September 18, 2007 – Sunny, cool. In my life with dogs, few things have been as rewarding or meaning as the Hospice work Izzy is doing. Week after week, we enter the homes of strangers who are actively dying, and Izzy connects with them, and brightens their days. The smiles, exclamations, hugs and appreciation he gets are miraculous to me, especially given the fact that he spent the first five years of his life running in circles on a farm mostly outside. I don’t know how he does it, really. This morning, we went into a home where a man is in the final stages of life, suffering from dementia. He brightened at the sight of Izzy, who hopped up on the chair next to him, put his head in the man’s hand, and made him smile, more than once. How did I train Izzy to do that,  I was asked? I didn’t, I said. He just seems to know. Although we had hospice training, and Izzy is vet-certifed temperament wise, you can’t really train a dog to do that, at least I can’t. Glad he can though. He does good. I am lucky to have him.