Oh my goodness seeing the preview of Misty's picture and the word title "Absence" made my heart clench. I'm so glad she's still with you.
We, very ridiculously, have five cats. In our defence, two of them were taken in as palliative fosters and then they rallied under our care and will likely live another decade. (I tell them if they were cars, they'd be the opposite of a lemon.)
One of the ones we were told was "circling the drain" two years ago is very very attached to me, and we try to take her with us when we travel. She is going to a cottage next month to celebrate my 50th birthday with us.
That poem was a beautiful heartbreaker. The line "I cannot stand it" is very much how I still feel about the loss of our 21 year old calico Zoe.
You were right about that last line. Ugly cried and it’s only 7:00am. With regards to the rest, maybe we can’t know if a sheep is lonely, but we can assume that a social animal would feel vulnerable denied the advantages of being surrounded by its own kind. Social animals have evolved to do better in a herd and readily step back into the fold after an absence. And maybe the discomfort of being disconnected from a herd does actually fit the definition of loneliness.
I related to your story Philip. When I collected my dog Moses from the home where he was born, he was 11 weeks old and weighed about eight pounds. During the 14 years he lived with me, I watched him develop into a strong 65 pound dog and then decline precipitously as he aged. I felt like we knew one another very well. The relationship between a dog and its owner is a special kind of intimacy.
Oh my goodness seeing the preview of Misty's picture and the word title "Absence" made my heart clench. I'm so glad she's still with you.
We, very ridiculously, have five cats. In our defence, two of them were taken in as palliative fosters and then they rallied under our care and will likely live another decade. (I tell them if they were cars, they'd be the opposite of a lemon.)
One of the ones we were told was "circling the drain" two years ago is very very attached to me, and we try to take her with us when we travel. She is going to a cottage next month to celebrate my 50th birthday with us.
That poem was a beautiful heartbreaker. The line "I cannot stand it" is very much how I still feel about the loss of our 21 year old calico Zoe.
Thank you so much for this post!!
You were right about that last line. Ugly cried and it’s only 7:00am. With regards to the rest, maybe we can’t know if a sheep is lonely, but we can assume that a social animal would feel vulnerable denied the advantages of being surrounded by its own kind. Social animals have evolved to do better in a herd and readily step back into the fold after an absence. And maybe the discomfort of being disconnected from a herd does actually fit the definition of loneliness.
I related to your story Philip. When I collected my dog Moses from the home where he was born, he was 11 weeks old and weighed about eight pounds. During the 14 years he lived with me, I watched him develop into a strong 65 pound dog and then decline precipitously as he aged. I felt like we knew one another very well. The relationship between a dog and its owner is a special kind of intimacy.