Christoph Willibald Gluck – Melody from the opera Orpheus and Eurydice

To Lose a Dog is To Know Grief

“The deepest bonds I’ve had in my life have been with my dogs. I have been in love, I have had friends who have mattered more than others, I have been married and divorced, I have found love again, and I’ve found the joy of becoming an uncle to a beautiful niece and nephew. I adore and love those relationships completely, and value them beyond belief.”

“Yet, the yearning, enduring relationship of spending your life with a canine companion is one that no human companion can match. I don’t write that to dismiss the relationships I’ve had in my life, but rather to accentuate the difference between a bond between a human and a dog. There’s something genuinely unique and special about that kind of companionship, and it’s within Dean Spanley that that relationship, in its purest form, is depicted.”