I can’t tell you what I would give to nuzzle my nose into Charlotte’s folds of fur and drink in her wet wool coat scent or to wrap my body around Daisy’s and feel her silky soft ears and feel her deep, even breaths beneath her graying coat. Maybe it’s because it’s the weekend before finals or maybe it’s because I’m listening to the Glee album “The Quarterback,” but I am sobbing like a baby writing this because I miss my dogs so much. We learn that life is short, too short, and we must chase after every bird and ball we see and a day spent sleeping is a great one.
They learn from us, and in turn, we learn from them. They spend their entire lives dedicated to their humans. I don’t know how you can even begin to think that about a creature that puts its complete trust in you to feed it, shelter it, and love it, all while giving you all the loyalty and love in the world. Once, in my Catholic elementary school, some religious teacher had the audacity to say that dogs don’t have souls, and therefore, don’t go to heaven. You can’t help but love her right back when she looks up at you with all the love and enthusiasm in the world. Her squashed face is so ugly that it’s cute. Her tiny little paws are like pin cushions and her tail is a perfect spiral. Every person she meets is worthy of a good sniff and everyone stops to comment on how cute she is. Even her enthusiasm for just going for a walk around the block sends my entire family into peals of laughter as Charlotte throws herself against the door and barely wriggles into her harness before falling onto the ground because she can’t handle her own excitement. She has an incomparable passion for life that doesn’t seem like it should be worthy of being manifested in a dog, but if anyone deserves it, it’s Charlotte. You can yell at her and tell her to get out of the kitchen, but she’ll be back in five minutes with her head down and her big, greasy, marble-like eyes staring up at you with such longing for forgiveness that you can’t help but scoop her up and snuggle her. She snores louder than a trucker and makes this horrible bunny-monkey-dolphin noise when she’s excited (or in other words, when she knows she’s about to be fed).īut despite her generally annoying state, you can’t help but love Charlotte because she doesn’t know anything but love. She can’t breathe normally and constantly pants. She has dog OCD, which manifests itself in incessantly licking her face. But most of the time, my God, she is loud. Despite her compromised breathing apparatus, she will stealthily appear right beneath your feet and send you falling to your certain death as you trip over her tiny body. If you sit down anywhere, Charlotte will appear within ten seconds and plop herself down on some part of your body, whether it be your lap or your feet or sometimes, if it so pleases her, your head. I read somewhere than pugs were bred solely to cuddle Chinese emperors during the cold winters when they needed warmth, and she apparently is not far removed from her ancestors. My mom calls her the “Mother Theresa of Dogs,” and it’s true-she’s pretty unreal.Ĭharlotte lives for affection. I am convinced she feels more than any person could ever hope to. She would sit next to me on the couch and ever so delicately lay her soft black head on my lap, knowing that I was in pain. But Daisy stayed by my side through the whole experience. It’s hard enough being twelve and to add insult to injury (literally), I was confined to a massive leg brace for anywhere from twelve to sixteen weeks. I was in a lot of pain and, quite frankly, emotionally unstable and miserable. I was committed to the couch for six weeks of my seventh-grade summer to heal.
When I was twelve, I had a terrible accident and tore my ACL very, very badly. This left me pretty shaken up, considering what an integral part of my life they are. I would be absent from my dogs’ lives for a pretty long time, considering the span between breaks in which I would be going home. Leaving for college, I took all of this into consideration. I can’t call them when I need to hear their barking. I don’t even know if half the time they remember I’m alive because I’m not physically present. They cannot fly out to see me on a moment’s notice. But my dogs, they don’t have that privilege.
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