Today I picked up a photo book I put together of pictures and memories from early on to the end of our dog’s life. Neither my husband or I had a dog growing up so getting one along with having young boys, I was asking for more work. What was I thinking? I remember at the beginning, fifteen years ago, this puppy then followed me around the house, just like a toddler. I remember it driving me crazy. 
I was done with that stage and yet I am back in this mode. The puppy stage! Yikes. Perhaps ignorance on our part, too, and trusting this animal in my house with wood floors and a potty mishap. I was so done.
While my husband and boys bonded with this dog, I had not. With the urine accident, a day off work, we had a meeting of the minds. I told this sweet, beautiful dog that this was not to happen ever again. Strangely enough, it did not. It was that day, we bonded. Just like correcting a child, you correct and then you love. Amazing.
Those eyes and facial expressions tell everything and as time goes, you can understand and know exactly what they want, feel or need. Do they train us or do we train them?
Our schedule through the years were around this dog, getting up to going to bed, potty breaks, walks, food preferences, etc. How can you not love them?
This dog of ours was a rescue and I was the one to find it on Petfinder.com. Still I was the one that was losing my patience with it until that one day and everything changed.
Our days in the last fifteen years were filled with caring for this four-legged animal, but she filled our lives with joy, love and laughter. There were times that when things were not all that great in our home, she would lay at my feet or do something to make us laugh to break the sadness.
As the last few months brought on an oral cancer and having it removed, we knew our days were numbered. Still we felt we had a few months but proved to only be a month, if that, as another tumor occurrence returned. No more surgery, no more pain for our selfishness.
Remember the day I said we had a meeting of the minds and then the facial expressions, too? The day we scheduled to put her down, I had been trying to take pics of her and I wanted one so bad of me and her together. I swear, she looked at me and as if she said, Enough!
I looked at her and said, okay, no more. It was time. I knew she was then ready although we were not, yet we were for her.
Today, is one month and to pick up the photo book from the store, then realizing it is the one-month anniversary, tears rolled and still. Only four weeks but feels like forever ago. I sure miss that dog. 
Who rescues who? ❤️
Just sharing my life and present situation, as I try to adjust from one counselor of four years to another. I have to remember and remind myself that they are not the same.
As a client, we are allowed to ask questions. Also, prior to meeting with a new counselor, we should do our own due diligence and research of him/her. End result is to trust and go forward. Then the role is reversed, as the counselor asks many questions and gets to know us with our private, personal, deep-dark secrets and a relationship is built between a counselor-client of trust. 
It’s pretty awesome, especially when you can open up and share. Healing begins within you.
Counseling is not easy. Depending upon what you both are dealing with in these sessions, it is downright hard. Many times with my prior counselor, I have wanted to get up and leave in the middle of a session, other times never come back but I did because I was determined to move forward. It was no surprise to her, as we discussed those facts often. Thankfully, she was mean enough to put up with me and I appreciated and loved her more for that reason.
Depression can wipe anyone out and while I knew I was in depression, I did not realize just how bad. Hanging on by a thread for years due to life situations, a dead marriage, other areas and at times a bad hair day.
While I spent many years with her, and that being many, long and hard sessions, it was worth it all. At times, some sessions were like a breath of fresh air but many were down right in the trench digging through the muck of my life and situations where I did not want to continue and just give up and die. Apparently, I did not give up nor did I die. I believe without a doubt that the Lord led me to her and in those four years, we covered a lot of ground.
Just Pondering... 