Dear feral dogs who showed up at our house last year and would not leave, no matter how long it had been since your last meal - who would not be trapped, no matter how delectable the bait - and who would not be tamed, no matter how often you ate from our hands or how curious you were about our comings and goings -
It's true, for most of the past 15 months I wished you would just leave, and now that you're gone, I wish you would come back.
I feel guilty about leaving for a long weekend, even though I topped your food dishes up extra tall and left an extra water dish, even though you'd been "home" alone for that long before, in worse weather.
I know better than to hope that you might be safe someplace else. So with two wishes I will try to let go of you: that whatever happened to you was quick; and that in puppy-dog heaven you will finally experience reciprocal love for someone other than each other.

