I also believe that the dead visit those who they were close with, to reassure them, ect. My father had a very interesting one when my granddad died.

Thats a lovely dream. I love how you had a forth-person sense of view! Like you knew you were in a dream. I've had dreams akin to that, on the forth-person sense of view kinda way. Even ones where I've shouted "Wake up!" at myself in my dream!

And, its rather ironic. We really DID have a dog called Jack, but, he kept biting me, so we had to give him away to the police to become a sniffer-dog.