Animals and the Afterlife (22 page)

Garden Dogs

Stuart Hague, Mortgage Broker Leicester, United Kingdom

I
AM A MORTGAGE BROKER
in the UK and have been for a number of years. I used to have an office in town. Many clients would come along to obtain help and information when they were looking to buy a new house or remortgage their current one.

I would sit them down, offer a cup of coffee, and usually have a chat to break the ice. Some of these clients became friends, and long after having bought or remortgaged their house, they would often come back into the office for a coffee and a natter.

One day, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and I were chatting about some of the strange happenings we had come across when Mr. Smith said, “Humph! You’d better talk to
her
about strange happenings!” By
her
, he meant his wife.

When I asked what he meant, Mrs. Smith said that over a number of years she’d had a number of dogs who, when they had passed on, she buried in her rather large back garden.

They had not been married all that long, and Mrs. Smith had been living at the property for many years.

After a while, she became aware of a couple of dogs roaming around her back garden and thought they had somehow jumped over the fence. Then, on closer inspection, she recognised them as dogs she’d had a few years earlier
that had died
and had been buried in her garden.

When she excitedly pointed them out to Mr. Smith, he looked blankly into the garden and could not understand what all the excitement was about. Although
she
delighted in watching her old friends,
he
could not see them.

This persisted over a period of time and was made worse for Mr. Smith because his mother-in-law could also see the animals, which were now increasing in number, and still he could not. He soon began to become a little aggravated by the ladies’ behaviour and pooh-poohed what they said they saw, sometimes getting quite annoyed.

This continued until one day when Mr. Smith was standing at the kitchen sink doing what came naturally, the washing up. He suddenly looked out the kitchen window and shouted to his wife in a somewhat irate manner, “Mary, have you seen all those flippin’ dogs in our garden? Where the heck have they all come from?”

Needless to say, Mrs. Smith and her mother took great delight in standing there with great big smiles on their faces and body language that spelled out in capital letters: “SEE, WE TOLD YOU SO!”

Kurgan, Part 2

Mary, Health Care Administrator Illinois

Kim’s note:
A friend of Mary’s had a dog named Kurgan. Although Kurgan wasn’t Mary’s own companion animal, they were very close. Mary spent a lot of time with Kurgan before he died; and after he passed, she felt his presence many times, as told in her story in Chapter 8, “Heavenly Visitors.” Shortly before this book went to press, Mary had yet another experience to share….

Y
OU MIGHT BE INTERESTED
in knowing that I’ve had another encounter with Kurgan—this time a sighting. This is the first time in my life I’ve actually seen a deceased animal with my own two eyes. Here is what happened….

Sometimes when I leave for work, my dogs run to the bedroom window to watch me drive away. (Cutest thing you’ve ever seen, by the way—two little Shiba Inu faces pressed to the glass.) The window has an old screen on it, so when I do see them, they are a little “foggy” looking through the screen. One day a couple of weeks ago as I was backing out of the driveway, I stopped and looked up at the window, and there he was—
Kurgan
. He sat there, looking so proud and just enjoying the warm breeze in the window.

It took me a few seconds to absorb what I was seeing. At first, I assumed it must be one of
my
dogs, but then it hit me that Kurgan, an Akita, was several times bigger than my Shibas. Then I realized that I was seeing him crystal clear—there was no fuzziness from the old screen. In addition, when my dogs look out the window, they are sitting on a daybed, so I only see them from the chest up. What I was seeing was the whole dog—paws and all. He almost appeared to be sitting level with the windowsill, which would have been impossible for my dogs. We made eye contact for several seconds. I didn’t feel like he had a message for me or anything—but I could feel the contentment around him. I looked away for a second, and when I looked back he was gone.

Cheech

Victoria Strykowski, Wild Horse Mentor and Greyhound Rescue Illinois

M
Y FAMILY TOOK IN
C
HEECH
, a German shepherd, when she was about one year old and I was about ten. She was a beautiful black and silver color, looking very much like a wolf. We were inseparable. She slept on my bed every single night that I was home.

When Cheech was nine, she was diagnosed with cancer, and I was devastated. There had been no warning. I brought her in to the vet because she had a sore in her armpit and they said it was an open tumor. This was years ago, before I knew about alternative therapy. The vet said she should be euthanized, and I just started crying hysterically. My friend, Michele, had come with me that day, and thank goodness, because she was the one who had to drive home. I was in such shock, I couldn’t even stay with Cheech as she passed.

A few months later, Michele and I went to a local disco where a friend of ours worked. This particular night was very slow and the place was just about empty. There were booths creating aisles that led up to the dance floor, and it was very dark, except, of course, for the disco lights. We got up to dance, and as we were walking down the aisle towards the dance floor, we both just stopped dead in our tracks. I looked at Michele and she had a very strange look on her face. I asked her if she had just seen Cheech. She said she had. We had both seen her following us to the dance floor, only for a second and in the darkness of the aisle.

