Dear Marla-
 
I, too, lost a beloved ferret to a family dog, once upon a time.(Don't,
sister of No) I know how it feels.  Our dog friends are so good at being
our friends that it's easy to forget that in their bones, they still
remember something of being a wolf.
 
The only way I could work my feelings out was to remember that *my*
(not the killer) dog forgave me when I once went into a screaming
chimpanzee-gone-bugsh*t-on-the-savannah frenzy because she ate my nice
yellow leather shoes, and I wacked her one Hard.  Really hard.  Dogs
don't wear shoes, what do shoes mean to dogs?  They EAT leather.  But
she forgave my distasteful primate display of inexplicable rage.  It's
in a dogs nature to do so.  They have to in order to know any inner
peace, because they are ruled by chimpanzees in heels.  So this
chimpanzee was able to forgive the killer for being what she is, a
little more, a little less, than a wolf.
 
And now I look back on it, and I think sadly, how proud...how terribly
proud and astonished by her fortune the dog must have been to have held
a ray of pure sunshine in her mouth, the ray of glowing light in furred
form that was Don't.  We all want a piece of the sun for ourselves.
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 4786]