Charlie's Story is Unfolding

Once Upon A Time a golden cat was abandoned on the busy highway at the edge of a sleepy border town.... 

It's another true story!  Our lives are a little different now since returning from a recent week in New York. While we were away this orange cat took up residence on our porch. He made himself quite at home ...and he has never left. Having already become the local "Resident Cat" here in our neighborhood, life is really quite good for him. Yet he has no home to call his own. He clearly had a loving home at one time, for he is loving, tame, domesticated, clean and smart! Yet he survives within the feral community around us, for the girls come around to see him, neutered and all.  

Will he take up residence with Kate and Joey and Immy?  Will he choose to go with Katsy, who is lonely and wants him desperately to live with her and who gives him all the comforts of home?  Will he adopt himself into the feral community where Tiny, the elderly man next door puts out a Friskies Buffet every day and leaves his door open for 'his' cats to freely come and go? Or perhaps he will choose to stay with Dennis, the loving owner of the park, who waits for Charlie to make his daily rounds and who, with his poodle's approval, allows Charlie to roam freely in and around his house. It was Dennis who arranged for him to be neutered. It was Dennis who started calling him "Ocher" for his color, long after Kate started calling him "Charlie." "Charlie," because not only does he somehow look like her father, Charles, he is the spitting image of Charles's little cat Barney, who fell through the ice at their Canandaigua home many long years ago.  Who IS this golden feline? 

Destiny is at work once more. How it will end? Find out soon, as Jack McAfghan tells the story that is By Design and unfolds in the lives of those in the sleepy little border town in Arizona.  

Subscribe to updates at www.katemcgahan.com! 
We'll keep you posted on progress! 

When We Truly Love, We Love Everything --- And Want To Take Care Of Everything

You know how it goes in the human mind. You see something that upsets you. You start imagining everything. You can't seem to turn it off. 

She saw a man in the city yesterday near the main intersection. He was walking about ten steps ahead of his very old-looking pit bull. The dog could hardly lift it's feet off the hot pavement, perhaps was dehydrated. A worn leather leash dragged by its side while the sauntering man chewed and spit his tobacco onto the curb ahead. 

While sitting at the stoplight Kate watched the man. The dog. Kate started crying. She passed through that intersection three different times during the course of the day. Every time she did, she cried for that ragged old dog. She worried that he was not being treated with care. That he was not loved. And yet he was so loyal to keep following his master. Her mind took over and created the worst possible scenarios! Had he had any water? Were his paws burning up? Couldn't his owner even hold his leash? What happens in the privacy of their home? She cried well into the evening. You know how it goes with the human mind that wants to care for and protect every living creature that exists.  She did not know how to stop thinking about that poor dog.

Then....Then she picked up our book, the one we wrote together. She opened it to Chapter 92. She read it... and then Chapter 93. She went back to Chapter 37 and read about Rox, the Rottweiler. 

She isn't crying anymore.

She could have taken a photo of the dog. The man. But she had too much respect for the dog to do that.
This photo that looks quite similar -- but the dog is much younger and healthier.... This is what the old tired dog will look like by the time he returns to Rainbow Bridge.

Love, Jack 🐾

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR: "Things Come in Threes" by Laurie Eberle O'Brien

WRIGLEY

It is often said that sometimes things come in three's. I have witnessed that to happen, but did not pay that close of attention to it until I realized it has happened to me. As I reflect back to 15 years ago, it is hard to believe that it has been that long since we welcomed our first dog into our home. I grew up with them off and on, but did not have much of an interest in having one of my own. Fast forward to 2001 when our son was 12 and we had already been married for 20 years. 

I will always remember when we told him that we were "just going to look." Ha! Not only did we bring home an 8 week old, five pound bundle of fur, we brought home something that we had no idea could bring us so much joy and love for almost 15 years. 

Wrigley, you defined love. Pure and simple. There will NEVER be another you. You taught our family more than I can ever express to anyone. Your sweet disposition was infectious. The fun we had with you, the laughs you gave us, and the joy you brought to our lives cannot be measured in words. 

