“You’ve been tagged!”
I bet you’ve gotten that subject line a few times over the years, and if you’re like me and it’s not the sort of social networking that floats your boat, you just deleted the email and got on with life. But for those of us who have loved dogs and cats throughout our lives, “tagged” has a totally different meaning.
Responsible owners have long understood the importance of keeping their fur babies up to date with necessary shots. The jingle made by Curly Jean as she trotted up and down the stairs to and from her clandestine spot at my parents’ bedroom door wasn’t from a bell. It was her name tag and rabies’ tag lightly clinking together: pure music which will live in my memory forever.
As I mentioned last week, I keep the tags for Dudley, Sterling, and Curly Jean on my key chain.
Here they are spread out. The top two tags weren’t actually worn by Curly Jean and Sterling. They are tags I had made years after they had passed away when we were doing testing for our Together Tag Safe Pet Registry & Alert Network.
As memorials go, my particular method comes across as being pretty lame compared to what people have been posting to last week’s column, “How Do You Honor the Memory of a Dog?” The article obviously struck a chord, because the comments are still coming in.
Some of you also posted pictures:
And the descriptions of garden memorials, curio cabinets, special Christmas stockings, and other precious memorials sound simply wonfurrful — so wonfurrful that I want to see them. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
To that end, this is what I thought we could do.
Send photos of your memorials to me at Dogsters@Dogster.com with “Watch Dog Pet Memorial Column” in the subject heading. Be sure to use the email address you use to log in to Dogster or include your pet’s ID number, because everyone who sends a photo will receive 100 Zealies.
That’s right. EVERYONE!
And (cue the movie guy announcer voice), that’s not all. There’s no expiration date for this one!
If you read this article a month from now and send me a picture of your pet memorial, you’ll still get 100 Zealies. There’s no expiration date for the memories we have for our departed fur babies, so why should there be one for getting Zealies for sending your memory photo?
Til next week!
