Every morning yours is the first face I see. You are pure love, never able to be close enough but still you try.
Everyone loves you. EVERYONE. In the neighborhood, you’d win popularity contests, and with friends–they simply can’t get enough of your gentle, loving spirit. You, lovely girl, make the entire world so much better. (not just mine–ours…)
When you hear a song you love and you hop up on your back legs, asking for a dance, I melt. During naptime when you need to be laying on top of my bunny slippers, or the very sweet way you’ve always been with the cat. Be still my heart, you are such a sweet soul.
Today you’re turning five… Five is still such a baby, in person-years, but in dog years you’re finally a true Golden Girl. I don’t want to look at you, as you sit pleading for a piece of my chicken or a handful of blueberries, and think about how much I’ll miss you one day… even so, sometimes I do. Loss has played such a huge role in this journey I’ve walked, I can’t help it. But you know this, you know this and you’ve loved me through it more beautifully than any human could deserve.
I want to love you forever.
Happy birthday, beautiful Elenor. Soft, tender, with those bright brown eyes always radiating so much love… I promise to never be stingy with my chicken, or with peanut butter because one day I’ll regret the “no”s I said. God knows you’ve given far more than I could begin to calculate…
I have always been a dog lover. There is something about having a dog that supports my emotional health, brings a level of companionship I may not get elsewhere, and just brings a richness unlike anything else. The hardest part of having walked this earth for four-plus decades as a dog lover has been the goodbyes. While many of my best moments involved a beloved pup, the lowest moments were those “see ya laters”.
I currently have a four-year-old Golden Retriever named Elenor. Ironically, she is the one dog I didn’t want. I’d had to say goodbye to a puppy a few months before and it had been brutal. I wasn’t ready. My husband really wanted her, and so Elenor came home with us.
This girl took a while to bond with, likely due to my hesitation. No one likes to get hurt and I was in the phase where maybe I didn’t want another dog because I’d had my fill of those rainbow bridge goodbyes… but, she’s been an absolute Godsend. These past few years have been the hardest, most growth-filled, and also the best/emotionally-healthiest years I’ve known–all rolled into one. I’ve done compelling work, written a memoir, signed a book contract, built a business with several facets, grown substantially in community, deconstructed from religion, and experienced more loss and grief than ever before. Elenor has been by my side through it all. We joke that she’s my husband’s dog, and in all fairness, he did fight like hell to get her… she does light up the most when she sees him, and she kind of worships the ground he walks on… BUT she is my constant companion. Where I go, she goes. When I’m asleep, she’s by my side. When I’m working, she’s outside my door. This sweet golden floof is always within reach. She is exactly who I needed.
When we rescued a litter of newborn kittens, she became the surrogate mom and the reason half of the litter survived. We kept one, and these two are the very best of friends.
I have partnered with Grace Hill Media to promote MGM’s new film Dog, starring and directed by Channing Tatum. In this partnership, I have the opportunity to give away an awesome Dog themed prize package, which includes 2 Fandango tickets!
DOG is a buddy comedy that follows the misadventures of two former Army Rangers paired against their will on the road trip of a lifetime. Army Ranger Briggs (Channing Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog) buckle into a 1984 Ford Bronco and race down the Pacific Coast in hopes of making it to a fellow soldier’s funeral on time. Along the way, they’ll drive each other completely crazy, break a small handful of laws, narrowly evade death and learn to let down their guards in order to have a fighting chance of finding happiness. Rated PG-13 for language, thematic elements, drug content, and some suggestive material
To enter the giveaway you must comment on this post by telling us a little about your dog! (If you share this post via social media, please comment back or send a DM with that link.)
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