Magical Moments with Our Dogs

Pogue trying hard not to notice appetizer snack pillows behind him.

Everybody wants at least one "magical" moment story with their dog. You know, the ones like you read about in James Harriot novels where our animal companions show a capacity for love and understanding we never knew imaginable. Moments that make your dog superior to Lassie saving Timmy's ass (again) in an abandoned well, barn fire or impending cattle stampede. You know what I'm talking about. The moments where you look at your dog and understand what all the hullabaloo is all about. Your dog is special. Your dog is amazing. Your dog is going to be in the next goddamn volume of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul!
Sadly, most of the time your dog is just, well cute. Or obnoxious. Or doing things that make you seriously wonder if they were dropped on their head a lot as a puppy. Nobody is writing a Disney screenplay for a live action movie about an incredible golden retriever who breaks into the garbage bin and vomits on your duvet after eating rotten cheese. Yet these are the day to day activities of our dogs, which I guess makes it even more divine when they finally do something magical. 
I'll be honest. I did not have a lot of faith that Pogue was anywhere close to the magic. In fact I kind of resigned myself to the fact that this deaf little holy terror would provide comic relief to our lives and that would be his lot in life. We have accepted that we will never be able to put toilet paper at human usage level as long as he lives with us. I sneak couch pillows into the house like a crack addict so my husband doesn't see them Pogue has destroyed so many. My $85 sunglasses were found cracked in half floating in his doggie pool last week. This is kind of the way it goes with Pogue Mahone. Sure he understand sign language, but he also understands like a hearing dog that just because we are signing "return to me those boxer shorts you hijacked from the laundry bin" doesn't mean he has to. We call it deaf-dog-selective-hearing. 
So imagine my surprise today to have a full blown magical moment with Pogue. It was late afternoon and I was laying on the couch half watching a movie. A storm was rolling through so I had the curtains drawn and Lily who is storm phobic, pawing at me. I shifted on the couch and allowed her up close to me and wrapped her in the light blanket I had on me. She does better when swaddled so she was close to me wrapped in my arms, shivering in fear with every clap of thunder. I drifted off to sleep...
A few minutes later I felt a bit more crowded and felt Lily had stopped shaking. I opened my eyes to see Pogue had joined us on the couch. He was on the other side of Lily, completely stretched out and laying half over her. If we were a sandwich Pogue and I were the bread and Lily was the meat. He was licking her snout and then covering her chest with his head as if to say "I'm here, don't be scared." What was incredible was as long as Pogue was pressed up against Lily she did not shake and shiver and actually fell asleep while the storm finished it's path. 
It was so endearing I didn't move an inch and feigned sleep to see how long they would stay this way. Pogue stayed molded into Lily until the rain passed and then jumped up, ran to my desk and stole a pen which he proceeded to mangle. I know naysayers will argue this was a fluke, that Pogue didn't know any better what he was doing. But I know it was magic. It was two animals understanding what the other was in need of. It was a moment I will not soon forget and will try to hold onto next time Pogue is ripping my peonies out of the ground. If just for those few minutes...Pogue was good. That my friends is magic.