In Rememberance - Greyhounds that have crossed the rainbow bridge

Remembrance

Death can happen on any day of any year. I try to love as hard and well as I can, while I can. When loved hounds leave me, I believe they do so I can love another - because there are always more hounds who need love. And love makes the world go round.

Focusing on the love given and received, versus the love lost, helps me move forward. To continue to give love, I feel, honors the love I received.

To help honor the love of a hound, the Greyhound Gang respectfully offers the following ideas with the passing of a loved greyhound. Do click on them to learn more.

Ceramic Medallion

To contact others that understand your grief - join Circle of Greys. They are a support group of greyhound lovers, that help each other through sad times.

This is a poem that helps me continue to love because I believe.

CREDO by Maxine Kumin

I believe in magic. I believe in the rights
of animals to leap out of our skins
as it is said in the Tlingit legend:
That instant a bear appeared where a boy had been

as I believe in the resurrected wake-robin,
first wet knob of trillium to knock
in April at the underside of earth's door
in central New Hampshire where bears are,

though still denned up at that early greening.
I believe in living on grateful terms
with the earth, with the black crumbles
of ancient manure that sift through my fingers

when I topdress the garden for winter. I believe
in the red strings of earthworms aroused out of season
and in the bear, asleep now in the rock cave
where my outermost pasture abuts the forest.

I cede him a swale of chokeberries in August.
I give the sow and her cub as much yardage
as they desire when our paths intersect,
as does my horse shifting under me

respectful but not cowed by our encounter.
I believe in the gift of the horse, which is magic,
their deep fear-snorts in play when the wind comes up,
and the ballet of nip and jostle, plunge and crow hop.

I trust them to run from me, necks arched in a full
swan's S, tails cocked up over their backs
like plumes on a Cavalier's hat. I trust them
to gallop back, skid to a stop, their nostrils

level with my mouth, asking for my human breath
that they may test its intent, taste the lure of it.
I believe in myself as their sanctuary
and in the earth with its summer plumes of carrots,

its clamber of peas, beans, masses of tendrils
as mine. I believe in the acrobatics of boy
into bear, the grace of animals
in my keeping, the thrust to go on.