I’ve felt Cheech’s presence many times, but that was the only time I actually saw her.

Duke

Kathleen Hill, Dog Groomer, TTouch For Companion Animals Nebraska

D
UKE WAS A WONDERFUL COMPANION
. My husband and I acquired him while still living in an apartment, soon to be moving to an acreage. He was part German shepherd/elkhound, and he was with us even before our children were born. He was with us during our six years on the acreage; with us on a flight to Phoenix—where we lived for three years; and with us on a car trip back to the Midwest. He went with us always, wherever we went.

He was fourteen years old when we started to see a change. He seemed to be getting weaker, had trouble going up and down the stairs, and wouldn’t eat. We tried everything to get him to eat something, anything we thought he might like, but still he wouldn’t eat. I knew that he wasn’t going to last much longer at that rate. But still we tried.

We were at my in-laws’ lake cabin, sitting on the hill overlooking the lake. I could almost see in his eyes that he knew this was the last time he would be there. He seemed so peaceful. I made up my mind that weekend that Monday we would make our last trip to the vet. I just couldn’t stand to see him suffer. He was in pain, still wasn’t eating, and could barely walk. I knew that it was the right decision. I cried all weekend long.

Monday morning I made that terrible phone call to our vet. That afternoon was set up for us to come in. My husband offered to take him in, but I had to be the one to do this; I wanted to be the one to sit with him till the very end. It was awful, walking into the office; tears just wouldn’t stop. Even up to his last moments, people commented, “He’s such a beautiful dog!” I remember someone asking why he was there. I didn’t have to say anything as I sobbed going into the room. It was one of the worst days of my life.

The next day I was home by myself, crying my eyes out. It was so quiet. When he was alive we had always kept all his tags on him, so he would jingle and we would know where he was at all times.

I was now walking through the dining room into the kitchen and I heard his jingle. I turned around, and Duke was prancing toward me like he always did when he came in from outside. He looked happy and healthy again. (He could barely walk in his last days and had looked just awful.) As he came toward me, he disappeared. I could still hear his jingle for a few seconds. This was during the day, and I was wide awake.

Off and on during that week, my husband and I would hear the jingle of his tags and I would see him out of the corner of my eye. I knew he was there to comfort me and always will be.

Baby

Bette Boswell, Retired Maryland

S
HE CAME TO US ONE COLD EVENING
. Our oldest son had gotten her before knowing the work and devotion required of him. He asked my husband and me if we would keep her for a short while. We agreed, not knowing what “a short while” meant. Week followed week, and without knowing it, we became the parents of a beautiful yellow Labrador retriever. We named her Baby. It seemed appropriate at the time, as she was a bundle of yellow fur. When she came into the house that evening, she went to everyone to say hello. Weeks became months, and we became a family.

I had to have surgery on my heart, which caused me to have a stroke. After many weeks of recuperation, I was ready to take a walk to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. I put the leash on Baby to have her join me on my walk, when everybody started to yell, “Don’t take the dog,” figuring she might pull on me, injuring my incision. But she walked beside me like a trooper, never once pulling or trying to run away. So, as I became stronger, my husband and I would take Baby to the nearby high school to run and play on the athletic field.

The night before I was to come home from the hospital, my husband said he’d had a talk with Baby, telling her to take care of me and to always stay with me, not letting me out of her sight. One day, my son and I went shopping for flowers to plant in the yard, and we took Baby with us. I walked a little too fast, and for the first time in her life she started to howl and cry while pulling on her leash to get to me. She never let me out of her sight again. I guess she really understood what my husband was telling her the night before my return from the hospital.

One day we realized that our Baby was not a youngster any longer. As she lay in her favorite spot, she would look at us as if to say, “Help me, please.” So my husband and I knew it was time to say good-bye to our beloved pet. She had become so much more than a pet. When it was time, my husband put his arms around her and whispered, “I love you” as her spirit gently floated away.

Two weeks after Baby left us, we moved into a new house at the beach. Oh, how she would have loved the beach. Water to her was like breathing air to us. I worried that if she ever tried to come back to visit us, she wouldn’t know where to find us.

To my surprise, one night, two years later, in our new house, there she was at the foot of my bed. She was turning around in circles as if to find a comfortable place to lie down. I reached out to pet her, but my arm went through her. I tried again, but my arm went through her again.

It is because of her visit to me that I know she lives, still. She survived! I don’t mourn for her any longer because I know she is okay. My husband passed away two years ago, and I am convinced they are together. Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that animals have souls and that they live on after they are finished with their lives here on Earth.

Kim’s note:
People sometimes ask if our departed animals know where we are and can find us when we move. As this story illustrates, of course they can!