the shots and she passed on.

 Penny on her last day.

 

I like to believe that “all dogs go to heaven,” but liking to believe something does not make it so. I am no theologian, so I did a little research on what various faiths believe about what happens to pets after death. A cursory search on the internet, shows that all the major world faiths have no conclusive dogma on what happens to pets when they die.

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6, however, gives me hope:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”

God doesn’t do things randomly or haphazardly. He doesn’t create something simply to abandon it. He cares for it. If God is love and cares for the birds on earth, the creator of all, in my humble and unlearned opinion, will surely want to be surrounded and glorified by all his creation in heaven.

Penny was pure love in a fur coat, and I’m sure God would enjoy her nuzzles in heaven as much as we did here on earth.  We'll miss you sweet Penny.

 

This article originally appeared in the August 2021 issue of Northern Connection magazine.

It's Nice to Be Nice to the Nice

Hi Everyone,


In case you don't have access to Northern Connection magazine, here is my article for this month.

  Just a Thought: It’s Nice to be Nice to the Nice? 

A few weeks ago, you may have seen on the news the story about bus monitor Karen Klein, who was bullied mercilessly by the middle school students in her charge. The lack of empathy and height of cruelty from the teens on the bus was appalling, and it reminded me of something that happened when I was in grade school at St. Athanasius back in the late 1960s. 

There was a boy in our class who stuttered. I wasn’t aware of it, but, apparently, some of the other boys had been mocking him. That must have come to Sister’s attention because one afternoon, Sister sent the boy who stuttered to the office on an errand. After he left, Sister said she wanted to have a “little talk” with us. She then proceeded to call down the wrath of God onto the classroom. She chastised us for being so cruel, told us we were failing to live up to our Christian faith, asked us to put ourselves in the stutterer’s shoes and feel what he was feeling. 

Worst of all, told us that as the stutterer was a beloved child of God, we were belittling one of God’s own creatures. She also told us that if she ever heard any of us mock the stutterer again, or if any of us breathed a word of her “little talk” with us to the boy in question, we would be in big trouble not only with her, but with our parents and with God. General Sherman would have been proud of Sister; she took no prisoners. 

General Sherman

I had never made fun of the stutterer, but if I had any inclination to do so in the future, I dared not. Many people joke about Catholic guilt, but it can sometimes be a good thing! I can’t recall in which grade this happened, either first or second, but I can never forget how bad I felt and empathetic toward my stuttering classmate afterward. It must have made an impression on everyone else as well because until we graduated from eighth grade, I never, ever heard anyone make fun of him again. 

The Karen Klein situation brings to light a conundrum: Why should those teens, or anyone else for that matter, be kind to another human being? I can understand not promoting a specific religion in public schools, but when you take God or some moral code like the Ten Commandments out of the equation, what reason is there for being good? Because it feels good? Well, sometimes it feels really good to be bad. When you are angry, it feels much more satisfying to lash out than to hold your tongue. When you want something, it feels much better to satisfy that urge than to do deny yourself. When you don’t like someone, it feels much better to gossip about them or tells lies to make them look bad than to keep quiet. So being nice because it will make you feel good is at best a wishy-washy reason. 

For someone who doesn’t adhere to a moral code, the only reason is the Frank Burns reason from the TV series M.A.S.H.: It’s nice to be nice to the nice. That is a flimsy foundation. When you see people lie, cheat, abuse one another and still get ahead, being nice for no reason makes no sense, which explains something that I recently learned. 

Ten Commandments

Which of all faiths or religious philosophies has the worst record in the U.S. for retaining members? According to a report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2008), the group that experiences the greatest loss of adherents is atheists, with only 30 percent of people born into that type of philosophy still believing that way when they are an adult. Surprisingly, Catholics retain 68 percent of its members, only bettered by Mormons at 70 percent, Greek Orthodox at 73 percent, Muslims and Jewish at 76 percent and Hindus at the top with 84 percent. Perhaps being nice for the hell of it just doesn’t sustain you over time and that’s why so many atheists renounce their ways. 

I’m not here to debate the merits of faith or disparage atheists, and I can understand atheists when they say they don’t believe in God because they have no hard evidence of His existence. But how are parents, administrators and the like to provide a reason to the bullies in the world like those who tormented Karen Klein for being good? When people still want to keep the commandments in schools, can atheists understand that to those of us who have a faith being nice just for the sake of being nice doesn’t make much sense to us either? 

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Update on St. Anne's Day:

I miss not being in touch with you on a daily basis, but I wanted to let you know the progress on the book.  To my delight, I'm getting great feedback.  

Also, Tom Pollard of the website www.popularpittsburgh.com, featured the book on the website and has made it available in his eMall.  If you haven't visited his site, you should.  It has lots of helpful and fun Pittsburgh information on it.  

Also, the Benedictine Sisters of Pittsburgh kindly posted about me as well on their website  http://www.osbpgh.org/main_newsevents.html

The paperback version should be available on Amazon in a day or so.  I will keep you posted.