Please consider making a contribution in memory of a beloved pet that has made an impact on your life. All "in memory of" donations will be posted here as a living tribute to your pet. In addition we will periodically post special photos and tributes on this page - send information to cindy@barringtonpaw.org. 

MEMORIAL REMEMBRANCES:

In 2009 the Simonsen Family of Jamestown lost 3 beloved canine family members; Brine, Gruden and Holden. They are missed very much by all of the human family members they left behind. We are grateful that the Simonsen's chose to remember these beloved canines with a generous donation to BPAW.

Daryl - you will never be forgotten

Boris - a wonderful kitty, missed by Joan and Tabitha

Baby - loved and missed by his mom and dad

Klod - he was a great cat

Xena - loved and missed

Lucy - much loved by the Collins family of Warren 

Audrey - beloved canine companion of the Karlin family

Bela - beloved cat of Judy Gobble

Hannah - beloved canine member of the Hampton family

Prince Mathewson - much loved by Betsy Mathewson

Beatrix Mello - much loved by the Mello family of Barrington

Lily Silk - beloved companion to the Silk family of Barrington

Kate Caskey - beloved companion to the Caskey family of Barrington

Jody Downs - beloved companion of Irene Downs

Max McMillon - beloved companion of the McMillion family

In memory of Spike, 1987 - 2004 seen here with "his kitten" and devoted side-kick Mad Dog.

The Seasons of Your Life

Jim Willis

It is the Spring of your life,
the beginning of our love.
I laugh at your foolishness,
show you what you need to know,
protect you from dangers you know nothing about,
and make sure you grow and glow with health.
We will play and practice until...

It is the Summer of your life.
My, what a beauty you've become!
You've grown into yourself and you live at full tilt.
Like the sun, you burn with a passion for life.
You've learned a lot,
but you may not appreciate everything until...

It is the Autumn of your life.
You've grown more sedate.
It's been so long since you were the source of any sort of difficulty that I've nearly forgotten the Spring of your life.
Your colors are still vibrant,
but I notice the tinge of frost on your muzzle -
foretelling that one season remains...

It is the Winter of your life,
and your eyes have grown as clouded as the December sky.
I will care for you as I did during the Spring of your life,
and promise that you will pass as gently as snow falling on frozen fields.
I will sit by your grave and weep,
and remember all the seasons of your life,

for all the seasons of my own.

PET LOSS SUPPORT

Go to www.petloss.com to find information and resources on pet loss and grief. This is also the home of the Monday night candle ceremony - a beautiful non-denominational ceremony which is celebrated around the world

Go to www.tufts.edu/vet/petloss to find information regarind the petloss hotline operated by tufts veterinary school

Go to www.rainbowbridge.com to read the rainbow bridge poem and find resources for dealing with your loss

The Best Place to Bury a Dog...

There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

by Ben Hur Lampman

Do They Know...

Do they know, as we do, that their time must come?
Yes, they know, at rare moments.
No other way can I interpret those pauses of his latter life, when, propped on his forefeet, he would sit for long minutes quite motionless-his head drooped, utterly withdrawn; then turn those eyes of his and look at me.
That look said more plainly than all words could: "Yes, I know that I must go." If we have spirits that persist-they have. If we know, after our departure, who we were-they do.

 
No one, I think, who really longs for truth, can ever glibly say which it will be for dog and man-persistence or extinction of our consciousness.
There is but one thing certain-the childishness of fretting over that eternal question. Whichever it be, it must be right, the only possible thing.
He felt that too, I know; but then, like his master, he was what is called a pessimist.

My companion tells me that, since he left us, he has once come back.
It was Old Year's Night, and she was sad, when he came to her in visible shape of his black body, passing round the dining table from the window end, to his proper place beneath the table, at her feet. She saw him quite clearly; she heard the padding tap-tap of his paws and very toe-nails; she felt his warmth brushing hard against the front of her skirt. She thought then that he would settle down upon her feet, but something disturbed him, and he stood pausing, pressed against her, then moved out toward where I generally sit, but was not sitting that night. She saw him stand there, as if considering; then at some sound or laugh, she became self-conscious, and slowly, very slowly, he was no longer there.

Had he some message, some counsel to give, something he would say, that last night of the last year of all those he had watched over us?
Will he come back again?

No stone stands over where he lies. It is on our hearts that his life is engraved.

John Galsworthy