When I went upstairs to take Luke some juicer, there was Prince, resting quietly beside my sick boy. At first I thought maybe Prince was ill too. But he seemed perfectly fine. He didn’t leave Luke’s side until Luke began feeling better. That’s when I began wondering if we should start calling our dog “Dr Prince.”

We might have chalked it up to a fluke if this had happened only once, but the same thing happened again and again. Whenever anyone in our family was sick, Prince would be right by that person’s side, almost as if it was his job to take care of them.

It was incredible to see this normally active dog put aside his romping needs to display this kind of amazing canine compassion.

But the most remarkable I have is of the time when one of our cats had been hit by a car. Pepper’s injured leg was bandaged, and we put him in a cardboard box with a blanket, hoping he would rest and heal with time. And sure enough, when I went to check on Pepper’s condition, there was Prince, right there in the box with him. He was peacefully curled up right next to Pepper, keeping the cat warm.

Our little Prince lived for nearly sixteen years. And he was loyal and true to our family the entire time. Even in his final days, when he was in pain and nearly blind, I knew that he would lay down his little life for any of us. By then we had all come to realise that his name hadn’t been a mistake at all.He had been a real prince, at least, for our family. — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)