After my the dog I had had for 10 years died, I went to a pet psychic for closure. She didn't tell me anything new, but it helped with my grief.
Courtesy of the author
I was driving my family's new puppy, Tino, to the vet one day when a pet psychic came on the radio. Curious, I turned the volume up. Tino, who we jokingly call the most chill puppy in the world, started howling every time the psychic spoke. When they went to commercials, he stopped, only to start again when she came on.
I felt like he was trying to tell me something. So, without thinking too much about it, I looked up her website and booked an appointment for a reading the very next day.
Before Tino, I had had another dog for 10 years named Violet. She was my ride-or-die.
I adopted her when I was in a relationship that I knew had no future. It wasn't a hail mary or an attempt to save it, but more of me preparing for the future and not wanting to be alone. From day one Violet was with me wherever I went.
Violet had had a traumatic past before she came into my life. The rescue group where I adopted her gave me very little information: she came from the south, she was in a kill shelter, and she was terrified of tall men.
I know this phrase is often overused, but I didn't rescue Violet; she rescued me. She managed to pull me out of my darkest time by licking my tears in an attempt to dry my eyes out and forcing me to get out of bed and out of the apartment for long walks. In return, I gave her all the love and snuggles a dog could take.
Violet was 10 when the vet told me that she had heart failure. She said she didn't know how long she'd live but that the four pills a day she had to take would make her comfortable until they didn't.
It only took five months for those pills to stop working, and I knew it was time.
I had promised to never let her suffer, so I made the incredibly painful decision to put her down. She died in my arms; I felt her heart come to a stop as I told her I would love her until the day we met again. That was two weeks ago.
Needless to say, I've been a mess since. Having Tino has helped because he has taken the job of licking my tears dry very personally. But I also miss Violet every day.
I don't know what I expected from my psychic reading. I wasn't looking for answers from her, we knew she had a great life and she hadn't suffered much before her death. But I just needed to hear something about her from a total stranger.
The psychic started talking about Tino and how he is a ball of love, which is the most accurate way of describing him. When she moved to Violet she said she had come to me the way she was going to be, there was no changing her. This made me laugh because it was so true. No matter how much I socialized her, she still hated men. The only guy she ever accepted ended up being my husband, as if she knew that he was safe, that he was going to be there for us forever.
She told me that Violet loved life, which was evident because that dog knew how to smile. She would chase squirrels without ever being able to catch any and would try over and over again every single day. She was the happiest snuggled between my legs while we watched a movie and would come running back every time we called her name.
The psychic said everyone knew Violet, which is funny because when we lived back in New York City, several people stopped me on the street to ask me if she was the famous Violet. She had been featured on The Dogist once and had also befriended all the dog owners in her adventures out with her walker.
The session ended without me getting anything new about Violet and her life. But hearing from someone else, someone who didn't know her, what a happy dog she was helped me heal a little bit.
