Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Jake's Collar

I did a behavioural euthanasia of an otherwise young, healthy dog for a friend. She bravely held him in her arms as he passed, protecting him until the very end. When it was over, she removed his collar and handed it to me. Thinking she just needed me to hold it, I gathered up his leash, and tried to hand them both back to her. She pressed the collar into my hands and said, “No, I want you to have this.”

It was a beautiful, hand-carved leather Dia De Los Muertos limited edition Paco collar, that I’d admired from the moment she got it. Fittingly, Eric, Jake and I brought it with us on our Halloween-cation that fall, which included a Dia De Los Muertos celebration in San Diego. One of our last stops was Paco Collars in Berkeley. We brought Jake into the shop, where I told the girls the story and they fashioned the collar into a martingale that fit Jake perfectly. What better way to honor a dog than to celebrate his life every time I slip his collar onto my own dog.