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There are people who say Dog is God spelled backward. And that’s exactly what comes to mind every time my dogs lick cat vomit off the rug. It’s a behaviour akin to playing records backward to reveal Satanic messages. This way Doris Day, that way Linda Blair.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my dogs. But I love them because they are big, warm, farty fwumpalumps. Not Gods. Everything about them is earthly, right down to the snot, drool, and poo. They slime my front window, goose my guests, and shed enough fur to knit a tweed jacket each week. But they’re the best companions because we can stink together, we’re a pack through thick and thin. Heaven can wait.

That said, I get that for some people their dogs are, if not God, God-sent. And believe that when their fur-babies pass, they’re waiting for their people to join them in Heaven. There are dogs who have nightly baths, who are froo-frooed, and perfumed, coiffed with bow-ties and ribbons. And for others, by God-sent is meant that trusty old cattle dog whose paws are tinged grey-green with mud, grass, and cow dung. Who sleeps on the front porch, and smiles when the work day starts.

What gets me right in the ticker is when a dog’s eyebrows turn white, and when the pain and stiffness of arthritis is no deterrent to being by your side. Or, as in my parent’s case, when two arthritic old people carried their blind, arthritic old ragamuffin of a dog, Roxy, out in the yard so she could pee. What really slayed me was my dad’s morning ritual of giving himself insulin, and then Roxy, hers. Roxy died one morning, a year ago, in my mom’s lap. We wrapped Roxy up in a blanket, and I took her still-warm body to the vet for cremation. Then brought her ashes back to my parents. In spite of their pain, each stood up to give me a hug. Some days now, they can’t stand. But I cherish those hugs.

You might wonder what inspired this Thoughtlet. I’m a philosophy nerd. When my head is in the clouds, there are no harps and choirs. Yet I’ve got my own version of Dog is God spelled backwards:

And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming — your dog is a true philosopher. (Book II, p 47)

Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Republic, Dover Publications Inc.: New York. 2000

The Philosophers