by Joey / 1995 BY CYNTHIA RYLANT

When dogs go to Heaven,they don’t need wings
because god knows that dogs love runnning best.
he give them fields, fields and fields and fields. When a dog first arives in heaven, he just runs. Dog heaven has clear, wide lakes filled with geese who honk and flap and tease.
The dogs love this. They run beside the water and bark and bark and god watches them from behind a tree and smiles. There are children, of course, Angel children. God knows that dogs love children more the anything else in the world, so he fills dog heaven with plenty of them.

There are children on bikes and children on sleds. There are children throwing red rubber balls and children pulling kites through the clouds, the dogs are there, and the cildren love them dearly,and, oh, the dog discuits. biscuits and biscuits as far as the eye can see. God has a sense of humor, so he makes his biscuits in funny shapes for his dogs. There are kitty-cat biscuits and squirrel biscuits, ice-cream biscuits and ham-sandwich biscuits. Every angel who passes by has a biscuit for a dog, and, of course, all god’s dogs sit
when the angels say “sit”.

Every dog becomes a good dog in dog heaven. God turns clouds inside out to make a fluffy bed for the dogs in dog heaven, and when they are tired from running and playing, the dogs each find a cloud bed for sleeping. They turn around and around in the cloud until it feels just right and then they curl up and the sleep. God watches over each one of them and there are no bad dreams. Dogs in dog heaven have almost always belonged to somebody on earth and, of course, the dogs remember this.

Heaven is full of memories. so sometime and angel will walk a dog back to earth for a little visit and quietly, invisibly, the dog will sniff about his old backyard. When he is satisfied tha all is well, the dog will return to heaven with the angel. Itis where dogs belong, near god who made them. The dogs in dog heaven who had no real homes on earth are given one in heaven. Dogs in dog heaven may stay as long as they like and this can mean forever.They will be there when old friends show up. They will be there at the door.

ANGEL DOGS

 

Joey