To Be Endlessly, Totally Needed

A few weeks ago, I admitted I had failed, and gave back the dog.

She was in many ways a charmer: 12 years old, which for a dog is elderly, and she’d always lived in a kennel. In spite of being regularly “socialized” by a family of dog folks who love her, she’d never been off a leash inside a house, so her joy and interest in exploring it delighted me. Her needs were specific: food, attention, and frequent walks (you know that bladder thing as you age? yes). And the much-loved family members who thought she’d be a perfect dog to keep me company focused on the details that she likes to walk, and so do I. They surely love her — they said, “If it doesn’t work out, we want her back. But of course it will work, because you’ll love her.” And I did.

However. For this dog, unlike in her previous life in a kennel, here, when “nature called,” a walk needed to happen right away (I know how impossible it is to get carpeting truly free of urine odor). That added up to seven or eight walks per day. Writing time collapsed — I edited for deadlines(my regularly paid freelance work) and reviewed for other deadlines (I commit to several books per month), and any extra time beyond that went to walking. More walking. Cuddling, combing, reassuring.

In fact, as I’d realized by the end of the first week: I was back to life with DK in his last years, when food…