My constant friend Kate taught me how to open my heart, how to learn my surroundings by breathing deeply, how to protect my true loves as she protected me. She taught me to feel joy every day that I was fortunate enough to share with her. She taught me that I could even share her. Those times when a heart broken passer-by stopped to tell her she reminded him of his own deceased companion. Kate would pause on her triumphant, tail-wagging walk and permit the stranger to admire her and take comfort in the soft fur of her ears and in the beauty of her deep brown eyes. She loved people and people loved her. Kate touched so many lives. The lives of people in a hurry, people who were worried, people who were put out because it had snowed. To a person they would stop and look at her and exclaim, “Oh, what a happy dog!” laughing at the bounce in her step, the mischievous tilt of her head. She helped nurse my mother through serious illness even though it meant living apart from me for several weeks. She did gain access to a back-yard for that time, a happy revelation that was of some consolation to her, city dog that she was.

We were together for only fourteen years. She was full-grown but still full of puppy energy when I adopted her from PAWS. She had already had her first birthday by then. Her rump was rough from worrying it because of her anxiety. How I wish I had spent her first year of life with her.

Kate was a thirty-three pound purebred mutt who people mistook for a thoroughbred, albeit one they could not quite think of the name for. “What is that breed?” strangers would muse out loud, their problems forgotten for the moment. Kate was very smart and very loyal to me – and after she came to love him and got over her jealousy, she was very loyal to my husband, Peter. After dinner, he would head to the den: “Come on, let’s see who’s pitching.” Kate would follow him in and lay down, utterly content. If I didn’t join them right away, she would come back to check on me but then return to the game. Kate protected me from more than one repair person. Her bark was so deep that if the listener could not see her, he would assume a vicious beast was on the other side of the door.

In her youth, it seemed Katie could outrun the wind – she’d race me and win – when I was riding my bike! She was a great jumper, she jumped into our car from a downward slope, she jumped at squirrels fleeing up tree trunks, she jumped to the point of exhaustion at kites in the sky, and once she jumped out of the open car window to run after a coyote she spied in the sagebrush. Kate was a great swimmer. She swam in the bay, in icy mountain lakes, in the Pacific Ocean. She would ride the waves, undaunted, in pursuit of her stick, her tail wagging side-to-side skimming the water’s surface.

Kate had a great, strong spirit. Even at the end, although her little body was worn out she still showed us her spirit and her love.

I would have gladly traded a year of my life to extend hers.

On August 23rd we sprinkled her ashes at Lake 22 near Verlot because we know she wanted to return to the mountains she loved. She had last hiked this glorious trail among ancient cedars and hemlocks along the rushing stream in early summer this year. Not long ago but worlds ago. Kate was ecstatic that day in spite of her arthritis and the new weakness in her legs – she relished the snow she found at the top, smiling while rolling in it until her fur was laced with twigs and dirt and ice crystals.

I can never thank you enough Kate for all that you taught me and the love you gave me. Rest in Peace, my dearest friend.

You have to leave me now, I know.
But I’ll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass,
In the ones I love,
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.
--Bob Dylan

Catherine C.