By Karyn Garvin

My name is Karyn Garvin. I have been training animals for several years. I have worked closely with many dog owners, and I have been doing it long enough to have had the privilege of training one puppy, and of later being there for the owner when that dog came to the end of its journey here with us. A lot of my clients come to me in that time of heartbreak, and I am always there for them; for as Robert Schuller often says, "In love's service, only broken hearts will do" -- and, yes, my heart has been broken, too! Even in this moment of writing I feel the grief, as I share with you a story I have shared with many. It is a blessed story which is meant to be shared. It was my comfort through one of the most difficult losses of my life. It has comforted the hearts of many others since.

It is a story about the loss of my first dog. She wasn't really my first dog - as a child growing up, my family always had dogs, dogs I loved, dogs whose passing I mourned. This dog, Erikka, was more like a soul mate. This dog was my daughter. I had always wanted a large dog, so when I graduated from junior college and moved into an apartment with my first girl friend, Jane, the time seemed right. Our apartment had been broken into; we felt we needed to do something to protect ourselves. So we each decided to get a puppy. One Sunday morning we looked though the newspaper classified section. Jane found an ad for an Irish setter which sounded good to her, and I found an ad for German Shepherds which sounded great to me. That very evening we both had puppies: Simon, a male Irish setter and Erikka, my silver female German Shepherd.

In junior college, psychology courses had been my passion, and I had decided that I wanted to be a psychologist. I know that my obsession with understanding behavior stemmed from wanting to understand myself. I was fascinated with the principles of behavior modification, and quite naturally applied them to training my new puppy. Wow, did it ever work!  Erikka loved her lessons as much as I did.  We were equally impressed with what she was capable of learning and to this day, I've not known another dog as smart or as knowledgeable as she was. In the twenty years since I have been without her no other dog has taken her place.

You can't replace times and loves that have passed. Erikka was there for me. She was my buddy, my partner at work as a dog trainer, and my protector. In fact, she kept me alive in my suicidal years. Overwhelmed with grief, and still too young to know how to rise above it, I wanted to leave this planet. There were a few things that kept me from taking that final step such as not wanting to hurt anyone I knew. But most of all, I knew I couldn't leave Erikka behind, which meant I would have to take her with me. And there was no way I could take her life. Because of my love for her, it was easier to stay alive.

Erikka worked with me every day, and it is largely because of her I became a professional dog trainer. I quickly grew so close to her that I hated going to work without her. I therefore started looking for a job to which she could accompany me. My first job working with dogs was for a guard dog service. I did that for a couple of years while I continued going to school. Then I applied for a job with a dog training company in Phoenix. The man who owned the business hired me strictly on Erikka's performance, so impressed was he by her. So Erikka continued to work with me daily. She and I were as one. I knew her and she me. With and without words we communicated.

In Erikka's sixth year I started thinking about the fact that she was getting older; attached to her as I was I dreaded the thought that one day I'd be without her. So I got another German Shepherd puppy and I named her Ingrid. Ingrid was a very different dog. From the start she was totally fixated on Erikka: she was as bonded to Erikka as Erikka was bonded to me. Poor Ingrid was less than a year of age when she came down with valley fever, and it hit her hard. Valley fever -coccidial mycosis -- is endemic to California's Central Valley, southern Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, and is caused by fungal spores found in the soil and blowing dust. Certain people and animals are more susceptible to it than others.

When Ingrid contracted the disease the treatment in use today was only at the experimental stage, and not available to help her. I realized Ingrid was dying, slowly and painfully. When she became paralyzed in her hind quarters, and in such pain that she would snap at me if I went to move her, I knew the kindest thing I could do was to take her in to the vet and have her put to sleep. But even though I knew this was the right thing to do, it was one of the hardest decisions and the most difficult action I ever had to take. Usually when you do the right thing, it just automatically feels good. But not this. It takes a lot of justifying to come to peace with euthanasia, particularly when you really don't know what happens to your animals after they die.

To make matters worse, shortly before Ingrid got so very sick, my Erikka was diagnosed with the same disease, valley fever. I was devastated. Luckily Erikka remained pretty healthy until her last day. There were mornings where I knew she was feeling poorly, but still she wanted to go to work with me. She loved her job. I have a hunch that Erikka and I had one thing in common: our work was a big part of our self-worth.

But there came the morning when I woke up, looked at Erikka, and could tell right away she had taken a turn for the worse. She really felt awful. I remember the panic. I called the veterinarian and made an appointment to take her in at once. But before bundling her into the truck I called Beatrice Lydecker, with whom I had once spoken about Erikka, to see if she could give me any insight.

Beatrice Lydecker is the author of several books, among them What The Animals Tell Me, and Stories the Animals Tell Me. When I first had heard about Beatrice and her uncanny ability to communicate with animals, I had been skeptical, but having used her services I had become a believer. She had worked with several veterinarians in puzzling cases where perhaps a horse was having difficulties and the vet couldn't figure out what was going on, and Bea was sensitive enough to be able to feel how the animal felt, where it was hurting and help the veterinarian to locate the problem. She would also do phone consultations and communicate with pets and help their owners over the phone. Distance was immaterial. So I called Beatrice, told her what was going on with Erikka and that I was about to rush her to the vet. I asked her what she thought.  Should I cancel all of my appointments and stay at home with her all day? Yes, Beatrice replied, that would be a good idea. And so that was decided and off to the vet I went. The doctor was clearly concerned when she saw Erikka, but could not tell exactly what was going on. She drew a blood sample and gave her a huge injection of vitamins as an interim measure. You could see Erikka felt better almost immediately. As we drove home to await the results of the blood test Erikka was obviously happier, sitting up and looking out the truck window. Once home I tried to make her comfortable. She had always had a thing about keeping her eye on me every second so I made her a bed on a couch and sort of positioned it in the middle of the living room so she could see me wherever I was. I made sure to not be out of her sight for long: I didn't want her to have to come looking for me.

