Rooflections

These are things that I know to be true:

1) Starbuck-A-Roo loved us, very much, and will never stop.

2) We loved Roo, very much, and will never stop.

3) We were very blessed to have spent six years together. And I will be forever grateful that although her end was premature, sudden, and shocking, it was instantaneous and without pain, and she was probably in the happiest husky State of Being: Running at top speed with a giant smile on her face.

4) I have no regrets. I understand that any time someone is hit by a car, there is some degree of culpability. There is a borough-wide Leash law, and although off-leash dogs are all over the neighborhood trails and parks, in theory dogs should be Within Your Sight and Under Voice Command At All Times. But dang huskies! Even Roo-liable Roo was only 90% reliable. Honestly, when Autumn and Linden used to run off, it was not cars that I had worried about. My highest fear was that they'd get into someone's livestock and get shot. And they were way less reliable than Roo. It is really unexpected that while they lived to dotage, Roo was the one to get hit. But these are the odds that we play, and those are the chances that we take every time we let them run free. I told her musher when I called her to tell her the news, that while I had no regrets, I was still deeply sorry that this was the outcome. She said not to be sorry, that "huskies need to run free". She said we had done a wonderful job loving her and taking care of her and finding opportunities for her to be who she is, the Roo who was so extraordinarily loving that she had to have a heart on her chest.

5) BUT I am going to be more careful from now on. I'm going to skijor with Cricket for a while rather than letting her run free, until I learn what she is like as a single dog. Their personalities really change with companions, and with lack thereof.

6) But we do need to get Cricket a new Friend at some point. Dogs are social animals, and I think it is not healthy or kind to leave them home alone all day when the humans are gone. She has been coming to work with me a few days each week. Already, I see a different Cricket. She is more extroverted and less shy, although in a serious and unpuppylike way. She has always been such a serious girl! We do have some thinking to do on what kind of dog we need to look for. With Serious Autumn and Goober Linden, it was easy to blend in any dog, since we already spanned the range, so of course the addition of the sweet, amiable Roo was a piece of cake. When Roo was alone, it was easy to let her be alpha and blend in the shy, but affable, Cricket. I think we could benefit from another sort of gooberdy dog to balance the Serious Cricket, but gooberdy dogs seem to annoy her... Well we have some thinking to do.

7) I am going to have Cricket evaluated to be a therapy dog. She is such an attention whore in my office, it seems she'd be a good fit.

8) There are so many clichés about love and death and heartbreak that we have repeated so often they have lost their emotional punch, but they still have meaning. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. We are stronger for our losses. It only hurts this much because we loved that much. I feel the depth and truth of these things, and I believe in them, I truly do.