Barking in my dreams

Last August we put my old lab, Maverick, to sleep. He was thirteen and a half years old, he had hip problems, was almost completely blind, was losing his hearing. In the last few months of his life he grew stiffer and stiffer until he could no longer climb the stairs. A walk just down the block would take up to a half hour, with him painfully and gingerly hobbling the whole way. Sometmes when he was just standing his hip would all of a sudden just give out, and he would be unable to get to his feet again.
His eyes were still young though...I'll never forget the day we took him to the vet, and he looked at us with such trusting eyes as the vet gave him the shot. So calm, so warm, so young...his eyes were like warm chocolate and the friendliest things you'd ever seen, unless he felt he had to defend us. Then...watch out.
Several months ago I heard about this book, Marley & Me, by John Grogan. It's about the life of his lab. It took me all this time to get up the courage to read it. I still miss my dog, in unexpected ways.
It's a phenomenal book...I laughed harder than I have in a long time. But I cried my eyes out. Sobbed, really, to the point of red and puffy eyes. Like the next day I woke up and my eyes were swollen almost completely shut. But it was cathartic. Lab owners are all the same, same kind of people, same kind of experiences. More often than not they have the same temperament as their dogs: enthusiastic, alert, friendly and a little bit reckless. So I identified with the writer. But more importantly, the little silly, annoying, destructive things that labs do...the lovely, friendly, affectionate things that they do. All of those were there. And it made me love my dog all the more...it reminded me of all of those things that he used to do. It made me happy to remember that.