I want to share with you our feeling – mine and Maria’s – that Frieda is nearing the end of her time. She is becoming disoriented, her arthritis is keeping her in perpetual pain and other issues, and more significantly, her great and wonderful spirit is waning. I love Frieda very much, we have become quite attached to one another, but she is really Maria’s dog in the way that Red is my dog and decisions about Frieda and her life are Maria’s to make. My role is to support both of them in any way that I can.

Maria wrote about this in a beautiful essay about this on her blog today, My Old Dog. There is nothing imminent that is about to happen. But Frieda is  fading and struggling and we see that her wonderful work and life with us may be coming to an end soon. Frieda is a great dog. I believe she came to the world to protect Maria and to safeguard her when she was in great need and fear. In part, she came to bring us together. She did all that she came to do.

Frieda and Maria are powerfully connected to one another, it has been a beautiful thing for me to see, another great chapter in our lives with dogs and animals. I have my own ideas about dogs and life, as some of you know. I believe Frieda, like Rose before her, is a spirit dog, she came to the world for a purpose, she will leave when that work is done, just as Rose did.

Maria has her own feelings about life and death, and she can and will speak for herself, but we are not far apart, as usual. Frieda’s life will never be a cause for sadness and lament for me, she is the most wonderful and brave creature, she not only guarded Maria and me and our farm so faithfully, she endured great hardship and survived with determination. She and Maria were meant to be with one another. A life to celebrate and honor.

Maria sees the spirit fading in Frieda, and so do I, the great and often silent dialogue between human beings and their dogs is ending between us and Frieda, she is withdrawing into herself. We know the signs, we have seen it before. Frieda might be with us for a few months or for a few weeks, it is not possible for us to know, and there are no urgent decisions that need to be made. When there are, Maria will make them with my unqualified love and support.

For us, this will not be a drama or an anguish but a celebration, we will love and care for this wonderful creature to the end. She not only protected Maria when she needed to be protected but  she was instrumental in bringing the two of us together.

Spirit dogs come when they are needed, they leave when their work is done.  It would be so wonderful if she made it through the Open House and to Christmas with us, it was on Christmas Day five years ago that I brought her into the farmhouse at the first Bedlam Farm for the first time, and she has been in front of our wood stoves and in our hearts and lives ever since.

We will share this experience with insofar as we are comfortable – this is Maria’s story to share – and I will thank you in advance for loving Frieda and remind you to remember, please,  that we are not seeking advice or direction from the outside world and will not be posting daily updates. In sharing our lives, we are not surrendering them to others.