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George Carlin had a lot of great lines, but this one is his best.

“Life,” the late, great comedian said, “is a series of dogs.”

We all love our dogs, and we are devastated when it is time to say goodbye to them. Of course, we know that sad day is what we sign up for when we got the dog in the first place. We know that we will have heartache in the future, but we also know the good days with our dogs are still worth it in the end.

They are so worth it.

When the hurt from losing our best friend subsides a little bit, we get a new dog that quickly sweeps us off of our feet.

A dog’s life is relatively short, but that just means that we get to be close with more dogs.

Losing a dog is unbelievably painful, but we know we will love the new one. We would have never known the new dog if we didn’t lose the old one.

In the end, that might be the best gift our old friends ever give us. They give us the gift of falling in love with another dog all over again.

That, I believe, is what George was talking about. That is why his words ring so true.

“Life is a series of dogs.”

A few weeks ago, Monday Daily Show host Jon Stewart talked about his dog, Dipper, after he passed away. Dipper was a three-legged Brindle Pitbull.

“In a world of good boys,” a teary-eyed Stewart said, “he was the best.”

That is one of the all-time great lines, and every dog owner can relate to it. 

It reminds me of a cartoon I saw on Facebook recently. A bunch of dog owners are sitting in a dog park watching their dogs play. The thought bubble above every person’s head said the same thing, “I have the best dog.”

It is funny because it is true. Everybody’s dog is the best dog — even when they are eating our boots and chewing on our furniture. 

Every dog is a good dog because there is no such thing as a bad dog. Some are just treated worse by their people.

I wouldn’t give you either of my dogs for a billion dollars. My dogs are not “like a member of the family,” like people so often say. They are part of my family.

Every one of my dogs has been a family member.

I got my first dog when I was in kindergarten. Someone abandoned a little black dog in our neighborhood. She was as cute as could be, and I begged my mom to let us keep her.

I named her Samantha, and she was awesome. However, we had her for less than a year. In October of 1980, Samantha was run over by a car and killed.

The next Mother’s Day, we went to the animal shelter in Butte. My parents told me over and over to keep my fingers out of the cages.

I went straight to a kennel with a beautiful German Shephard/Huskey cross puppy, and I stuck my fingers right in. The girl dog my dad later named “Butch,” licked my fingers, and it was love at first sight.

When Butch was 5, my parents got a puppy for my younger brother. Shannon was the result of a mutt jumping the fence while cousins’ purebred Golden Retriever was in heat.

While she was supposed to be my brother’s dog, Shannon was mine. I don’t know if I have a special connection to dogs or if I just love them more than the rest of my family, but Butch and Shannon were both mine.

If they could have talked, they would have told you that.

By 1999, Butch was long gone and Shannon was getting old. I no longer lived with my parents, and decided it was time to get my own dog. 

I went back to the shelter where we got Butch and picked out a puppy who looked a lot like Shannon. I named her Sadie, and she was my best pal for 13 years.

Actually, she is the reason I have my family today.

Less than two years after I got Sadie, I received a job offer to leave The Montana Standard for the Missoulian. I wanted to take the job and relieve my college days in Missoula. But I had to turn the job down because I couldn’t find an affordable place to live that would let me keep Sadie.

It was an easy choice because pals never leave pals behind. About four months later, I met my wife in Butte.

Sadie died in March of 2012, and that led me to get Bandit, a purebred English Setter, in May of that year. 

We had Bandit until this past November. She went walking with me on a Sunday, and then she couldn’t get up on Monday morning.

The veterinarian figured she had some kind of mass in her belly that was causing her pain, so we had to say goodbye. She gave me one last lick on the face and closed her eyes forever.

For three months, we kind of moped around without Bandit, a dog I will miss for the rest of my life. Her little pal Boogie, a Shih Tzu/Lhasa Apso cross who is the baddest man in the whole damn town, joined us in our grief.

We didn’t walk around Big Butte as much as we did with Bandit because I think it made us both miss her so much. Rather, I took him for late-night walks around the neighborhood. It was a special rout that used to be saved for Sadie and me.

Boogie, who we got from Rescue Rovers in Sandy, Utah when he was suspected to be 3 years old in August of 2016, used to bark at other dogs when he would see them as he rode around in my truck. He wanted to play with them, but he also wanted to act tough.

After a couple of months without Bandit, you could tell Boogie was getting lonely. Instead of barking at those dogs, he started to cry when he saw them. He just wanted to play and butt sniff so much.

He was in some serious need for some K-9 companionship.

So, like we did when we started searching for a lapdog for my oldest daughter in 2016, we went to the internet to look for the next dog in the series.

My youngest daughter spotted a Border Collie cross named Sage on the Pintler Pets website. She loved Sage’s ears.

On Feb. 18, we drove Boogie over to Anaconda to meet Sage, who they figure is about 2 years old. We took her home with us, and Boogie was in love. We all were.

As cute as Sage was in those pictures, they didn’t do her justice. She is as beautiful as she is smart.

When we got home, Boogie followed Sage’s every step for the first 10 hours that Sunday. Then Sage snapped at Boogie over a toy, and Boogie learned the hard way what most of us have known for some time. 

You just don’t mess with an Anaconda girl.

After a few days mad at Sage for that snap, Boogie came around. Now, he and Sage are the best of friends.

They play all the time, and we go walking around Big Butte, just like we did with Bandit.

Sage is an incredible dog who loves everyone in the family, including Boogie. And we love her.

Not a day goes by when I don’t think of Bandit and all the good times we had together. Sometimes seeing some of the things Sage does makes me miss her even more.

We wouldn’t have Sage if Bandit didn’t pass away. I like to think of Sage as Bandit’s passing gift. 

Her passing broke our hearts, but Sage has become part of the process of putting the pieces back together.

That is what George was talking about.

“Life is a series of dogs.”

— Bill Foley, who loves George Carlin almost as much as he loves dogs, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.