Jasper is still sleeping when I wake up. He sleeps a lot these days. He’s sprawled out, taking up half the bed like he always does. I nudge him gently with my foot, but he keeps dozing. That’s okay. He can sleep in. Today is his day.

Today we are celebrating Jasper’s Day. It was my idea. Mom and Dad are staying home from work. I’m staying home from school. Everything we do will be in honour of Jasper - sort of like a birthday. But it isn’t Jasper’s birthday, and I tell myself not to think about what day it really is.

Riley’s family celebrates Jasper’s last day. In the morning, their beloved Golden Retriever gets his very own serving of his favourite breakfast - scrambled eggs with cheese, and bacon. Riley remembers to bring the camera as he and his family take Jasper out for a ride in the van.

The family drives to Jasper’s favourite stream where he used to swim and fetch sticks when he was more agile. Jasper’s sight and hearing are also failing, and his arthritis makes it difficult for him to move about. After the stream, Riley and his parents stop at The Big Scoop for a treat. Riley’s father orders the “usual” for Jasper and himself - butterscotch ripple. Riley’s father tells the ice-cream shop owner about Jasper, and the man comes out to the van to say good-bye to one of his loyal customers. After the ice cream, the family stops at Riley’s Grandma’s house, and she and her dog, Nikki, bid farewell to Jasper. Along the journey, Riley has taken several photographs of Jasper.

The family returns home, but only Riley and his mother get out of the van. It is time to say goodbye. Riley whispers in Jasper’s ear, “You’re the best dog in the whole world.” Jasper licks Riley’s cheek, and then he and Riley’s father depart. Even though Riley knows that the veterinarian will give Jasper a shot and death will be quick and gentle for Jasper, it is terribly difficult to say goodbye to his beloved dog.

Riley’s father returns home with Jasper’s body wrapped in an arrowhead blanket, and the family buries him in the backyard. They gently place Jasper’s old chew toy, a stick, his water dish and a picture of the family in his grave. The family laughs and cries as they remember Jasper and say their final goodbyes.

That night, the house is empty without Jasper. Riley’s chest aches as he tries to fall asleep. Mom and Dad got Jasper before he was even born; Jasper had always been in his life. Tomorrow will be Riley’s first day without Jasper.

Riley looks at the photograph of himself and Jasper on his nightstand and thinks of all the photographs he took today, he gets the idea to make a memory book of Jasper’s life. He will never forget his friend.

Marjorie Blain Parker’s tender and unsentimental treatment of a child’s dealing with the death of a pet resonates with readers of all ages. The gentle and honest story speaks of lessons about love, acceptance, and remembrance. Janet Wilson’s soft and expressive illustrations are rendered in chalk pastels on coloured paper.

Jasper’s Day won the ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award.

A Memory Book for Harry

Recently, a friend in our online community lost her Golden Retriever to an aggressive cancer. The story of Harry and the beautiful memory book that was created for him and his surviving sister Lucy appears on our sister site, Red Star Café. The story includes a YouTube version of the memory book, with a haunting rendition of Into the West by Annie Lennox (from Lord of the Rings). Read the story here.

A border collie who builds pyramids out of raincoats at sunset on stormy wet days? A dalmatian who fills tire holes with vegetables? A staffordshire bull terrier who arranges cow bones into circles? A beagle who hangs socks on a fence? A vizsla who organizes leaves into separate color piles in the shape of a cross?What explanation could there possibly be for these strange phenomena? Delve deep into these canine mysteries with Dr. Raymond Blake, a canine cultural heritage researcher and Penelope Winters, a spiritualist and diviner.

The extraordinary photographs in Dog Works document a wide variety of strangely beautiful canine constructions, while the accompanying text examines the motivation behind them from two opposing perspectives.

Are these dogs creating their structures as a result of inherited, breed specific, behavioral characteristics or are they responding creatively in a more spiritual and psychic way to unseen forces we humans have yet to understand?

For their inspiration, may we suggest a visit to our sister site, Red Star Cafe, to see the environmental art of British sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy?

