A Love Letter to All the Dogs I’ve Loved Before
I was nearly held back in Kindergarten to repeat the year. Not because I was behind academically, but because I found it hard to relate to the other kids.
My mom disagreed with holding me back. I've always been an old soul, she said — being with younger kids wouldn't help. And she sent me on to first grade with the others.
I think it's not an old soul I have, but a dog soul.
It really wasn't until I moved into adulthood and leaned fully into my love of dogs that I began connecting with other humans too. For me, animals have always been my point of connection. I am more me in the company of dogs than anywhere else.
I am deeply grateful for the love of dogs, and for the lessons they've taught me along the way.
Ryder — Who Taught Me to See Joy
Ryder, my silly butt-biting red-headed Husky boy.
The moment Renee carried you from animal control, we knew you were meant to be ours. You were the first dog who taught me the incredible ability of dogs to find joy despite overwhelming circumstances.
I remember the day your wheelchair arrived. We brought you to the front yard — the unfenced front yard — for your first try. We were convinced you'd need a few attempts to get used to it.
Of course you took to it like a duck to water. I remember frantically chasing you down the neighborhood streets, laughing out loud and sharing in your joy of running, while simultaneously crying with pride and experiencing heart-raising panic that I might never catch up with you.
I will never forget the way your eyes lit up every time we fostered a puppy. Not once since have I had a dog so genuinely delighted with puppies — watching you let the baby dogs climb all over you with their perfect puppy bodies while you just smiled and played. I swear I could hear you laughing with unbridled joy.
Every time I see a puppy, I think of you. I think about just how much you would have loved them.
Ryder, I am so lucky to have loved you. And to love you even more now.
Sissy — Who Taught Me to Take Care of Others
Sissy, our very first foster husky and our forever mama dog.
Nobody could teach new foster dogs how to fit in better than you could. You were the perfect foster fail. And what dog can save all her foster siblings from a venomous snake?
I was surprised to hear you calling from the backyard as I took out the trash. You were always so quiet — not the talkative Husky your sister Bella was — so hearing you made me run. I was shocked to see every other dog sitting quietly inside their crates with the doors standing wide open. And I was in awe to see you in the backyard, having cornered the cottonmouth and called us to help.
Superwoman in dog form.
That's my favorite example of how you took care of everyone — but every day, quietly, you were doing something for the dogs you loved. Teaching the fearful ones to play. Teaching the scared ones to trust. Encouraging everyone to get along. Watching you do that was one of the great gifts of my life.
Sissy, I take better care of the dogs now because I watched how you cared for them.
Bella — Who Taught Me to Go After What I Want
Bella, my first dog. Before the rescue work, before the wedding, before closing on my first house — it was me and you.
One of the very first gifts Renee ever gave me was a quilt she made for you. I loved your single-minded determination. If you saw something and wanted it, you went and got it.
Like that steak. You know the one — marinating inside the crockpot with a lid, at the back of the counter. I still don't know how you removed the lid, snagged the bag of marinating steak, replaced the lid, and snuck into the yard without anyone noticing until all the evidence was nearly consumed.
I am braver because I loved you.
Lira — Who Taught Me the Full Range of What I'm Capable Of
Lira, you were born in my hands.
Your mother came to us pregnant, and you arrived in this world with your insides on the outside. I held your tiny body together in the car on the way to the emergency vet for your first surgery at 45 minutes old. You stopped nursing to come find me. From the very beginning, you picked me.
I would have called myself a dog mom before you. I had loved dogs my whole life — deeply, genuinely, in the way that shapes a person. But you made me a mother.
There is a difference. I understand that now.
With you I felt things I didn't know I had access to. A love so specific and so total it had no edges. A fear so sharp when you were sick that it took my breath away. A grief, when I lost you, that I am still learning to carry.
You gave me the full range. Every note on the scale. You made me capable of emotions I genuinely didn't know were available to me before you arrived.
I lost you in September. We were coming up on what would have been your tenth birthday. The archive is complete — all the photographs that will ever exist of you have already been taken — and I am still not entirely sure how to live in a world where there won't be any new ones.
Lira, I am more because I loved you. I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of what you gave me.
To the Dogs Who Still Share My Home
Poppy, Carolina, Mikey, Watson, Clementine — each of you bring something to my life that I would be less without.
And to all the dogs in between — the fosters and the failures and the ones I said goodbye to too soon — thank you. You made me who I am.
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