I watched a video online the other day about a dog named Spot; perhaps you’ve seen it.  Everyday, when Spot knows its time for his  master, Buck, to come home from work, he goes to the end of the drive and waits for the familiar sight of Buck’s truck.  Spot is there everyday, waiting and watching but the problem is, Buck was killed by a drunk driver five months prior.  After weeping my face off, I had to wonder; at what point, in our relationship with our dogs, does the mutual existence go from master and pet to solid best friends forever?  I think it happens so naturally that we aren’t aware until a moment in life opens our eyes.  We know devotion but we rarely comprehend it’s depth until we witness it first-hand and, even then, it leaves us breathless.  Those of us who have children have gone through times contemplating the horror of what would happen to them if we didn’t come home but we don’t think about what our pet would go through.  With a child, you can offer an explanation to why Daddy won’t come home anymore but that’s a luxury you don’t have with a dog.  Dogs have almost all of the same emotions we have but they express them nakedly, much as we would if we were stripped of our pretensions.  Maybe that is why we experience such sadness when we see videos like the one about Spot; we see ourselves in our pets.