A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

During the first week of the battle for Fallujah, Marines securing an abandoned warehouse heard a strange sound. What they found was a “ball of fur not much bigger than a grenade.” The battalion adopted the puppy, and this is the inspiring story of their struggle to keep him alive and ship him back to the States.

An excerpt from the book, by Jay Kopelman:

I heard someone say once that guilty people live violent lives. At the time, I didn’t really get it, but if what they meant was the way guilt waits in ambush, traps your well-trained sense of control and then tortures you into confessions you’d just as soon not make, I now understand.

I mean, I guess it’s guilt. That’s one part of my confession. Maybe it’s just what the therapist calls post-traumatic stress, even though I’ve only been home for a week, or maybe some chemical imbalance brought on recently by any number of issues or maybe just residue from the sleeping pills still floating through my blood stream, but hell, what else besides guilt has the capacity to beach land so much fear?

Anxiety, maybe. Anxiety assumes less culpability, implies less of an offense, offers more of an excuse. Or compulsiveness. Along with nightmares, flashbacks, moodiness, alcoholism and depression, they said something about a compulsive disorder that could send your brain cells scurrying into all sorts of witless directions, and between checking incoming email, praying for the phone to ring and counting the paces between one wall and the next, it seems entirely plausible.

But then, so did getting Lava out of Iraq in the first place, and how impeachable was that offense after Allah, Jehovah, Jesus, Lady Luck and Santa Clause made it pretty clear it wasn’t on their list of things to do this year?

I check the email again. Nothing. It’s the middle of the day there in Baghdad, the middle of the night here in California and no time in particular everywhere else in between. Something must have gone wrong.

I mean, what else besides guilt would drive a man to do what I did back there? Obsession, perhaps, but that implies a lifetime of prescription slips from the therapist and besides, not everyone involved in the rescue—the Marines, the journalists, the Iraqis, the personal security guys — could be crazy. Maybe they could. Nothing seems right-side-up anymore and hasn’t for some time now.

I think the pacing is what’s getting to me. The back-and-forth unearths all kinds of radioactive crap I don’t want hanging around. Like a lot of faces. Weird, dreamy faces. Faces of stray dogs I fed at the Syrian border. Faces of embedded journalists in Fallujah with terror dripping down them like sweat. Faces of Iraqis smashed into the street like ripe banana meat under your boot and the question of whether a face is really a face if there’s no one home behind it.

Mostly, though, faces of people who risked their lives to try and help save Lava. They bother me the most, and that’s the second part of the confession. I think we all let the mangy, little flea-bitten refugee get to us—as if compassion was some sinister germ intent on infection—and now that we’ve all been bitten by the contagion, now that it comes down to the end, now that all other roads of escape are closed for good, I feel responsible to them to make sure Lava gets out alive.

Maybe the little shit is dead already. Or maybe they didn’t make it through and he’s now lost on the streets of Baghdad wondering where everybody went.

There were so many times when I figured the best thing for the little guy was to just shoot him in the head—yeah, yeah, I know how that sounds—but really, I mean I couldn’t stand the thought of him joining the other stray dogs who hobbled around on three legs looking for bodies to eat. I remember after the initial bombing in Fallujah, there were dead Iraqis all over the place and seeing dogs feasting on the remains and thinking this must be the only place on Earth where the dead nourished the living and how screwed up that seemed. Now I pray that if Lava doesn’t make it through, he’ll find a body somewhere in Baghdad to keep him alive for just one more day.

Which brings me to the third part of the confession: No matter how bad things get, it’s still better to be alive. And I want Lava to stay alive. I want to know he’s breathing and leaping after dust balls and chasing imaginary enemies in his sleep. I want him to be alive, because then there’s still hope that he’ll make it here to California and get to be an American dog who runs on the beach and chases the mailman instead of strangers with guns. I want him to be alive almost more than anything I can think of.

The fourth part of the confession is that when the phone finally rings, I don’t want to answer it…

Lava’s story on CBS News

A Soldier’s Gift: Sgt. Peter Neesley and his dogs, Mama and Boris