WRIGLEY

Your last couple of years were a challenge, as you battled seizures,Cushing's disease, and a myriad of other issues. But you refused to give up. You fought some very big battles being the warrior that you were. But in May, I knew you were getting tired and that's when we had to face the hardest decision of our lives. We did not want to let you cross. Your eyes were what told us. You were ready and as you passed in my arms, it was the hardest day of my life. My heart will never be the same. 

The house was too quiet. I did not want to go through that pain again, but God knew better. He knew our hearts. We decided to rescue this time. Dexter was your twin, Wrigley. But the difference was he was 9 and had a hard hard life. We were going turn that around for how ever many years he had left. We fell hard. I was thinking he would feel right at home....right away. How was I to know it would not be so quick? For 30 hours he did not move off of the couch, did not eat or drink and cowered as we approached him, even as lovingly as we did.

DEXTER

I finally got him to go for a walk at midnight. It had stormed that night and he clearly was apprehensive of our walk, sitting down every few steps as if he was asking permission. We were so ready to love him and teach him that our love for him would be as unconditional as his would be for us. I came back into the garage and as I praised him and unleashed him, he bolted. He grew wings as he ran, and I did not have those same wings to catch him. We searched but it was an unusually black night and it was as though he disappeared. He was found the next morning less than a quarter of a mile from home. He had been killed by a car. If only he would have trusted us. But why should he have? No one ever had given him reason to trust so he took the opportunity to run, and run he did. The wound was ripped right open again. The guilt has not left me. 

It was right after that I saw Jack's book offer on FB. I read it in almost one sitting and literally soaked paper towels as I read. What an incredible couple of hours that was. It touched me more than any dog book I have ever read and I read ALOT. Wow wow wow is almost all I could say in my review on Amazon. What an incredible way to tell a story full of so much love and wisdom, that it's almost palatable. What a find!!!! Coincidence? Fate? Luck?

Well, shortly after that I got a message that a friend of mine's sister runs a pet store and had a customer looking for a home for her daughter's dog. She could not care for her any more. She wasn't good with children (as they teased her) and she needed an adult home. Would I be interested? I did not give myself time to think about it and I know that Wrigley and Dexter had a hand in this. 

We welcomed her into our home in mid September and have never looked back. A white fluff ball whom we affectionally renamed "Kate." Our first and only "daughter" and little sister to our boys. I have to think that we have to crawl before we walk, that God promises a safe landing, but not always a calm passage. We are loving her more and more every day. Is it with the intensity that we did for Wrigley? No, and it may never be. Those are big "paws" to fill, but we don't expect her to fill them. They are too big for her and she doesn't have to for us anyway. 

KATE

So as we begin to heal, we want to believe that Kate was brought into our lives to help us do just that. She sure has her own little personality and sweetness about her. One thing we do know is that Wrigley taught us more about life than most people can even begin to teach us. He knows we have plenty of room in our hearts and so many more of his brothers and sisters need loving homes for the rest of their days.....no matter how limited those may be.

We hope and pray that this "third," as it has come in threes, is with us for many years to come. We do this in honor of our boys, never in place of them.

Thank you to both Kate's (yes, she was named after our one and only!) for showing us that we can open our hearts and love again. There is no reason not to.

Story submitted by Laurie Eberle O'Brien

Author Kate McGahan (L) and guest contributor Laurie O'Brien (R) in September 2015
Poco Diablo Resort, Sedona Arizona 

Every Pet Brings New Lessons to Learn

It is a strange dis-ease, when you get another pet while grieving the last one. The ease of being with the one you loved and were so familiar with, combined with the new challenges of training and getting to know the new one can be complex. Your previous pet taught you how to love even more than you ever did before, so please honor them by using what we have taught you... to love again. 

There are many many pets who have been rescued -- or are not rescued yet but need to be -- who are just waiting to be loved. 

You will find that if you take the chance again, they ultimately help you to learn to love again, this time in a different way. 

The Most Important Lesson

Dogs are sent here to help humans learn to love and be loved. 

Sometimes we pay the price of being vulnerable 

but most of the time we get as much love back as we give.  

Sometimes more. 

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