Remembering Shanti

 ​The other day I came across one of my write ups about my first "official " hospice dog. I took her in right before Christmas several years ago. She would have been euthanized at the local shelter due to a myriad of health issues and her advanced age. Let me tell you that a lot of people rallied for Shanti so that I could tend to her. Shanti was also my first dog with advanced CCD - canine cognitive dysfunction. This was certainly no walk in the park for me, especially with regards to sleep deprivation. Would I do it again? Yes. Do I want to inspire you not to get discouraged when you have a dog or cat with high needs? Yes.

Meet SHANTI ~
In her own words.....
Wow, my life sure has changed! No more prison bars, no more loneliness, no more fear to be forgotten. Yeah! Consider yourselves licked in the face. I feel so much happier now. I have a huge appetite and get yummy food with some strange morsels in it - mom calls these supplements, whatever that is. I also get to go on long walks with my big dog brother Jonah. Boy, does he need to run to keep up with me. Life is GOOD. One of my aunties made a beautiful purple fleece coat for me for the great outdoors, since I am very fashion conscious and I also get cold easily. Besides that I do my daily job as a master lap warmer, and I am good at it.

Unfortunately my memory is not what it once was. I often get stuck in corners and for the life of me, I don't know how to get out of them. Who invented corners?? I also run in circles at night, many, many circles and I hardly ever get tired from it.
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Life would be perfect if my heart wasn't as big as a baseball. The vet says that I have heart disease and a grade 5/6 murmur. You see, this makes me really uncomfortable and scared, that's why I have a hard time sleeping. My person has been very tired, because she needs more of a beauty rest than I do. At least that's what I think. These days she gives me a pill at night, she says it is a "sedative". I say, as long as it's yummy, I take it! I still wake her up in the wee hours of the morning and want to jump around and snuggle, then jump around some more, because it is so hard to be still. My other fur brothers and sisters are so calm and quiet at night. I wonder how they do it. Mom believes that my spirit is not resting at night because of my enlarged heart. I'd like to believe that my heart is big because it's filled with love and has grown in size because of it. One of our human friends did a strange - but I must admit - wonderful thing with me. It's called a soul retrieval. Do not ask me what that is, no idea. All I know is that I was more relaxed after that, which made my mom (and me) really happy.

After all these years of misery I am not treated like a dumb dog anymore, but like someone with a soul. They say, it takes a village. I say it takes an ocean of love, and love I gave and received a million times in return. What a blessing!

Shanti passed away in the Spring of the following year. Thank you so much for reading.

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