My last birthday the wife and I had to make a decision to put one of our family dogs down. She had massive internal bleeding and was painfully dying a slow death. She didn't scavenge the garbage or eat odd things and she wasn't really a chewer, like our male husky, so I don't think it was something she ate that ruptured her intestines. It could have been a tumor that ruptured or perhaps her spleen. It was a sad birthday and it still bothers me to this day, nearly 3 months later.

Anyway, to the dream part. I don't remember my dreams very often and they come in two varieties for me.

1. My dreams are like deja vu - the things that happen in my dreams happen in real life at a later time in the future. They're not usually exciting things, but they do come true - like one of the kids being sick or one time that I found money. In my dream the bill I found was folded up in a manner that you knew it was currency, but you couldn't see the denomination of it and I stuck it in my pocket. That very morning I stepped outside to let the dogs out and I found a bill folded up in such a manner you couldn't see the denomination, I stuck it in my pocket. After I got back inside with the dogs I unfolded it to find it was $10. I knew it wasn't mine because I haven't carried any cash the past few weeks and the small dusting of snow on the ground showed no footprints for anyone to have recently dropped it.
2. I realize I'm dreaming and I can control my dream.

About a month ago I had troubles sleeping - this usually isn't an issue with me, I tend to be out as soon as I shut my eyes and lay my head down. I was up until about 2am before I feel asleep. I ended up having a #2 dream about Bailey and it went like this....

I was downstairs watching a movie and the kids were being loud, so I told them to go upstairs to play. They leave and go up the stairs. What felt like a good chunk of time later, I hear the kids being very loud and playing too rough. So I head up the stairs and I see the kids playing with their over sized car toys, pushing them back and forth to each other and getting mad about stupid things....as soon as I reached the top of the stairs I see a flash of white fur in my bedroom, it moved from the foot of the bed into the doorway to the bathroom.

I immediately think that's odd....Bailey passed away and I must be seeing things. A second later I see Bailey come out of the bathroom chasing a bouncing ball (she didn't really play with tennis balls or squeaky toy balls very much) and she caught it out of the air during a bounce. She looked up at me and started wagging her tail and I exclaimed, "Babes! Come here, sweetie!" (this was the point I realized I was dreaming and I knew this wouldn't last forever, but I wanted to enjoy my time with her as much as possible.) She came running over, wagging her tail. I got to hug her and pet her and I could feel my hands run through her soft fur, it felt real even though I knew it wasn't. She wanted to play! I tossed the ball and she ran after it to get it.

All of a sudden my 3 year old, who was playing behind me, started screaming bloody murder because he somehow hurt himself. He did the whole, I hurt myself so bad that I can't breath for 20 seconds and then screamed like he was dying. I told him to knock if off and that he wasn't hurt - I knew this was a dream and I wouldn't get another chance to spend time with Bailey so as selfish as it sounds, I basically blew off my kid to spend time with the dog. Bailey came back and dropped the ball again and I got to pet her one more time and I tossed the ball...the whole time the 3 year old is screaming and making me irritated. I could feel myself, my actual body, becoming annoyed and my dream was broken and I woke up about 4:30am.

I slept for about 2 hours and I was pissed when I woke up. My time with Bailey was yanked away. I got up, went downstairs and turned on the computer so I could watch a movie with my headphones. I ended up playing a few games, watched a movie.....the kids and wife got up around 8:30 that morning.

I wasn't mad at my kid in real life for causing me to wake up due to his actions in my dream, but I was still irritated nonetheless about how my dream ended. I still think about it to this day and it makes me annoyed. I wish I could have had more time, but I'm grateful for the visit in the dream.