Della 7/1989 to 3/29/2006

It has taken me a while to be able to post this. Della's passing, while a long time in coming, was still painful. She was the elderly stateswoman of our pack of dogs and she will be sorely missed.

We are all still getting used to her being gone. It was just this week that I stopped automatically looking for her in the morning when I let the other dogs out in the morning.

We have buried her body on the side of the hill behind our house, giving her mortal remains as beautiful a setting as we could. But really, though, she lives on. I think this poem says it best:

Where 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 frontier
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 scoff at you, who see
no lightest blade of grass bent by his
footfall, who hear no whimper, people
who may never really have had a dog.
Smile at them, for you shall know
something that is hidden from them,
and which is well worth the knowing.

" The one best place to bury a good
dog is in the heart of his master."

By Ben Hur Lampman
from the Portland Oregonian Sept. 11, 1925