I know this seems long in the beginning, but it has a
purpose.
A few years ago, my family had a shelty dog named
Snooky. He was 14 years old, pretty old for a dog, and
we'd had him since before I was born. Lately, he'd been
having some medical problems with a tumor in his nose. My
parents had taken him to the vet to see if it could be
removed, but when his heart stopped on the table, they
decided to just take him home and make his last days as
comfortable as possible.
A few nights later, something happened and Snooky
started sneezing badly. (My parents told my brother and I
this, we were asleep.) He started sneezing blood because
of the tumor in his nose, then tried to go outside to lay
down by himself and die. (I don't know why dogs do this.)
My parents couldn't stand to see him suffer, so they took
him to the vet, not telling us kids, and had him put to
sleep. When they got home, my mother tried to clean up the
blood so she could just tell us kids that Snooky had died
peacefully.
Well, that's what they told us, but I found some blood
on the dresser, and when they told us what really
happened, I got really upset, because I hadn't had a
chance to say goodbye to the pet I'd known and loved for
my whole life. That night, I cried myself to sleep.
Later that night, after I'd actually gotten to sleep,
something woke me up. At first I wasn't sure what it was,
then I knew. My feet were sticking out from under the
covers, and I could feel my dog pressing his cold nose on
the bottom of one of my feet. I told Snooky I loved him,
and I heard him brush against the lamp by my bedroom door
and leave. I slept a lot better after that, and I didn't
cry anymore. My parents wondered why, but there was no way
I could tell them that our dead dog had come back so I
could say Goodbye.
I've heard a lot of stories about people coming back to
say goodbye, but I never expected my dog to. Maybe this
happened to me because it was my first encounter with the
death of something I loved. I'm 18 now, and I still haven't
forgotten it.
Submitted From: