My Dog Story
My whole adult life I’d thought I was allergic to dogs. Our kids would beg for a dog, and I’d say, “It’s a dog or me, your choice!” Besides being allergic, I’d thought of a dog as just another thing I’d need to take care of. I was actually ‘anti-dog’: If you brought your dog to our house, it had to stay outside. Even if it was cold out. I was ruthless! I didn’t know the names of my friends’ dogs. Dogs simply didn’t matter to me. AT ALL. My friend Ann loves to tell the story of how when her dog died, I wrote her a condolence note saying something like, “I can’t relate at all, but I wanted to acknowledge that I know this must be a really sad time for you.” So when I had my ‘dog awakening,’ it was a pretty huge life change.
It all began with my daughter Sonya’s friend Layla’s dog Daisy. No one told Layla my no-dog rule when she came to visit one October, and it was too cold to insist that she keep Daisy outside, so I had to relent. They spent the night, and the next day when I came back from some errands, Daisy greeted me with joy and excitement. I thought, “…Well, this is NICE! And she doesn’t even know me… I could get used to THIS!”
The real fork in the road — where I parted ways with my ‘anti-dog’ self — came a bit later when I…
