This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The following story appeared in the Wall Street Journal this morning and I could not help by post it as my blog.

Dogs in heaven?  Yes.

Both the author, an attorney in the East, and I in the West, say yes!

Here’s the story, with a conclusion from me.

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My friend Paul had to put down Bear, his beloved 11-year-old black Lab. Bear’s lungs gave out, and Paul did the humane thing, although not without, in his words, crying hard and often.  Every dog lover understands, for we know all too well how our dogs love us.

My mini bernedoodle, Sugaree, meets me at the door when she hears me on the front porch steps.  She jumps in anticipation — all four legs catching air — until I enter the hallway.  It’s a love that doesn’t diminish.

This is my welcome every weeknight when I come home from work.  I haven’t split the atom, ended world hunger or even brought her a new chew toy, yet I am honored like Pompey the Great in his third Roman triumph.

This nightly greeting has two effects on me.  First, it makes me want to be better, to be worthy of such love.  This reflection, in turn, helps me to love God, whose perfect love never ceases to draw me out from my own imperfections, from the man I am to the man I should be.

Second, it reminds me how silly it is to think I can love too many people or anyone too much.  If loving is willing the good of the other, then there is no upper limit to it.  This insight helps me strive to love my neighbor and to be an instrument of peace.  Sugaree is my role model, as Bear was Paul’s.

I like to think that this life isn’t all there was for Bear.  Years ago, Archbishop Fulton Sheen first perked up my ears, so to speak, on the spirituality of dogs.  In his autobiography, “Treasure in Clay,” Sheen wrote that during his holy hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, at times he felt “like a dog at the master’s door, ready in case he called me.”

British writer C.S. Lewis went a step further in “The Problem of Pain,” in which he made a plausible case for hounds in heaven.  Lewis thought sufficient selfhood might exist in dogs and other domesticated animals that their immortality is subsumed within their master’s heavenly destiny.

For my money, though, G.K. Chesterton made the best case for dogs in heaven.  In “Orthodoxy,” Chesterton proposed that perhaps the one thing too great for God to have shown us when he walked the earth was his mirth.  What is more mirthful than the thought of a surprise party on heavenly move-in day where gathered guests include good ol’ Fido?  And who could keep such a joyful secret but someone with infinite patience?

So, chin up, Paul.  I believe you will see Bear again.  God surely has use for a creature that teaches us so much about love.

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AND THIS IN CONCLUSION:  One reason why I like this story is that it reminds me of my wife’s and my first dog, Hogan.  We had to put him down with a brain tumor at age 13.

It was a tough day for both of us.

But, we took some solace in thinking of Hogan romping around in the fields of heaven with other dogs that had gone upward, such as Tiger, a dog owned by our good friends who had to put him down.

Our reunion in heaven will be a great day!