My Love Affair with a Dog Named Moose

This is a story about the treasured relationship with my partner pet, Moose, a Yorkshire Terrier our family and friends loved and enjoyed for thirteen years. Before acquiring him at eight weeks of age I did not imagine the quality of the bond that formed between us, a bond that began to take shape almost immediately, but deepened as we journeyed together and has not diminished following his death. It is upon that bond-or what I call "love affair--" this book is focused as I share with readers Moose's beauty manifested through incidents, routines, habits, and experiences we shared. Together, these taught me important things about the beauty of a cross-species love that molded its partners into a love closer than that known in many human-to-human bonds. My relationship with Moose birthed new insights about the intelligence and reasoning powers possessed by our pet partners. Also, it provided fresh ways of interpreting the love of God and the sacred dimension of Mother Nature. Now, with Moose absent from my life, I find myself hoping that my relationship with him has not ended. Somehow, in the inexplicable dimension of life and, I find myself yearning for a continued relationship that consists of more than my dynamic memories.

As I wrote this book, following Moose's death, I found myself bellowing with laughter, mellowing in grief, and wondering in silent imagination and hope. Writing about him became a therapeutic experience resulting in renewed vitality, sensitivity, and hope that, at its base, life is about sensitivity, love, compassion, and expectation that not even the intense tumult of our contemporary world can destroy.