It was one year ago yesterday since we lost our dog Daisy, and I spent the whole day thinking about her. It is amazing how little memories flit through your head when you sit by a little backyard grave with a rock as a makeshift tombstone and think—memories you thought were tucked away and gone forever.

Like the way she would stand in our driveway barking like Cujo at neighbors, joggers and Girl Scouts selling cookies, shielding me with her body so vehemently she’d nearly knock me over. Or how she’d sit in the passenger seat of my car and try to get me to shake her paw while I was driving.  The way she’d listen to me bay at an imaginary moon for a thoughtful minute before joining in, until the two of us were synchronized in a howling wolf choir.  Or how, whenever I hugged her, she’d lift a front paw and strike a pose. She always looked like she was smiling, mouth wide and seemingly painted with black, goth lipstick.

Daisy was a survivor.  Before I came into the picture, she activated the garage door opener at Doug’s friend’s house, got lost in the dead of winter and came back, emaciated and scraggly, a full month later.  A year before she died, she fell into through the hole of our septic while it was being cleaned and clung to the edge for dear life until Doug fished her out.  She tapped into every last drop of her senses long after she lost her hearing and sight, when I would call her by clapping my hands so she could feel the vibrations through the ground.

I believe every animal that comes into our life brings us a message, and Daisy’s message was to forge ahead no matter what life throws at you.  If only I could do it as gracefully as she did.

There are two things this world high on the list of events that will change a person right down to the core.  One of those things is to love a dog with your very soul. The other, when that dog dies in your arms.

It’s funny, the things you’ll miss, after a year goes by.  The barking during kids’ naptime, holes in the lawn so big you could see China, the tumbleweeds of fur rolling through the house, the wet spots she left after sneaking on the couch and licking the cushions.

Well, maybe I don’t miss that stuff so much.  But how I do miss you, my Daisy Dog.

Since the onset of hunting season, Doug has found himself in a quandary.

“The Gantch is lonely,” he said while staring at the fifteen-pound salmon he pulled out of the lake at Mount Tom at this time last year and promptly mounted on the wall of his mancave (“Gantch” being short for “Gargantuan”).  “There’s a big, empty spot right next to him.  He needs someone to keep him company.”

With that, he spritzed female deer urine all over a spot in our backyard (yes, my husband invests in bottled doe piss), set up the critter cam, and waited.

The next morning, here’s who we discovered striking a pose for the camera.

I think of all the women out there wasting their time with singles bars, awkward blind dates and Match.com.  After fifteen dismal years of my own in the dating arena, it’s ironic that I’m just figuring it out now.

Ladies, all we really ever had to do is pee in a spray bottle.

It’s enough to put Ralph Lauren, Estee Lauder and Calvin Klein right out of business.