Premonition, or Something Else?

Okay, so around 14 months ago we added a dog to our household. To be exact, it's an Australian Shepherd, "Red Tri Mini". The "red" describes the reddish-brown base color, while two other colors are mixed in, which are white and tan.

Anyway, this is only the third dog I've owned in my lifetime. My first dog was a Dachshund, aka, "wiener-dog". My parents got this dog when I was around 6 or 7 yrs old, and we became instant friends. To move the story along, one day while I was playing in the side yard I heard the screech of brakes. I quickly looked up just in time to see the duel tandem rear tires of a pickup truck run directly over "Joshua", our family dog. Naturally, little Joshua let out a yelp, but amazingly, he somehow managed to run back to our yard, and then right up to me.

My dad had heard the screech, too, and in short order he came running out the front door around to the side yard, panicked. He picked Joshua up, and it was only a few seconds later that the little dog became completely still in my dad's arms. Joshua was dead.

Witnessing such a horrible thing as a little kid naturally sent me into a bit of a shock, in fact, so much so that I straight-up denied that it happened and went on about my business, playing, or doing whatever it was I was doing just moments before. It was only later that night that I crumbled because my dog was absent. Instead of hangin' out around the dinner table like usual, Joshua was wrapped in blanket on the porch. There was no way around this; I had to face it.

While I never quite got over it, I managed to at least block it out much of the time.

Around 5 yrs later my parents bought a lot and built a new house. This place was only about 5 miles south of where we lived before. Long story, short, a buddy with whom my dad threw darts at a small pub called "Jake's", was giving away some puppies. I think it was a Poodle-Chihuahua mix. I'm not entirely sure what it was; I only know it was a mutt of some sort. I didn't become as attached to "Sammy" as I did to Joshua. Although it could've been because I was rapidly becoming interested in other stuff---stuff like girls in bell-bottom jeans, music, and sports, and so on, it might've been because I subconsciously was still emotionally crushed because of losing my first dog in a such a tragic way. I really don't know.

In any event, Sammy lived about 12 yrs, and I honestly don't even recall how he ultimately died.

Note, the "twist" to this story will be coming in just a minute. First I need to provide some background, which may or may not seem relevant in a minute.

Fast forward:

The youngest of my girls was bugging me to get her a dog. After months of this pleading, and after months of me stonewalling and giving all the reasons I didn't want a dog..e.g...fleas, up at the crack of dawn every day, shedding, food cost, shots, odor, yadda, yadda, I broke down and got her the dog of her dreams: A mini Aussie Shepherd.

I wasn't, and I'm still not, keen on what she named the dog..i.e..."Jatavian". To me it sounds like what Shaquille O'Neal might name his son. But, whatever, who am I to tell her that she can't name her dog what she wants to name it? Besides, I can always nickname him, and that's just what I did. He's not "Jatavian"; he's "JayJay".

Okay, now for the twist. You've waited this long, so without further ado...

Last week it was early morning and the cold nose of a little canine had not awakened me yet. No, what woke me this time was a dream that I had had, specifically, the horrendous ending. I was coming down a flight of very steep stairs, you know, the kind that zig-zag downward to the bottom. Well, someone behind me(it wasn't clear who it was) had JayJay, who was just a puppy, like when we first got him.

Anyway, the dog either leaped forward or fell, but whatever happened, as I reached out to catch him, he went sailing past me and over the side of the stairs, which BTW, had no railing. I peered over the side in horror as I watched the tiny animal spiral down and smash onto the concrete slab, upon which the whole staircase rested. I instantly woke up, breathing a sigh of relief, thinking.. 'It was just a dream.'

Fast forward to the next day, I was going to run an errand and I was going to take the dog, as he likes the whole windows down, ears-blowin'-in-the-wind gag. I had forgotten to close the back sliding glass door, so I left the dog in thr front yard for a split second, thinking it would be safe, because he never darts away when he knows he's goin' for a car ride. Well, I'll be dipped in sh*t if he didn't dart away. To hell with a car ride today(evidently).

So, I quickly ran to the middle of my street and looked both ways, calling his name. Nothin'. Then all of the sudden, I turned to face the nearest crossroad that intersected my street, and lo and hold, I saw JayJay running around near said intersection, but still on my side of the crossroad. In a split second, two female high schoolers were crossing from the furthest side of the crossroad onto my street, and thankfully they crossed the street before JayJay saw them, because if he had seen them first, he surely would have darted across the road towards them, being the curious, busy-body dog that he is. I yelled down to the girls to please grab him by the collar, and that he doesn't bite. One of the girls, who I later found out had an Aussie Shepherd at one time, grabbed JayJay and held him until I ran up to them. It was a seriously close call.

Now, with all of that disclosed, some people my "get it"; some may not. Me? I didn't make any connection between the two events. What two events, one might ask? Well, the fact that my dog just came within seconds of being hit by a car(and in all likelihood killed), when just the day before I had a dream that he died. Seriously, someone had to point out to me that JayJay was seconds away from getting hit by a car, and just the day before I dreamed that he died. I made no such connection, and I wouldn't have, if not for someone in my household pointing it out to me. When this individual reminded me of my dream after my telling them of the "close call" just minutes before, a chill went up my spine.

So, the question remains: Premonition? Or something else? A "sixth sense"? Or coincidence?

I thought about it a while, and then it occurred to me that I've had literally thousands of dreams before that which foretold nothing at all. In other words, if I'm going to sit here and convince myself that I had a "premonition"(or some sort of "psychic" ability), then that would require that I ignore the thousands of times that my dreams foretold nothing at all. IOW, in order to "validate" that I have some sort of "sixth sense", I'd have to ignore literally thousands of "misses" to count the "hit".

Whatever the case, I'm just glad that I didn't have to witness another "best friend" get run over by a car. Thanks to those two girls being at the right place at the right time, JayJay is safe.

Here's his baby picture : )