Phantom Felines And Other Ghostly Animals - Gerina Dunwich 2006

Shasta
Hounds and Hauntings

by Toby Longbrake

When I was growing up I thought the greatest hero on earth was Rin Tin Tin. I always wanted a German shepherd, and I felt so lucky when a friend offered me a three-month-old puppy that she couldn’t sell. My husband and I took the puppy sight unseen. When we saw her, she scared us because she was so huge. She weighed fifty-five pounds! We took her straight to the vet, and he thought her weight might be close to the record. She was so majestic that we named her Shasta, after Mount Shasta. What a blessing she was to us.

Shortly afterward, my three-year-old grandson, Ryan, came to live with us. Shasta often slept with him and I always knew he was safe with her. He also used to lie beside her and she would strap her legs around him and he would tell her all his troubles. When Ryan wasn’t with Shasta, she was with me. She sat by my side while I was on my computer.

When Shasta turned six, I had a really bad feeling that something was wrong with her. I took her to my vet and he ran a complete blood count on her. I also had X-rays done. Nothing was wrong. After I did this twice, my vet told me the only thing wrong with my dog was that she was completely healthy.

About a month later, my husband woke me up and said Shasta was really sick; she was vomiting. I got up and held her and told her I would get her help. I left her on her blanket in the kitchen, took Ryan to school, and went to work. I left work at 8:45 a.m. and returned home to take Shasta to the doctor. She wasn’t in the kitchen when I got there. I went to look for her and found she had gone into Ryan’s room, and it was there she had died. I was hysterical. I rushed Shasta to the vet to find out what had happened, and he told me her stomach had twisted. There was no test that could have warned us. My grandson was devastated, as were we all.

A couple days went by and I was on the computer. My husband was in the kitchen and Ryan was in his room. I felt Shasta beside me and instinctively reached over to pet her. She rubbed up against me as she always did. And then I remembered she was gone. I let out a scream and ran into the kitchen.

My grandson says he always feels safe in his room because he feels Shasta’s presence there. We have seen her in the hall, and we’ve also seen her shadow in the yard when Ryan was out there.

Our other dog, Kelly, loved Shasta. She sometimes barks at nothing while wagging her tail, and when she does this we feel that Shasta has come back to play with her.

After the initial shock of feeling Shasta rubbing against me, I have found peace with the shadows. I’ve even talked to her about all my troubles.