Lady Hawk's Visit

From: Pat Wohlhutter (hutter@harlannet.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Iowa
Source: Form Submission

Nine years ago my husband and I adopted a friend's red Doberman, Lady Hawk. I was unsure about taking her, since I knew she had canine Von Wildebrands (hemophila), but could not resist her personality. She quickly became another member of our family and a wonderful companion.

We occasionally had emergency visits to our vet because of bleeding problems and eventually had to give her vitamin K daily. Through all she seemed to try to comfort us. Finally her poor body could take no more and she started bleeding through her kidneys. Within a week she had to be put down. We were broken hearted and kept wondering if we could have done more to help her.

Two days after her death I was working alone at my job and letting my mind wander. A warm, comfortable feeling suddenly came over me and I could feel a dog against my leg. I closed my eyes and started to cry, since it felt, sounded and smelled so familiar. In my head I could hear Lady telling me that my husband and I were grieving too hard, she was out of her pain. Also that she was so concerned for us that she had decided to come back. She was coming back as a puppy and not to worry, she would find my husband and let him know she was there. She would be another breed and healthy. And to call her Hawkeye.

I thought I had lost my mind in all the stress we had been through and told only a couple of friends and my husband what had happened to me. He said that at about the same time he had felt a strange calm.

A few weeks later my husband called my and told me that while on a service call in a rural area a chocolate lab puppy had walked up to him and sat at his feet. It looked up at him and stared into his eyes. He asked the farmer where the puppy came from and the farmer said it had just shown up. My husband sat down and the puppy climbed up on his lap and into his coat. He called him Hawkeye and brought him home.

At home he settled in quickly. At only 2 months when we found him, he was already housebroken. When I got Lady's kennel out of storage, he started barking until I got it set up and he ran in and went straight to sleep. When I took him to our vet for his vaccinations, she took one look at him and said it was odd, he seemed to have Doby eyes.

If you call him Lady, he runs to you. And when he got larger and I took Lady's old collar out of the desk, he barked until I put it on him. The first time that we took him to visit Lady's grave, he ran directly to it and sat to wait for us. We feel that we shared such a love that she came back to us.