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Puppy Love
A new puppy is an extraordinary teacher, especially for these times. I’ve recently been claimed by a little one, which I’ll get to, and that’s made me think about having been a somewhat reluctant pet owner at various stages of my life.
As a child, I moved far too much with my mother for us to have a pet for long, but that didn’t keep me from trying to rescue stray kittens I found on the street. I remember those strays as mangy but cute, frightened and brave. I couldn’t articulate it then, but I could see parallels between our states of being, between my story and theirs.
Each of us had been left out in the cold, sometimes literally; we went without the basics of warm, adequate clothing and shelter and warmth. For want of attention and protection, I projected my emotions onto them and it felt like we might perish. And finally — though this last part took a few decades for me to see in myself as clearly as I saw it in animals — we each had the potential to be great, if only we had the benefit of inside, of warmth and a little loving.
My first real pet was Snoopy, a black and white stray cat, that in my estimation absolutely behaved like that writerly dog. Snoopy was attentive and kind, slightly mischievous, but ultimately a greater expense than we could afford without a budget with room for another mouth to feed. When we were evicted from our Bronx apartment, Mom put Snoopy…
