On Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 Luna, a one year old German Shepherd, died in surgery at an emergency vet hospital after a spay with complications.  To say that losing her this way was stunning and beyond comprehension would be understating the surreal devastation of that day and all the days following. 

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Much of Luna's life had been recorded through video and pictures.

She was an inspiration to me on so many levels. Sometimes a bit of a puzzle when helping her learn to combine her confidence and her uncertainty to evolve into the magnificent creature she was maturing to be.  

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So WOW In all ways, except for the videos, she is gone.  

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Realistically, thinking about her is too painful for all who loved her right now. 

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Still, it feels selfish not to share at least some of the work that we did together and the unique growth of character, confidence and happiness which were all part of her first year.

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Learning with Luna will be a scrapbook, a listing of videos showing fragments of her life with the projects we were working on.   Her enthusiasm for learning and new things grew partially for her intense trust in her people. The reason she trusted us is that we met her where she was and learned to take our cues from her.  We taught her skills she would need  in environments where she didn't need them so she was well practiced and proficient before she needed to be. 

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I struggled with naming this learning 'with' or 'from' Luna.  I chose the present tense intentionally.  Luna was a complicated and powerful dog with tremendous potential for many things.  I always told her friends that we were going to teach her to use her powers for good.  As we all learn from Luna her magical super powers are still here and still being used for good. 

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Luna's story will be a memory book.  I'm doing this to share my experiences with a dog I'm actively and passively grieving so perfection is not part of my goal.  

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So much love, attention and energy went into Luna's first and only year with us.  Going through old texts I found this description of her that I'd sent to a friend about a month before Luna died:

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"This dog in a video is an example of the still water that runs deep. My goal with her is to keep all the good feelings that I can bubbling up from all the places in her brain so we can access them going forward in all the places and newness that happens as she gets older.  To start with I want to get her to eighteen months without any dramatic event or setback. As you can see we are on track!."

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We were all so naive to think we would be able to keep her for longer......

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A few weeks later I wrote him this the day after she died: 

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"Remembering Luna will be a listing of videos of her life with the projects we were working on.   Her enthusiasm for learning and new things grew partially for her intense trust in her people. The reason she trusted us is that we met her where she was and learned to take our cues from her.  We taught her skills she would need  in environments where she didn't need them so she was well practiced and proficient before she needed to be."

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Each button below is a link to a story about part of Lunas life and training. 

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Thank you for reading her story.