Kaiser's legacy

An article written by Lillian Stevens, titled "If They Could Tell Us Their Stories, Regina Root Canine Rescue" recently appeared in the April 2010 edition of "Williamsburg Next Door Neighbors."

Regina and family are friends and two-time adopters. The first dog they adopted from me was a senior shepherd named Kaiser. Kaiser had come to me along with his female companion, Gretel. (Kaiser is on the left and Gretel on the right in the picture at the right). They were about the last two dogs given up by a lifelong shepherd lover and breeder who was facing her own mortality and was, with the help of friends, making arrangements for the last of her dogs.

The Roots adopted Kaiser (left), a kind and gentle soul in one of the most beautiful German Shepherd forms I've ever seen. He showed them the very best that the breed had to offer. Unfortunately, Kaiser developed cancer and didn't last long, but Kaiser had an impact on the Roots that outlasted his time with them.

The Roots were looking to adopt a dog as a family pet. They also got some major life lessons, a new "cause" for lack of a better word, and me, thrown in with the bargain.

They were good people to start with, but I have to give Kaiser credit for making them into more than ordinary good adopters. They saw the inside of the rescue world and even a bit of its dark side, but they came through it more devoted than ever. The dogs they have fostered since then, and especially their current girl, Maya (right), are the beneficiaries of Kaiser's impact on that family in the all too brief time they were together.

It seems that the length of time we share our world with another being is not a reliable predictor of the impact the other may have on our lives. It is as true with people as it is with dogs, a fact that I'm mindful of as the first day of spring approaches, because that day is the fifteenth anniversary of my first partner's death. What seems like nothing but a senseless and inconsolable loss, is an opportunity for a new life experience for those who survive in this world and, I hope, for those that pass on as well. While I don't subscribe to any hate- or fear-based religion (is there any other kind?), I do hope for and maybe even believe, that there is some sort of recycling of the human spirit or consciousness such that, in some unknowable sense, we will cross paths again with those who have touched our lives in brief but profound ways, and maybe walk together again for a while.

(A .pdf file of the Williamsburg Next Door Neighbors publication is available here: http://www.wburgndn.com/issues/Apr2010pp1-22.pdf. The article about Regina begins on page 8 and I encourage you to read it.)