Member-only story
Grieving the Dogs I Didn’t Want
Processing the complicated emotions of losing a pet.
My family always had pets when I was growing up. Two cats, three dogs, an innumerable number of fish my sisters and I won at the school carnival, and hermit crabs every summer at our beach house.
There was always an animal of some kind in our home.
However, I wasn’t a pet person. They were cute and good for a cuddle once in a while. But one of the cats continually bit my ankles, and dogs barking makes me wish I was listening to nails on a chalkboard. A lot of dogs, and all big ones, make me nervous. I was happy they brought joy to other people, but I knew I wouldn’t have one of my own.
I proudly proclaimed, “If my future husband loves me enough, he won’t make me get a dog.”
Then I met my husband, and his dream had always been to have a dog. He returned from a deployment to Iraq just a few months before we got married, and I couldn’t deny him his desires after what he’d been through. We compromised on a fourth-month-old Shiba Inu we named Shiba. (We did try other names for her, like Penelope and Peanut, but Shiba fit her best.)
