How To Deal With Pet Loss Or Dog Loss
So it’s been six months now since I lost my last Lhasa Apso dog Roxie who was two months short of 19 years of age and to be quite honest, home life has been tough for me. The house suddenly seemed uncomfortably larger and empty with Roxie and her brother Chester. But instead of getting new dogs right away, I decided to take the next two years or so to do some extensive world travel which if you have been following along on previous posts this year, has already started with my trip to Cayman Islands and Latin America – just backtrack on this blog updates section to see all the posts with videos and photos of this trip.
My plan is to use this time of having no home responsibilities in regards to any pets to travel the world which I haven’t (or wasn’t willing) be able to do while I was still caring for my aging Roxie. I’m already scheduled for a three week trip to Asia later this year which will cover Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. Of course I’ll post my travel adventures here on this website for that trip as well.
But despite all the freedom resulting in exciting fun world travel, my home life is still quite empty without my dogs. As I review old videos to create new short videos from them, I’m reminded that my dogs did provide me with a great home life. My dogs were my family and I’m super grateful for the life we shared together both at home and when we were out exploring nature trials with their many dog friends. We had that nice life for many years and there was never a dull moment with them.
I’m single and chose never to have kids of my own so my dogs became my kids in effect. It was my four dogs (Chester, Roxie as well as Pepper and Max before them) that provided me with the long term love in my life. Now that they are gone, coming home each day is always tough especially if I’m not busy which is why I’m trying to keep as busy as possible these days.
One Way That Is Helping Me Manage Dog Loss
One way that is helping me manage the dog loss I’m experiencing is to visit my local town’s waterfront. I like to go there when it’s quiet and peaceful. The natural scenery has become a perfect place for me to think about my departed dogs as well as to ‘talk’ to them as I kind of explain in the short video below.
As I mention in the video, I’m sure that many people out there will think it’s just silly of me to talk to my departed dogs but to be honest, I really don’t care about any negative opinions. I really don’t know if my dogs can actually hear me or let alone even understand me through some heavenly mystical power but that’s besides the point. All I know is that I feel a little bit better after each visit to the waterfront or any other beautiful place like it as I did the same thing when I reached Machu Picchu in Peru earlier this year.
Since I do feel a little bit better with these waterfront visits, I’m going to continue with them whenever I get the chance. I’m sure that other pet owners out there who have also experienced pet loss will be able to relate to all this. In my opinion, it’s really not that much different from people who pay homage to their departed loved ones either at grave stones or even little shrines set up at home. Talking to my dogs might be another form of prayer.
As I mentioned above, I’m creating new video shorts on a continued basis for now by using parts of older dog videos. For those interested, the longer past dog videos and the newer video shorts are at two different sections of my dog YouTube channel. Within this YouTube channel you should see tabs to both Videos (which are the longer ones) and Shorts (which are the newer ones).
Here’s just one example of a video short I created from an older longer dog video. Many more will be at the Shorts section of the YouTube channel starting with videos of just Chester and Roxie and then progressing to some of our past dog group outings where you will see my dogs with their doggie friends too.
By the way, if the music background on the video above and also on many of the new video shorts is starting to grow on you, the details on the full song is at this link Love Has Left Me.
Meanwhile, one of my neighbours got a new puppy recently and of course every chance that I’m outside seeing this puppy as well as other friendly local dogs, I always greet them. Most already know me as a dog friendly human in the neighbourhood that they are hopefully always happy to see.
