TW: Suicidal ideation
I had a dog growing up, but I was fond of him in the way that a child likes a friend she doesn’t have a lot in common with. He felt like a piece of my home, but never one that I was deeply connected to, or felt a deep sense of responsibility for (sorry mom and dad). I always used to roll my eyes at the paw print shaped bumper stickers reading “Who Rescued Who?” and couldn’t relate to people who treated their dogs like children. I had lots of friends with dogs, and my husband and I had talked about getting a pet, but he is a self-proclaimed cat person and our lifestyle includes a lot of travel, so talks never went beyond “awwing” at puppy videos.
Almost 2 years ago, on a trip to Seattle, my husband and I made two new human friends and one doggo friend. Albert was a rescued greyhound with an amputated back leg living in the home of our friends Erin and Jonathan, and almost as soon as we met him we knew our lives were going to change. He was tender and gently playful for such a big dog, had a catlike ability to find the sunny spots but loved scratches and snuggles. He seemed like the perfect companion, and something in our hearts shifted.
We adopted our own three legged greyhound a few months later. Galleta had been abandoned near a vet with her leg broken and we adopted her a few weeks after her amputation. We had to convince our landlord to let us adopt a dog, and go through a very rigorous adoption process to bring her home with us, and at times I thought “maybe we should just scrap the whole thing.” But we’d gotten in too far to turn around, and one sunny day in October I packed Galleta and into our small car and kidnapped her. She was gentle, nervous, submissive and a little scared: I didn’t hear her bark until she had lived with us for months. She was friendly but skeptical, and wasn’t very interactive. At first it seemed like my relationship with her would be like the one I had with my childhood dog: I enjoyed having her there, but she didn’t seem to like us that much, and she felt a little like a stranger.
But as Galle began to trust us and love us, she wormed her way into my heart in the way only a rescued dog can I think. She came to us so vulnerable, literally broken, and we held her and loved her and whispered sweet nothings in her impossibly soft ears. We scratched her tummy and carefully wiped her dirty paws, and I’ve made clothes to keep her looking cute and feeling cozy. Every single morning she runs into our room when I wake up, throwing her body excitedly around in circles and whacking her tail against me, then our bed. Every time I walk through the door she jumps off the couch to circle me, and jumps up to my chest, her one front paw keeping her steady as she kisses my face.
There’s a set of train tracks that run right near our house. There have been more moments than I’d like to admit over the past few years when I’ve been stuck waiting for a train to pass, and envisioned how easy it would be to just duck my head under the barrier, push one little scoot with my foot, and be stuck right in the middle of the tracks when the train comes. In those moments I obviously think of my family, and the people who love me most. But somehow in those darkest moments my brain convinces me that while those people would be sad, they’d ultimately understand.
The creature who wouldn’t understand, or be able to be devastated, then angry, or hate and then forgive me someday would be my dog. She loves me with a love that’s more simple than that. She understands that I’ll be there for her with scratches, treats and snuggles. She depends on me to get out of bed every morning so she can whack me with her tail, and that’s why she loves me. She loves me simply because of my presence. She depends on me being dependable, and not disappearing from one day to the next. So in those moments I think about her ears, and her tail, and her unabashed and uncomplicated joy, and it feels like a warm hug and a whisper in my ear that I am loved.
I’m not saying that if you’re depressed, or struggling, that a dog is a replacement for professional help. But I am saying that I’ve found the most extraordinary love in the most unlikely place, and maybe if you’re struggling you can remember that love doesn’t always have to be big and out loud. It can be soft and simple. It can look ridiculous walking on three legs in a dinosaur costume, or drooling all over your couch. It can be constant, straightforward and gentle. If you’re very quiet at night, sometimes it even comes in the form of a little fart: the true sign of coming home.
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Written by Skyler Espinoza
Em[Power] 