White Shadow

Several years ago there was a TV series called 'White Shadow' and I believe it was about a basketball coach - but with my memory, it could have been football, etc.
This is not about the coach.
Maybe 15 years ago when we our Border Collie/English Sheep dog (Boots) started showing her age and didn't have as much bounce to the ounce, I decided to start looking for a playmate for her. My search led me to a local rescuer of abandoned dogs and cats and we visited her to see a young female Eskie that had been left behind by her family and was running the streets frightened and alone. When we met 'Snowflake' she had been bathed and brushed and presented herself with much poise. My first impression was 'I don't want a white dog' ... second comment 'I don't want a white long-haired dog'. This was when she very quietly came over to me, looked at me with the most beautiful brown eyes I had ever seen and gave me a very soft kiss on my hand. WOW ... don't do that to me. I stayed firm. I walked out of there without her.
Hubby & I talked about her on the way home, but I would not commit. The next day while I was at work, hubby pulled up out in the parking lot and walked into my office with this beautiful white long-haired four-legged beauty on a lead. Yep ... she was ours.
First thing we did was to try to come up with a new name ... Snowflake just wasn't going to do.
After watching her follow hubby around the house for a day or so, I commented that she was just like a shadow ... a White Shadow ... and that name stuck. She became 'Shadow' ... Shad for short.
We enjoyed several years of delight from this beauty who by the way had made Boots' last year a joy. They shared a food bowl, they even shared the cave behind the rocker, one wrapped around the lamp post and the other close beside her.
A few years after Boots was gone, I noticed that Shadow didn't often react to loud noises - she just slept on. It wasn't long before I realized that she was deaf, probably a result of the noise from the trucks that would whiz by her in the streets and the honking horns of cars trying to avoid her. We soon developed a method of communication that included eye contact and hand signals. She was truly loved.
I have a picture in a pewter frame given me by the Veterinarian that takes care of all our 'babies' that has 'Pick of the Litter' engraved on it and the note that accompanied it attached. This sits along side the pictures of the other loved ones of my family.
For some people pets just don't fit into their lives. For us, we have always had at least one (but mostly two). Pets are forgiving, they give unconditional love when they receive it and sometimes even when they don't receive it. People perhaps should learn from the devotion shared between pets and their families.