I Carry Your Heart With Me

I felt a deep yearning for the companionship of a dog.

Shortly before the shit-storm that was the pandemic, I had a mental breakdown. Not in the sudden sort of way you see in movies. It had been a slug of a breakdown. You sort of convince yourself its not happening for a while—that you’re the same person you used to be before you had panic attacks. I am not an anxious person. That’s what I would tell myself after I got into bed for the third time in ten minutes (I had to check the doors again of course. This time with the lights on. Then off again. Then I’d have to feel the handle three times to make sure the lock was down. Even then I wasn’t sure.)

So I had a problem—that’s what I’m trying to say. I sought professional help and the more I talked about my problems, the more I thought a dog would be a solution.

With a dog I could learn to talk to people again. Lately, it was like an alien had inhabited my brain and was trying to act the way it thought an earthling might. The alien was always wrong and so I preformed some awkward charade that made me want to become a socially isolated figure of myth. You know—live in the woods and scare local children.

Plus they required exercise and I certainly hadn’t been doing that lately. Not even because I didn’t want to. I’d developed a love of weightlifting and running (yes for fun and not from danger). All that changed when I “didn’t have anxiety”. There was a constant heaviness in my chest when I exited the front door that made me have racing thoughts about underlying diseases. I was sure I was secretly dying somehow.

A dog would get me active and social. That was a big chunk of the mental health triangle right there. Plus the idea of a dog made me happy. I wanted that unconditional love dogs are so great at. Needed that tail wag when you enter a room. When you have a dog, you’ve always made someone’s day. There’s something beautiful about that.

I saw her on a craigslist search for German Shepards in my area. This was desperation, my friends. I was risking sexual perverts and potential murder for the promise of a dog. But I could take my boyfriend and not go with the money on me. There were ways around my craigslist anxiety.

It was a photo with six floppy puppies in a wagon on a farm. I fell in love with the second dog from the left. It was the blackest of all the Shepards in the wagon and the fluffiest of the pups, Only the paws were brown and a funny little fur line under its mouth that accentuated the natural shape of its smile. The right ear was folded down in that floppy way that German Shepard’s do. The second from the left was the only puppy looking directly at the person behind the camera, tongue out, smiling—happy.

Any of them would do but I had my heart set on the dark fluff ball that was second from the left.

I sent a message. Just to see. That’s how it starts, you know. I said the same thing when we got our second dog. I’m not coming home with a dog! I just want to look! Yeah right.

It ends with me setting up an appointment to see the dogs. It was set for two days later when I could get time off from work. The owner warned me they would probably sell them all by then. You can imagine what my anxiety did with that information.

It obsessed.

I imagined losing a puppy that wasn’t even mine and it broke my heart. I tossed and turned and wondered when I should email him. I’d email him promptly at 7am to see what puppies were left. It was up to fate and I would never forgive her if she didn’t let me have this one.

My boyfriend was helping a friend move not too far away from the farm and I warned him I might pick him up in a hurry to get a dog. “We’ll see what happens,” he said. He was fine with fate deciding things like that.

I gritted my teeth until the owner responded about six hours later. There was one puppy left—a girl— and there was another couple coming that afternoon to see her. Cue uncontrollable panic. I texted my boyfriend twenty-three times in a row, six of those texts were just exclamation points. Ten were guilt trips pleading him to go for me since I couldn’t get out of work yet. The rest were reasons a dog would be great for us.

In the end, he went with a friend. I paced back and forth until he called me. I never picked up a phone so fast. It was a FaceTime call with the owner who showed me the parents and the puppy.

My boyfriend checked—are you sure?

I already had a name.

When I started writing this, I thought it was the story of my favorite hike with Echo (Whiteface in the Adirondacks). But every time I wrote a story about her it had a long intro about how I got her, which is probably because that was the best day I’d had in a long time. It will always be the best memory because it’s the beginning.

It’s the beginning of me being wrong about her curing my anxiety. She certainly made me feel better most days and did bring me peace but she also was an absolute demon at times as well.

She made me active and helped me talk to people. Everyone always wanted to say hello to her and I could hop in wherever I wanted. It was wonderful at helping with my social anxiety. She got me active too. When I was walking with Echo I didn’t have to think about the heaviness in my lungs (coincidentally not there now that I was worried about a dog instead). I was just taking care of her. That gave me a purpose besides fear.

But at home she’d drive me to tears with her little teeth.

She was like a velociraptor, hiding behind furniture and under beds, hunting you. She was incredibly smart and had a nose that belonged on a cadaver dog. My boyfriend and I lived and worked on a college campus at the time and we said she was the campus garbage dog because if there was something spine curling in the grass she’d find it. I became a pro at shoving my hand down her throat and grabbing slimy treasures she’d discovered on our walks. What are you eating? Christ, it’s a condom—or a rabbit carcass—or a half eaten chicken wing that’s been sitting out for God knows how long. Echo leave the can of Labatt alone!

After five PM her puppy alarm went off and said “Mom’s done with work”. She’d suddenly go apeshit grabbing everything in sight and then running like roadrunner in places I couldn’t get. She chewed the walls. She pulled my hair whenever I would lie down. She had a taste for power cords that frightened me. Bruises on my arms and legs became the new normal. She could break out of her crate in less than ten minutes. Nothing could stop her—not crates, not gates, and not our silly leashes.

There was something admirable about that

So ultimately, my favorite memory, is the one where my boyfriend came down the sidewalk while I waited outside the front door. Even now I look back at photos and can’t believe she was ever that tiny. She was quiet too. I guess she had resigned herself to being with us during the drive home.

My boyfriend placed her in my arms and I’m sure a delighted squeal came out of my mouth. All puppies are precious but she was beyond anything I had anticipated. She looked right at me and I swear to God her eyes looked human. Even now they are so expressive I think she’s hiding a Mensa-sized mind. Too smart for her own good.

This was my partner in hiking, my best friend, my nap buddy, my running partner. She was exactly what I needed even when I expected something else. My Echo.

“The owner said something,” my boyfriend said as he was holding the door to our apartment for me. I was busy smelling Echo’s puppy breath. “In the photo she was the second dog from the left.”

I looked at him then. I’d never told him which one I liked the best. It really didn’t matter in the end. But this made my heart glow. This was meant to be.