Wolfgang was a Humane Society pet, a shephard/husky mix who I adopted sometime in October 1990. He was about 8 weeks old then. I would have liked to take all 13 of those beautiful puppies home that day. But I could take one. I lived in an apartment at the time, and I knew as Wolf got older the apartments would give me an ultimatum....get rid of him or move. Well, I chose to move as no one could ever come between us...human or otherwise. So, I shared the next 13 years with him. I guess in the last year, I really began to realize that he was aging, and illness was setting in. I denied the fact that he was truly ill, attributing all the creakiness and weight loss to arthritis. Every big dog as he ages develops arthritis, right? Nope. After a few trips to the veterinarian, and after the vet telling me, "let's get him comfortable". We gave him Rimadyl and then we went to Metacam, a medicine for pain with less side effects. Finally in November of this year, I took Wolf in with a deep knowledge that he was irreversibly ill. This time was different, we couldn't fix this one as we had with other things that had gone wrong. My veterinarian found the true culprit this time, a huge knot in the stomach and one in the lower intestines. This would explain the weight loss. I now knew that I had to do what everyone had been telling me for months was going to have to be done....help Wolfgang cross over. There would then be no more pain and suffering and he would once again be able to play like the good ole' days. So on November 13, 2003 we took that last trip to the Dr.'s office. A day that will live forever in my very soul. The anger, both because this could happen to my boy and at everyone, with the exception of my family, that said "Oh, it is just a dog, get another one." My work bunch, well, most of them, just didn't understand. "People are more important," was the attitude. I've reached this point where I would just rather be quiet, and left to my thoughts rather than hear the garbage that comes out of some people's mouth. Anyway, after my husband and I reached home after putting Wolf down, there was this special few moments where the wind blew as hard as it could, and the clouds had just the right shape of that black and white beauty of mine. It had been hot earlier, as we live in south Mississippi. All the years of Wolf's life, he hated the heat. So we always made sure he was in the nice air conditioning when it was hot. But this particular day was a complete shift, a day that in Wolf's younger years he would have frolicked and played and chased every squirrel around. Later that night was a vision I will never forget as long as I live. In the tall sycamore tree just over the fence was a shape/leaf silhouette of him smiling at me with a message that I took to mean "Mommy, I'm all right. It is great here. They have steak dinners every night and Mimi and Papau are here. They let me sit right in the middle. And there is this really nice man named Jesus too. He makes sure we are all safe and no harm can come to us." I hope that is what was meant to come from that vision I had that night. It is my only hope and prayer that I did it right and he is free from all pain forevermore. Mommy loves you, Angel