I have a friend who is a travel nurse. She lived here all of her life, and I watched her struggle as a single parent for six years to get through college and get her nursing degree while working the night shift at a convenience store to pay the bills. So when she graduated and did her year long local job so she could qualify for travel nursing, I was happy for her. She was fullfilling a dream. And still is.

In the course of that six years, I lived with her briefly - right after the Divorce, and her children grew up, one married and has kids of her own, the other moved into her own apartment. So when my friend moved away for her first travel job, her house was vacant. I volunteered to go out and check her mail and feed her dog.

I love her dog. He’s a great old black chow chow, who, unlike what you may have heard about chow chows, is loyal and loveable. When I lived with her, the dog became my best friend and confidant, and we spent many mornings sitting on the porch, drinking coffee, looking out over the creek and just “talking”.

Its been three years since my friend started traveling, her contracts lasting three months at a stretch, and I just figured once she got settled into a routine, her dog would go with her. But he did not. Instead, she left him there, at her house, with no one to care for him, and alone.

For the past 2 - 3 months, I’ve been retrieving her mail and sending it to her every week, and checking on the dog, whom she informed me, she’d finally made arrangements with a neighbor to feed. But I was concerned the last few times I went out there because I never saw the dog. And that wasn’t normal. He always comes up to  my car, ALWAYS.

Well, yesterday afternoon, she informed me that the dog was dead.  And while I empathised with her for her loss, secretly, I was relieved. And I realized, I’d been angry with her for abandoning her dog.  I was angry because he was the best damn dog (and I have two of my own) and she just left him there, all alone.

I’ve asked myself a hundred times why didn’t she just give him to someone else who could be there to feed him and pet him and take care of him? At the time she started traveling, we were still in the rental and I couldn’t take him, or I would have.  But I don’t understand how someone can have a pet for that long and then just leave it. I really don’t.

And I am relieved for the dog. I am relieved that he isn’t alone anymore and he isn’t suffering without food or affection or attention. I am sad for him, but I am relieved.

R. I. P. Doc