You can miss a dog as much as a loved one.

Our Chrissy

I still miss our dog, the one who died in 2016. She was pretty much the best dog I ever had. She was like a nanny to my children. She was a black standard poodle and so smart it was scary. She was most of all though very sweet. A special soul. My daughter named her Chrissy.

My daughter Katherine was in 2nd grade and it wasn’t going well. Her teacher was kind of tough and didn’t really “get” Katherine. She had an incident in the classroom, where one of the boys grabbed her. The teacher didn’t see it. I made sure the administration did speak to the boy and family. It was really terrible and she didn’t feel quite right after that. But the school psychologist did spend some time with her and that helped.

I had been missing having a dog so much, I grew up with dogs and cats and guinea pigs and horses and ponies and rabbits! I missed having animals around. It seemed like a good idea for Katherine too, she loved animals so much and I knew she would love a dog. I remember talking to my husband on the phone about it and I started crying when I talked how much it would help Katherine to have a dog to love. Her 8th birthday was coming up and we decided to make a dog her present.

So we decided to get a poodle, because we are allergic and they don’t shed. Plus my family had a poodle and we loved him. This time though, I wanted a…