Bittersweet Moment

Most people know of my family dog, Hoover. He's my baby and has been for almost 11 years. You may not have known that was diagnosed with bladder cancer a couple of months ago. There is no cure for it and I have a difficult time accepting the inevitable outcome. Anyway, you may not have known that he was a show dog for 5 years before he became part of our family! He was a retired champion. :) During his training, he was trained not to lick people. So the only time he has ever licked us was if we had food on our hands. I even tried to put cake batter on my nose once and he wouldn't lick it off. I went over to my parents' tonight for dinner and was holding him and all of the sudden he started licking my cheek! (No, I didn't have any food on my face.) I told my family to look at what he was doing and they said that he had been much more loving and even playful the last couple of weeks. My mom mentioned something about reverting to his puppyhood because he never really had one because he was "working". I think she was kind of joking but at the same, it made me think that he was trying to show his affection because he knows he isn't well. So of course, tears fall (like they are doing now) and he licked them off my cheeks. He's always been a sweet dog and very in tune with our emotions. I loved it because it was cute and something he had never done before but it made me very sad at the same time because I don't know how much longer we have with him. I hate to think about that and I hate he is sick. I hate crying, too. But I did love the puppy love my baby gave me today.