When people find out that we adopt senior dogs and our mission at Cogs Dogs is to help save more seniors, we often get questions and comments like “How can you adopt seniors knowing you won’t have them for long? How do you deal with the heartache of losing them so soon? I could never handle the heartbreak. I don’t know how you do what you do.” To say that every loss doesn’t make it hard to breathe or hard to get up in the morning, I would be lying. With every loss, no matter how long we’ve had our dogs, it is extremely heartbreaking, sad, confusing, and everything in between.
With all our seniors, we’ve never looked at them and thought that we couldn’t save them just because we may not have them for very long. We adopt older dogs for this exact reason, because we don’t know how long they have left. We always want to make damn sure that their final time is spent knowing nothing but love, feeling safe, and having a family through their final journey.
To me, having a dog in my family isn’t about the length of time we get to spend with them. While I would love to have every dog furever, my focus with our past, current, and future seniors is to give them the best of the rest of their life no matter how long or short that may be! With Champ, our first senior, we only had him for 2.5 months. During those months, we loved him so much and it felt like we had him for years because of how awesome everyday was with him. Yes, losing him so quickly was absolutely devastating because of this loss, I knew that saving seniors was my purpose in life and I had to continue with the journey. His death showed me the path of saving more seniors. We wanted his legacy to live on through every dog we saved after him.
Everyone deals with grief differently and there’s no right or wrong way, as long as there’s no harm involved. With me, my grief journey of losing Champ led me to our next seniors, Bosley & Diesel within a week of losing Champ. While no dog will ever replace another, Bosley & Diesel helped me personally with my grief of losing Champ. Each loss hurts so incredibly much and at the same time I know I must continue the journey, not just for the dogs but for me as well. This is now my life’s purpose! I’m 100% okay with my heart breaking if it means saving more seniors and being able to give them all the love they deserve, no matter how long or short that time may be. This is why we adopt senior dogs! Please consider opening your heart to adopt a senior in need!
With Love & Pawsitivity,
Susie Cogswell, Cogs Dogs Mom
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