{"id":58325,"date":"2025-04-15T08:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T08:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58325"},"modified":"2025-04-16T09:26:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T09:26:25","slug":"dogs-are-in-fact-loved-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58325","title":{"rendered":"Dogs are in fact &#8216;loved ones&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I saw a social media post that declared, &#8220;Losing a dog is almost as bad as losing a loved one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hah! &#8220;Almost as bad&#8221;? I beg to differ. Losing a dog is just like losing a loved one. At least that&#8217;s the case in my house.<\/p>\n<p>I live in North Texas and am the parent of an energetic 6-year-old Chihuahua mix named Sabol,\u00a0 Sabol joined my family right after I returned from an overseas vacation in September 2024. We met at a park in Princeton and fell in love with each other immediately.<\/p>\n<p>You see, Sabol was living with a woman who is in failing health and her daughter sought to find a new home for the puppy. That&#8217;s when I came along. Sabol took the place of another Chihuahua mix pooch I lost in December 2023 to cancer. I wrote extensively about Toby the Puppy over the nine years he brought joy to my household. I lost Toby the same year cancer claimed my bride of 51 years. Indeed, Toby&#8217;s passing provided a symbolic bookend to the worst year of my life. I said farewell to Kathy Anne near the beginning of 2023 and I said the same to Toby the Puppy near the end of that horrific year.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t equate the losses. I won&#8217;t say that losing Toby was the same as losing Kathy Anne. I will say, though, that letting Toby go after his battle with cancer became too much for him hurt just like &#8220;losing a loved one.&#8221; I loved Toby very much.<\/p>\n<p>And I love Sabol just as much.<\/p>\n<p>I long ago ceased referring to myself as a &#8220;pet owner.&#8221; I am a proud &#8220;pet parent,.&#8221; And like any parent can fathom, losing a loving furry baby brings plenty of pain.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a social media post that declared, &#8220;Losing a dog is almost as bad as losing a loved one.&#8221; Hah! &#8220;Almost as bad&#8221;? I beg to differ. Losing a dog is just like losing a loved one. At least that&#8217;s the case in my house. I live in North Texas and am the parent &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58325\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dogs are in fact &#8216;loved ones&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10124,10406,6016],"class_list":["post-58325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-kathy-anne","tag-sabol-the-puppy","tag-toby-the-puppy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58325"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58331,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58325\/revisions\/58331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}