more from "THE CHLOE CHRONICLES" - Part VI: Getting the Dog You Need

Part VI: Getting the Dog You Need

Hello Beloved Readers -

Here is yet another installment of The Chloe Chronicles—my column which appeared in the late, great BARK magazine. As I keep saying, few of these pieces made it into the digital realm, because BARK was mainly a print-only operation, so I am slowly but surely posting all of my old BARK pieces here on Substack.

Revisiting these pieces has been wonderful and also tender, because reading about my beloved long-gone dogs makes me miss them. I’m sure all you dog lovers have experienced this. Simply looking at a picture of Chloe can cause a great swelling—and then a release—of deep, ancient grief. The grief doesn’t linger—it is simply expressed, on an as-needed basis. This rising-and-release of grief is immediate and extreme and profound—and also necessary, I think. Grief needs to be released, again and again. And this is one of the many things that dogs help us with. Dogs help us experience and process true, unfiltered emotions. When other humans are involved, we humans can tend to attempt to manipulate or suppress or “control” our emotions and emotional reactions But with dogs, we simply experience. Again and again. It’s very liberating.

Anyway, the other wonderful side-effect of revisiting these old Chloe writings is that she is now appearing more frequently in my dreams. I always enjoy that. After she died—or rather, as I like to say, after she dropped her dog-body—Chloe, for a time, became one of my Spirit Guides. That’s a rather long story, involving a Tibetan monk and a possible pho-wa, which I’ll save for another day. Suffice to say that when she comes to me in my dreams, it’s at another level. Again, stories for another day.

Here is our sixth installment of the Chloe Chronicles. (I still haven’t found a PDF of the first one!) This piece originally appeared in BARK Magazine, Volume 70, Summer 2012 edition. The wonderful photograph of my spaniel’s muddy paws is by Lisa Godfrey

Please share the love. The world needs more joy and dogs ARE joy.