Alas, the improvement from the vitamins shot was short-lived. As the day wore on and I kept checking on her I could see she was feeling worse by the hour. She was gradually losing her ability to move, and by the hour I could see her loosing her vision. She was going blind, she could barely lift her head, and I myself was almost blind with grief. I was in tears, humbled, powerless and totally in Gods hands. I remember praying, crying "God, you're the only one that can save her." Then, I heard these words: SHE WILL BE REPLACED WITH SOMETHING MUCH GREATER... That was a shock! Where did those words come from? The voice was loud and clear. I looked around the room in wonder, trying to see who had spoken these words. They weren't my words. Replacing Erikka was certainly not on my mind at that moment. But this experience actually shocked me out of my grief and panic until later that evening. Around nine o'clock my girlfriend Cindy came home from work.  She took one look at Erikka and she too knew that this was it. By this time the poor dog was almost totally blind and unable to even lift her head. Again panic grabbed and shook me. I couldn't just sit there!!

Grasping at straws I called Beatrice again, not really thinking she would answer the phone at that time of night since she had strict office hours. To my surprise she did answer. And her first words, even before I spoke were "Yes Karyn,". I told her Erikka was dying and I really didn't know what to do. There really was nothing I could do, she replied adding, "You know when you called this morning I felt like she was dying but I really didn't want to say that over the phone till I was sure."

"Karyn," she continued, "do you believe in Heaven?" "Yes, why?" I answered. She said, "Well, it might help you to know that dogs go to heaven too! I said "What?", thinking what kind of story is this? Then she described how when dogs are very near death they see this big green grassy hill with a bright white light behind it. When they go over the hill into the white light they go to heaven too. And again I'm thinking, "yeah what is this lady telling me?"

Beatrice continued: "Karyn, whenever a dog dies some dog that it has known in their lifetime comes down to lead it up over the hill. Right now you have a solid black, little female German Shepherd there with you to lead the way for Erikka."

"You mean Ingrid?", I said. Immediately on hearing me mention that name, Erikka started screaming and throwing her body struggling to sit up. "Erikka, is Ingrid here?", I asked. And she screamed again, trying to sit up saying to me as clearly as if she spoke English, "YES, YES INGRID IS HERE!.

I got it! I was astounded! I had never mentioned anything to Beatrice about Ingrid and Ingrid, who had died approximately a month and a half before, was indeed a solid black little female German Shepherd. I got off the phone with Bea, still dumbfounded. Of course to test what I had just heard I asked Erikka one more time and she again told me in the same way, YES!

Still not satisfied, still wanting to save her, after I got off the phone with Bea I called the veterinarian at home. "This is it," I said, "she's dying. What are we going to do? We talked for a moment and then I said "Shall I bring her in and maybe you can give her another shot?" All at once Erikka started screaming at me again but this time she was saying NO, NO, and it was only when I told her, "It's OK, you can stay" that she relaxed. The veterinarian heard her screaming over the phone and cried, "My God, Karyn, is that her?" I said yes, and she intuitively knew what Erikka was telling me. She said, "Karyn, you've got to let her go!"

That was it. I got off the phone. I knew the time had come and there was nothing I could do to stop things.

I lay down beside Erikka. She really did not want to go.  But I told her, "It's OK, you can go now." She was terribly tense, so I started calming her with my voice, telling her to relax. Speaking quietly to her I soothed her into a relaxed state and she seemed to slip away. Sure that she was now gone I sat up, but she came back again, so once more I went through the whole procedure of relaxing her, and the next time I felt her slip away I just lay there and stayed still till she was gone. I helped her leave. God was everywhere in that room at that moment. And as sad as it was, there was a joy that it was over. Erikka had climbed that grassy hill into the light, and God was there everywhere. I didn't go to bed sad that night; on the contrary, I was full of peace. I was overwhelmed, astounded by the miracle of God's presence. Of course, when I woke up next morning I held Erikka close to me, and cried for hours over my loss.

Years later I was involved in a seminar by the Shanti foundation, an organization which operates as a support system for people who are terminally ill. The seminar gives you training which, upon completion, qualifies you as a volunteer for the organization. The concerns and feelings of someone near death are brought to light, so that you in turn can understand them and be a good support system. You can well imagine the gravity and sadness that training of this sort would bring up for those attending.

I thought I was faring quite well through the program until they showed a video of people being interviewed who were very near death. Over and over again the dying reported experiences such as seeing a deceased aunt standing at the foot of the bed, knowing the aunt had come to show them the way. It was during this video that I burst into tears as hearing from the lips of humans what my Shepherd had told me so many years before. I know dogs go to heaven, too. After all, as Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs, once said, "It wouldn't be heaven without dogs!"

For years I have looked for the right words that could identify why the love we feel for our pets is so special. It was actually the next morning after writing this chapter that I finally arrived at ...