Send me your stories! Just sharing with other dog lovers…
Heaven?
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as
He got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side
When he was close enough, he called out, ‘Excuse me, where are we?’
‘This is Heaven, sir,’ the man answered.
’Wow! Would you happen to have some water?’ the man asked.
‘Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.’
The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
‘Can my friend,’ gesturing toward his dog, ‘come in, too?’ the traveler asked.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.’
The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.
After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.
As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book..
‘Excuse me!’ he called to the man. ‘Do you have any water?’
Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in.’
‘How about my friend here?’ the traveler gestured to the dog.
‘There should be a bowl by the pump.’
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.
The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.
When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
‘What do you call this place?’ the traveler asked.
‘This is Heaven,’ he answered.
‘Well, that’s confusing,’ the traveler said. ‘The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.’
‘Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s hell.’
‘Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?’
‘No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.’
~Author Unknown
Pearl Was a Bit of a Whore
Pearl was a bit of a whore.
We never kept her in a fence
So she had puppies at least once a year.
She was a good mother.
Abandoned in the country, starving,
We found her when I was in third grade.
She knew she was my dog immediately.
God help you if you got mad at me.
A blur of fur and teeth and little-dog roaring
Awaited you halfway to me. No one ever called
Pearl’s bluff because they knew she wasn’t bluffing.
I think I learned loyalty from Pearl.
Her oversized sense of protectiveness
Extended to the house a little, too.
But not much.
We lived on a small rise
At the end of a long driveway.
We would see her asleep on the porch in the sunshine
But when the crunch of tires on gravel reached her ears
She would leap like Wonder Woman off the porch
And race to the far end of the yard,
Barking the whole while,
Careful never to look our way.
She’d bark at the unseen burglar
Then cut and run a different way to
Stop and bark at other phantoms.
The shutting of a car door
Made her look our way, startled,
As if to say, “Oh, you’re back already?
When did you arrive?”
And then she would trot with great pride,
Paws lifted a little too high
Her head swinging back and forth
As if to say, “Aren’t I wonderful?”
“Pearl, you’re wonderful,” I would say
Because she knew her job and I knew mine.
In later years I stepped from the kitchen
Into the garage to see her curled
With a small cat under her foreleg,
It’s head snuggled beneath her chin, friends
Laid down for a nap.
The screen door springs closed with a clap
And Pearl lifts her bleary eyes, “What was that?”
She looks up to see me,
With a cat in her bed.
Standing slowly to her feet
Pearl gives a soft “woof,”
As if to whisper,
“The boss is here.”
The cat, knowing her job, too,
Stands,
Looks at me,
Looks at Pearl,
Then trots out the garage
And around the corner.
Pearl gives me one more look
Then chases the cat
To do her duty.
Later, I walk outside
And see Pearl beside the house
In the soft sunshine
Laid down for a nap
With her friend.
Forty years later
I walk around
another house
500 miles away,
And secretly hope to
See Pearl and the cat
One last time.
- Roy H. Williams The Wizard Academy