Soul Dog

I heard someone say — on Tiktok, of all places— that every once in a very long while, you find your soul dog. Your heart dog. That dog that is everything to you. If you’re lucky. I never considered myself a lucky person, but eight years ago, I brought home my soul dog.

I can’t explain it, but you know when you meet that dog. I knew from the moment she sniffed us ever-so-gently on the floor of the shelter, and then walked over to the door. I swear if she had a coat and a suitcase she would have picked them up and waited there, her unspoken way of telling us she was ready to come home.

She was instantly ours. The way she jumped and waggled and skittered across the hardwood floor, the second time we came to visit her at the shelter. And she didn't hesitate for a second to jump in the car the day we took her home. My brother and I would fight over whose room she got to sleep in every night, and she followed us everywhere. She hated being left alone. After she chewed through the bars of her crate the first Monday, my mom took her to the school she worked at every Friday, then every other day, then every day.

The kids loved her. They'd come to my mom's office and sit on the floor with her if they needed a break. The school wasn't supposed to allow dogs, but no one complained. Even my best friend, who'd been afraid of big dogs ever since her grandfather's sheepdog knocked her down as a child, fell in love with her.

We learned that she loved food a little too much. So much that we had to stack two child-gates on top of each other, and then two chairs, and a fake-kitchen set in front of the pantry if we left the house for even ten minutes. We learned that she loved squeaky toys, but not balls and sticks, and that she'd rather sleep in a person’s bed than her dog's bed. Of course, she preferred the bed when the person wasn't in it, so she could stretch out in the middle.

I watched as she went from shy and skinny and skittish to the wagging her tail every time we spoke to her, and trotting joyfully on walks and rolling in the grass with her tongue lolling out. She was learning what it was like to be loved.

One day the lawn mower came when we were out, and he forgot to close the back gate. We were terrified that she had gotten out, but she was just lying there in the grass, waiting for us. She didn't even want to walk too far down the drive way if one of us was still in the house.

I know she’d do anything to protect us, even though she’s scared of the nail clippers and doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She's the only reason I feel safe alone in the house at night, she's the thing I'll miss the most when I go away to college, and half the reason I didn't want to go too far.

The way she runs into my room to wake me up every morning, and how if we leave her alone for even five minutes, her whole body waggles so hard you think she's going to fall over when we come back.

She looks at us like we're the best thing in the world. She knows we saved her, but I don’t know if she knows that she saved us, too.