GOOD NIGHT, SWEET PRINCE
_{Robin and her dog, Scooter}

Robin is interviewed in the July 24 issue of Soap Opera Digest by psychic John Edwards. Her interview is on page 65 of the magazine. She talks about the loss of her pet, Mush, a 110-pound malamute-shepherd mix. "Something that frightens a lot of us, no matter what our spiritual backup, is the idea of dying and how it's going to happen. I don't have much of a pain threshold. I'm not even good with a headache or a trip to the dentist, so I'm going to need a little forgiveness and compassion if, when my time comes, I tell people that I'm out of resources, and don't have the fortitude to keep prolonging my life with various medical options." She says the quickest exit is best. She learned that 18 years ago when she was raising two sons and had to put the family dog to sleep. Robin cried during the interview as if it happened only last week, the writer relates. "After all this time, my grief is still enormous," she says. "Mush was diagnosed with inoperable nose cancer." Robin's vet told Robin that her dog would let her know when he's ready. Robin says that Mush began hemorrhaging. She cleaned up the blood and made her dog comfortable and the whole time, the dog never took his eyes off her. She got down on the floor and curled up with him--"me inside him instead of the other way around like we always did--and I knew he was ready to say good-bye." The vet came and Robin held Mush as the needle went into him. In seconds he closed his eyes and was gone. "I said, 'I hope, I trust, that we will meet again.'" She says that she prayed that her children would one day do something as compassionate for her. "His death was that peaceful."

Robin has a 13-year-old Maltese-bichon mix that she kind of thinks of as "not a dog, but an angel." She says that Scooter is an extraordinary caregiver and the "smartest, most present animal I've ever had." She describes Scooter as more than a companion but also a spiritual being. "I hope she'll be waiting for me when I die because my idea of Heaven is that we get to have all our pets back with us again, as well, of course, as the people we love."