Dealing with the loss of a family pet can be hard, especially if you have small children! At the same time it is heartwarming to see their simple faith that everything will be OK.

We had a sad day about a month ago when our family pet became very ill. Mia, our family watch dog, had come home with us as a puppy when we celebrated buying our first house. My kids were only four and two.

We called her ‘the family dog’, but she was really my husband’s.  She watched his every move, and ignored me, and put up with the children with a kindly but bored expression. She never barked, or tried to dig holes, and we all loved her like she was part of the family!

She became very sick very fast, and the vet couldn’t help. He said she looked like she had been poisoned! She couldn’t walk, so my husband had to make the hard decision. He had her put down, and asked a friend if we could bury her on his wooded acreage in the country.

I and my husband dug the grave, and laid her in it. The children covered her with fresh flowers and grass, and we put in the biggest dog bone we could find. I and my husband were both crying - and my husband doesn’t cry!  My two older kids looked at each other , then my daughter put her arms around him and said,

“It’s OK, Daddy! Don’t cry, Mia is running in the sky and chasing rabbits!”

And just like that, it was OK. We still miss her, but her daughter Jingles is in our back yard, and somewhere, Mia is chasing rabbits!