My Soul Mate Has Four Legs

The last few years have been pretty tumultuous for a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons. Between a Pandemic impacting heavily on both my home life and professional life, a relationship breakdown and life in general doing what life does, it has been a busy and stressful chapter of my life. I know I’m not alone in this, and even though that is comforting to know I’m not the only one struggling at times like these, it can still feel like a very lonely experience especially when we are separated from the people we love through no choice of our own. Simple things we might have coped with before become compounded and feel insurmountable.

For me, the lowest point of the last few years came when the child care facility my son attends was closed thanks to Covid related difficulties. So that I could continue to work, keep the roof over our heads and pay the bills, I had to send him to stay with friends hours away from home. He enjoyed being with our friends who have a son the same age that he gets along with like a house on fire and we thought everything would be fine. Until he just stopped sleeping through the night. For a child who has slept through the night at nine months of age to seven years later, waking every half hour was a tough change. It's been a little over two years and memories of that time still brings tears to my eyes. As hard as it was on the both of us, I am so very grateful our friends were able to help us.

It hasn’t been all doom and gloom though, there have been as much cause to celebrate as to cry. My small human (aka my monkey, offspring, dependant, issue, bairn, bundle of joy, rug rat, light of my life) celebrated his first double digits birthday, he also received the best marks he has achieved yet in a benchmarking exam at school. As an extended family, we welcomed bouncing new additions, engagements, 40th, 60th and 70th birthdays as well as smaller ones while we wait for the wedding dates to roll around, several secondary school and university graduations, promotions at work and professional achievements (not to be confused with a promotion. While a promotion IS an achievement, it’s not the ONLY achievement). I’ve celebrated successes with friends and congratulated them on their milestones and achievements. Those friends and family helped me celebrated my 40th birthday, spread out over two days doing fun things like drinks at a local bar to traipsing through a tea festival. Life goes on, even when it feels like the world is coming to a grinding holt.

If I had to pick one event that has made the biggest impact on my life in the last few years, it would be adopting our dog. I had tried everything I could think of to help my son sleep properly again. A white noise machine, essential oils, reducing exposure to tech before bed, a glass of milk, reading stories increasing his physical activity during the day, a weighted blanket, talking to a counsellor. I was running out of things to try. Nothing worked. Some things helped, but it would only work for a few nights before we were back almost to square one again. I was out of ideas that didn’t involve medications. It was then a friend suggested adopting a dog. After a lot of consideration, I decided even if bringing home a new addition to our little household didn’t help my boy sleep, it couldn’t hurt, right? I now realise what I've been missing out on.

It’s been a year since we bought her home. She is a not-yet-3-year-old rescue Greyhound who follows me around the house to the point I can't take a step back without checking where she is. I’ve lost the battle to keep her off the couch, however we have an understanding. As long as I’m awake, she is not to be on the furniture. I know dogs don't think the same way as we do, but I know she knows she isn't supposed to be on the couch. It's all in the guilty look she gives me. And I've never seen a dog sulk like a greyhound!! They are such dramatic little animals. I get stink-eye if I wake her up too early in the morning. She used to race but has become lazy since retirement even insisting we break walks up into stages. My mum has a soft spot for her and breaks my rule of not feeding her at the dinner table. The result is that any time my mum comes to dinner, Juge (pronounced Joo-ge) will stand and stare at her with a deeply soulful look until mum caves and feeds her. She occasionally tries it with guests at meal time too. If the Soulful play fails on anyone, that’s OK, there is always nudging elbows, sitting her head on someone’s lap or, and goodness knows why she does this, wedging her head between her target’s back and the back of their dining chair. She won’t leave her bowl until she gets her after-dinner carrot. Of all things, a carrot! She hates baths and having her nails trimmed, loves food and will steal anything edible if left unattended for even a second. She loves visitors and greets them at the door with a bow. She comes with me to tuck my son into bed at night and races me to his door in the morning to wake him up for school.

That first week of battling with her over trying and failing to keep her off the couch, chasing her non-street savvy, gunna-get-run-over butt down the street after she found the one and only weakness in the fencing, was when I realised I’d reached nearly 40 years of age and despite having lived with dogs on and off my entire life, I’ve never had a dog of my own. Many, many fish (I suck at keeping fish alive, I should be blacklisted from all pet shops, banned from taking home another innocent aquatic victim), Guinea pigs, a cat, lizards, even a turtle and a hermit crab. Sure, I’ve had plenty of pets, but never a dog.

But of all the crazy, silly and slightly odd things she does, I’ll always remember the first time we met her. The organisation I adopted her from matches the dogs needing homes with profiles of people wanting to adopt before arranging for families or individuals to come out to a country property where the dogs are kenneled, waiting to be re-homed. I’ve come to know our little Juge rarely wags her tail. At that first meeting though, it reminded me of an overzealous propeller! So much excitement! She is curious about everything and after thoroughly introducing herself to my mum, son and myself, she ran off to investigate every corner of the yard, only to come back to give us all wet puppy kisses, wagging her tail again.

I have loved her to bits since that moment.

And I know, no matter how hard or stressful my day has been, how tired I am, it will all fall behind me when I will come home to hugs from the boy who is the Light of my Life and the unconditional love of my four legged, crazy little soul mate who wags her tail every time she sees me.

And you know what? My son has slept through the night ever since she came to live with us. For that, I think she can keep her favorite bedtime spot in the corner of the couch.