“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.” ~ Josh Billings

We lost our beloved dog Moxxie last week and my heart is still breaking. We rescued her as a 5-month-old puppy from Mississippi on October 31, 2016. Three months exactly after my stroke. She passed away as 2025 began.
I see so many parallels with my own path these last nine years with how Moxxie lived her life and shared who she was. I have been finding freedom in my life. Freeing myself from conditioned beliefs about who I am. Freeing myself from anger and fear, and starting to live my life according to my needs, my dreams, my desires. Just like Moxxie lived her life. Free. Sweet. Always seeking more freedom.
She loved to escape our yard. We shored up the fencing with extra fencing to make it higher (she could leap over without any effort when she was younger). Then when she started to dig and sqeeeeeeze herself under the fence. We had to install footlong stakes to keep the fencing down. Nothing ever really worked. The neighbors called our backyard Alcatraz - an impenetrable fortress. She still escaped whenever she could. We called her a velociraptor because she always knew where the weakest spots in the fence were and would slyly plot her escapes. I still see her peeking around the corner of the shed when I called her, acting completely innocent. She liked hidden corners to plot her escapes.
Once free, she would taunt me with close run-bys and near snatches whenever she escaped. Her tongue would be lolling out of her grinning mouth, so happy. Seeing her run across the road in front of cars was frustrating and made me so afraid for her. She didn’t care. She was free. She ripped gutters off people’s houses when chipmunks tried hiding away from her in them. She ignored neighbors calling to her and offering her treats. She wanted to run free, not eat a treat. 🙄 She wanted to run, breathe deeply, be in the woods, hunting all the little animals. Part of me wished we didn’t need a fortress backyard and that she could live wild and free. I wonder now as I write this what kind of a companion she would have been if that had been her life. Would she have chosen sweet snuggles, warm beds, and time with us? Or would she have been more wild and come to visit to say hello and be off on her adventures again? What would it have been like to experience a truly free Moxxie who didn’t have to steal her moments of freedom? These are questions to ponder as I move forward in a world where she comes to me in my memories and dreams. Maybe these are questions we can all ask of ourselves. Who would we be if we could be truly free?

“The whole of life is coming to terms with yourself and the natural world. Why are you here? How do you fit in? What’s it all about?” ~ Sir David Attenborough
For the first few years, I tried to save the little chipmunks, moles, and snakes from her. She didn’t hunt to kill and eat. No, Moxxie hunted to play. It wasn’t her fault the little animals couldn’t handle it. She only intentionally killed when they fought back when they didn’t agree to the game she wanted to play. The first years, because I felt for the little animals, I tried to save all of them. Every time they made a run for it Moxxie would snatch them up and toss them in the air. The last straw happened when I was trying to protect a little garter snake. It slithered past me anyway. Moxxie picked it up and, when it turned back on her and bit her in the cheek, she gave it a death shake and tossed it into the air. It arched right past my head. That was when I decided to let nature play its course when Moxxie hunted. I stopped fighting the truth about Moxxie and began the acceptance of her animal nature. I also began to see that all that “murder” in the backyard was Nature. It was natural for Moxxie to hunt and these little animals to try to flee. It was the Circle of Life there for me to witness, not to judge, fear, or deny.

This is an important truth for me, one I still wrestle with because death and killing are so difficult for me to accept. Looking back now, I see too that this was a lesson I also was learning about my ego-self in all of my relationships - the need to save everyone from their lives. To jump in and offer help. I thought I knew what was best for them and tried to help them in the ways I felt they needed. The snakes and chipmunks showed me that they would make their own decisions. They lived their lives how they wanted. They made their decisions and lived with the consequences. I couldn’t do anything to stop that. It’s a powerful learning to realize that everyone lives their lives, makes their choices, and does so for their own reasons. This is the freedom to live as you choose. I am still working through how to witness the pain of others (as an empath it can be hard to disassociate from other’s pain) and letting them live their lives freely without me feeling stressed or fearful for them. Moxxie showed me the way.
TRUTH: Moxxie was an animal. Moxxie enjoyed the hunt. Moxxie enjoyed being an animal. Running free. Hunting. She never denied who she was. She found joy in it. She … reveled… in … it. She was living her truth as a being in the natural world and, in the end, all was well and all was as it should be.
Your pets mirror you, your strengths, your fears, your personality.

Moxxie also wasn’t afraid to fully and honestly express her rage and grief when her friend Kobe passed away in the summer of 2019. She went berserker. This was the summer she killed a groundhog and had to go into rabies quarantine. She had shaved patches all over her body from the many bite marks she bore. Another week she dragged a baby skunk out from under the shed while we were swimming in the pool. As usual, our yelling “Moxxie! No!” didn’t stop her. The skunk survived by doing in close range what skunks do. Moxxie added yellow stains to her shaved patches and smelled awful for weeks. She let her anger and grief out and wore it for all to see. We were amazed and adored her all the more for it. I want to add that Moxxie in her rage was honest, not vindictive or manipulative. She lashed out because she had to express what she was feeling. Her anger was pure and honest. It wasn’t about vengeance or purposeful cruelty. She acted on her instincts and feelings because they were a natural part of her.
This was my Moxxie, our Moxxie. When I connect with her energy now, I know she is so content and proud of her life with us. She was exactly the dog we all needed and she has left her paw prints deeply on all of our hearts. Our Moxxie stories always made people smile, even when I wanted to rip my hair out while they were happening.
I want to add one last note to this Moxxie tribute. She was an altogether different dog in the house. She pranced and snuggled. She gave judgy glances, got annoyed when we brought other puppies into our family, was patient with definite boundaries, had the sweetest, softest eyes when she looked at you, and when she got older she gave the gentlest boops and kisses. We were always saying that she had the softest fur ever.

People say that pets look like their owners. I feel it’s more than that. Our pets mirror us - our foibles, our personalities, our fears, our emotions, and our inner being. Moxxie did all of these things. Yet, it wasn’t until the last few years of her life that I realized this. That I appreciated this in her. To be honest, for a long time, I fought this truth. No, Moxxie and I had nothing in common, I thought to myself whenever I thought about how our pets reflect us. Now, after living through 2024 and my Camino, I realize that I too have deep anger and deep needs and desires. I too need to live my life free to be me with joy, even if other people are shocked or pissed off about it. I need to go berserker if I feel it in me. I need to let Christine out to run free, to follow my desires, and to do it with the pure joy of being me - regardless of how others see it. Moxxie and this new Christine came into our lives nine years ago. A beginning and now an ending of a cycle. A birthing of awareness, a purging of old beliefs, and acceptance of what is. This is the power of the number 9 and ... of Moxxie. We had her for nine soft and wild years. What a beautiful gift she was!
I don’t believe that Moxxie represents this for me or even for my family alone. By writing this tribute, Moxxie is a gift to you too. Maybe anger and innate needs aren’t what you have been denying and avoiding in yourself like it was for me. We all need to recognize for ourselves what aspects we’ve been denying and judging in ourselves. Moxxie asks simply that you honestly get in touch with whatever aspect of yourself makes you feel frustrated, angry, fearful, wrong, or limited, and allow yourself to express it freely with honesty, no fear, and joy - step-by-step.
Moxxie is a gift to all of us.
I see her now in my mind's eye, her tongue is once again hanging out of the side of her mouth while she smiles big and can’t wait to see you too free to romp in the world as your truly uninhibited, don’t-give-a-f&*k self, filled with pure joy!
R.I.P Moxxie, My Good Girl
January 9, 2025
Best girl EVER!