A Dignified Pup

Of all the responses to Shiloh's passing, one of my favorites was from my friend Shannon, in reponse to a picture I posted on facebook:

"What a dignified pup."

For some reason that one just really hit home. What a great, simple way to describe her...particularly in memory.

We picked up her ashes last Thursday (and by "we" I mean my mother and brother...I couldn't get home in time). For such a hard thing, they do a really nice job.

The small cherry wood box in the back of the photo contains her ashes. I believe the series of urn is even called "the dignity series."

They also includes a plaster imprint of her paw, with her name engraved.

(The picture is ours)

I'm not sure where we're going to keep these yet, but it is a nice thing to have. Right now the paw print and picture is in the kitchen, where we are all basicially all the time, and the urn is in my mom's room. We will eventually spread some of the ashes - some in our backyard, some in the backyard of my Aunt & Uncle. In the sunlight, of course. Just like she would have wanted.

I am fully certain that Shiloh's spirit has not yet left us (for reasons none of us - even the biggest skeptics of this kind of stuff - can deny) so I hate to think of this as all we have left. But, in terms of her physical form, it is. The quarter-sized paws, big emotional eyes and floppy ears that just needed little bows on them will always be there in our hearts and minds. I miss them so much. But...for the options we had left...I think this was the best choice. The only choice. An appropriate tribute for a truly dignified pup.