Member-only story
MEMOIR | DOGS
Connection, Loss and Love Without Words
The story of Butters and Boo
The love of a dog isn’t always easy to describe. If dogs could talk, maybe they’d help us to understand it a little better for ourselves. But there’s a magic in these unspoken bonds. There’s a beauty in the connections that arise when no word is ever spoken. Dogs ooze character, and their non-verbal lives don’t detract from the connections they form, and the personalities they develop.
One of the most beautiful, most hilarious features of these beloved friends of ours is just how much they vary. Sure, there are some common bases. The butt-sniffing, tail-chasing, walk-loving, and spot-circumspecting are almost universal in the world of canines, it’s true. But for those who’ve never had a dog, it can be easily missed just how much personality lies beneath those fun-loving, fur-coated exteriors.
With my first dog, it took me awhile to fully see it. I got her for my eighth birthday, but it wouldn’t be until years later that we truly connected with one another. We played and walked and I’d call her inside when she barked too much. (She had a penchant for barking at the undefined black of the night. We called it dark-barking.)
But by and large, as I went through elementary school and middle school, we were just…
