G.K. Chesterton once said, “The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

Sad to say, we often don’t fully appreciate what we have in life until it’s gone.

I believe Scottie Angels send short-lived Scotties into our experience to teach us the meaning of days … and moments. Because our dog’s lifespan is so compressed relative to ours, each moment is as seven.

Our Scottie companionship ought to reflect that awareness. If we realize that death is the other side of the coin of birth, that the “too soon, too soon!” is real from the beginning; if we embrace from the start our all too soon Scottie-shaped hole at our center when their short days are over, we will know going into our relationship never to take Scottie moments for granted.

That’s not counsel to avoid relationship and bonding. It’s wake up call to the fact Scotties, and all of life, are gifts, not givens to be taken for granted. Life is not what we choose or plan or intend. Life is what we live on our way to our ‘plans’.

Have you hugged your Scottie today?

Joseph Harvill, publisher of Great Scots Magazine