Dear Dog

Dear Dog,

I wanted to give you a little background on why we’re together. It’s not that you have ever asked nor questioned anything and I’ve never seen you packing a getaway bag, but, I wanted you to know.

I had always had dogs and somewhere along the line there was a transition in understanding from “family dog” to “dog as a member of the family.” Truthfully, the latter is harder to deal with but everything is a tradeoff. You could have been a cat but this house is small and there’s really no privacy for a cat.

I checked poodle and schnauzer rescues and I apologize for not looking for a chihuahua but your breed (even as a mixed breed) wasn’t my first choice. Then I thought about grooming and I had had dinner with the only groomer in the area and would not have trusted her around anything living with something sharp in her hands.

I didn’t want a puppy. I have always adopted “dented can dogs” the unadoptables — hard adoptions, older — and there you were not a puppy but not geriatric (not that I would have cared), standing with a kitty and listed as friendly and needing a companion. “Me too!” I called and spoke with Karen who offered to bring some other dogs to the pet drop off, but I said “No. You can tell her she has a home.”

Two weeks passed before going to meet Karen and my internet mystery dog, Bella, whose name I didn’t like because of Twilight. I mean, eh-verr-ee animal and newborn has been named Bella and I mean really, “vampires”?

I pulled into Petsmart and there was a woman with a dog inside the store. You sort of looked like what the picture suggested but, that kitty must have been big because you were the size of a schnauzer.

It’s true, I could have run, standing you both up, but I walked in shook hands, signed for you, was given your leash and that was that. There were people in the store who knew you and thanked me for giving you a “forever home” — that’s part of the jargon, by the way, along with “fur baby”.

Anyway, Bella — Miss Scoochit — that’s your background with me. And, I want you to know that you saved me Scooch — you saved my old, humpty-dumpty heart. I know that’s a lot of responsibility but I think with your wisdom, you know where that can safely reside.

And I want you to know that that night when you got under the covers and curled into my back and sighed, I knew I had saved you, too, and that I was your forever home and no one would ever call you a fur baby again.

So here we are three years later and I have a side of the bed again but only because you have chosen the middle and the other side. And when I hear you snoring or see you sleeping on your back or giving me that grin with your little earthworm lip, I still know how you saved me and how you do that every day and how thankful I am for those gifts.

With all my heart,

Me