I found this in an English newspaper in Spain.
__________________________________________________ __
There are various places in which a dog may be buried.
I am thinking now of a setter whose coat was flame in the sunshine and who, so far as I am aware, never entertained a mean or unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam and, at it's proper season, the cherry tree strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree or an apple or any shrub is an excellent place to bury a dog.
Beneath such trees, such shrubs he slept in the drowsy summer or gnawed at a flavourous bone or lifted his head to challenge some intruder. These are good places in life or in death.
Yet it is a small matter for if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, laughing, begging it matters not at all where that dog sleeps.
On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and trees are roaring or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture lane where most exhilarating cattle grazed is all one to the dog, and all one to you. And nothing is gained, nothing is lost if memory lives.
But there is one place to bury a dog, if you bury him in this spot he will come to you when you call, come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death and down the well remembered path and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they shall not growl at him nor resent his coming for he belongs there. People may laugh at you who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper, people who never really had a dog. Smile at them for you shall know something that is hidden from them and which is well worth the knowing.
The best place to bury a dog is in the heart of his master.
__________________________________________________ __
I always send this to friends or relatives when they have lost a dog. I think it's a lovely piece and very true.
Bookmarks