A few of these blogs have been about Jamie, and a few have been about Callie. Who’s Jamie? Who’s Callie? This two-part blog will explain.
Jamie, a Golden Retriever, became a part of my family in December, 1994, as an eight-week-old puppy. She grew up quickly and had all the wonderful traits that Golden Retrievers are supposed to have. She was gentle, smart, athletic, and obedient. When Jamie was about six years old, I began to realize that she was “talking” to us a lot. She was sending lots of messages with her actions and her body language. One of the first messages came at 2:00 in the morning one day when she uttered a very gentle “wuuf,” which clearly (because of her body language) meant, “Please lift me up on your bed.”
For the next five years, I captured some of Jamie’s messages with candid, color snapshots. And I wrote little stories about Jamie’s “dog-talk.” Jamie’s “messages” were things like, “Why are you holding the door open? I don’t have to go pee right now.” And “I see your green backpack, that means I get to go swimming in Lake Arrowhead.” And “If I lie across the hallway, you won’t be able to leave the house.”
After several years of writing and editing, I published My Doggie Says…: Messages from Jamie. How a dog named Jamie “talks” to her people. In a pre-publication review, Jamie’s vet, Dr. Chris Omoto, DVM, wrote, “The problem with this book is that everyone is going to want a dog just like Jamie… But it won’t be Jamie. It will be another spirit, another life, another joy.” I had no way of knowing how prophetic this review would be.
In mid-October, 2006, the books arrived from the printer. And, ironically, that very same day, Jamie, now almost twelve years old, was diagnosed with canine lymphoma. Dr. O. and Jamie’s cancer doctors thought that chemo-therapy would extend her life another year or so, but it was not to be. Her tummy didn’t handle the chemo well, and we had to delay the treatments several times so that she could eat. Jamie attended the first two My Doggie Says… book signings, but she lost her battle in December, 2006, right after her twelfth birthday.
It’s always painful to lose a pet. But it was doubly painful for me because of the time spent photographing Jamie and writing stories about her. Jamie was an integral part of our family, sharing our daily three-mile jog, trips to Lake Arrowhead, hiking in the mountains, and practically every moment of our days. I have Jamie to thank for making me an author. Her ultimate message was, “Maybe you should write a book about me.”
If you have lost a pet recently, I suggest you check out the poems at www.petloss.com. They were an enormous comfort to me. Especially the ones written by Rudyard Kipling.
I also received comfort from a letter written to me “from Jamie” by K.O., my daughter-in-law. In the letter, Jamie says, “Because of My Doggie Says…, I was a celebrity in doggie-heaven even before I arrived.”
So that’s Jamie’s story. It was a blessing that I finished the book while she was still alive and that she was able to attend two book-signings. Her loss left my wife and me in devastating grief for many weeks. But we worked part way through our grief and started a new My Doggie Says… chapter this Spring.
Which is a lead-in to Part II of this blog (watch this space), the story of Callie, a Golden Retriever puppy.
