Some dogs -- like Mordred's little companion Morgane the whippet -- give away their full and sloppy hearts as a matter of course.

CNN: Lean on me: Loving and losing a dog

The shot went in, and the thing that made him Mordred simply drained out, leaving a giant, wasted husk of a dog on the floor, and I watched Morgane sniff it, trying to understand where her friend had gone.

CNN: Lean on me: Loving and losing a dog

One lazy summer Sunday, with our dogs flanked around us on the couch, Douglas asked me to be his wife, and that very autumn, I walked down the aisle toward him with Mordred at my side, and my best friend holding Morgane in the front row.

CNN: Lean on me: Loving and losing a dog