An Introduction

For some time I have wanted to start a “literary” dog blog, one that celebrates the artful relationship between people and the animals we’ve created to love us. It doesn’t matter if the dogs are perfect purebreds or scrappy mutts. The bonds we form are nearly perfect in their simplicity and dependency, an “ideal friendship,” as J.R. Ackerley wrote.

As a young, struggling editor in New York City, I had a funny, empty feeling that I decided could only be assuaged by a fuzzy puppy. And so Chewie arrived in a large plastic crate in the terminal at JFK, a stray from the streets of Puerto Rico. The story I told everyone was that I was just fostering her until she found a permanent home, a story I am still teased about today.

When I lifted her out of the crate, Chewie clung to my neck with her front paws in an awkward hug. I didn’t want to put her down, I was so happy. She crawled into my bed that night and slept under the covers, radiating warmth.

Chewie has now been my companion for seven years, in six different apartments and three states. She continues to sleep in bed with me every night: sometimes under the covers, sometimes not. She isn’t always obedient, but I respect her willfulness and determination to get her own way, whether it’s angling for a cozy position on the couch, going after another dog’s bone, or planting her feet on the sidewalk to thoroughly sniff a good spot. Her loyalty is often subtle. She doesn’t always respond to the word “mommy” but is rarely more than two feet away from me. And her funny face always makes me smile and kiss the top of her head.

I hesitate to compare my dog to a child, as I am not yet a human parent (and human parents tend to get very defensive about that). But I can say with all certainty that the criteria for becoming a parent is not limited to bearing your own flesh and blood—whether it’s someone else’s genes or a different species entirely. In many ways the acts of nurturing are always the same: providing a safe, happy home and healthy food, teaching manners, and comforting in times of scary thunderstorms. And cleaning up a lot of poop.

Whether our relationship is best described as an ideal friendship or that of mother and child, I love my dog completely, and am thankful for the multitude of happy moments she has added to my life. I hope to continue these thoughts and inspire others to share theirs as well. In the words of one of my favorite writers, Edith Wharton, “My little dog—a heartbeat at my feet.”