The Neighborhood According to Dog

When you're thinking about getting a dog, there are certain obvious considerations.

Does your building allow pets? What supplies do you need? Can you afford said supplies, plus recurring expenses like food and vet visits?

The list could go on, and all are important things to consider before taking the plunge. Before adopting our little Azula, my partner and I considered them all.

Yet… dog ownership has changed me in other, unexpected ways, too.

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Straight away, I fell in love with our little bundle of energy. Her sweet big eyes full of wonder, how she'd curl up into me in the face of the big, scary world.

Even the way she would stop and sit down, refusing to go a step further from the house on a walk, was cute. At first.

Soon enough, though, I realized that being Azula's dog mom was going to be a challenge for me. Soon, I understood that it would rewrite a lot of the ways I think about the world.

You see, in a former life, I had a cat named Artemis. He and I shared three different apartments, and I was his primary caregiver for most of his life.

The thing about cats, though, is that they don't really leave your space (if they're an indoor cat, anyway). There's only so much you can worry about with a cat, and you can minimize a lot of that by cultivating your space to be cat-friendly.

Dogs, on the other hand, are made to interact with the world. This means that you go out where anything can happen, just your dog's loyalty and leash tethering them to you. And to safety.

Australian Cattle Dogs and Australian Shepherds are high-energy, herding dogs. They need a lot of exercise, and so, Azula gets at least two walks a day.

As the resident early riser slash person who insisted on a Blue Heeler like Benji from Yoga with Adriene, morning walks with Azula are part of my domain.

That's when the real fun began.

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The first thing I learned about dog ownership is that, unlike cat ownership, it is a social venture.

Interactions between Artemis and other humans occurred strictly with individuals I had already invited into our home.

Chats about Azula's breed, whether she can have a treat, and if small children can pet her, however, occur any time a stranger walks by and takes an interest.

Suddenly, I'm forced to learn small talk with neighbors, a skill I have anxiously avoided for the first 28 years of my life. I'm learning that some humans and their dogs will want to walk quickly by, while others will ask whether Azula can say hello (she, unlike me, always wants to say hi).

The number of times I chatted with random strangers prior to Azula entering my life could've been counted on one hand and almost always began and ended with someone asking for directions.

Now, I've lost track entirely, her friendly little face and wagging little nub of a tail inviting socialization wherever we go.

Azula on her first day home (photo credit: author)More than that, though, the way I see my neighborhood has been rewritten. I've always been a walker, enjoying long rambles with a podcast or audiobook in my ears. On my feet, I'd get the general lay of the land, take in the landscaping and architecture.

On walks with Azula, though? I've memorized where she likes to go to the bathroom, which plants have the most interesting sniffs, which yards have "friends" who will bark hello, and which have neighbors who'll yell out their windows if Azula so much as sniffs their grass.

Most of all, though, I keep a mental map of danger zones, where discarded chicken bones or pizza slices or mysterious objects of unknown origin reside. I could draw you a trash map of the vicinity with ease, updated daily around 7am when we take our first walk of the day. I could do that, but my art skills are limited, so I'll spare you.

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Little Azula recently celebrated her first birthday, and I had the chance to reflect on how we've learned and grown together in past seven months.

Many of the changes are those small tweaks to routine which pets bring into our lives. She gets fed in the morning before I do, and I no longer sleep in on the weekends since Azula is a pooch of routine. I take two walks a day now, and have a little snuggle buddy on the couch when I read in the evenings.

And then, there's the big things. Like learning how to manage my anxiety and all the ways it's connected itself to her and the various hazards mapped into my cerebral cortex. Like differentiating between real threats (cars, chicken bones) and imagined ones (a single chocolate chip or shred of garlic).

I couldn't have imagined half the ways I wasn't ready to be a dog owner. And yet, I couldn't have imagined how I've grown as much as she has in the months we've been together thus far, either.

Azula came bounding into my life on four paws, reshaping it like she kneads into her bed pillow before going to sleep each night. I couldn't be more grateful for our new furry family member, even on the days when she steals my throw pillow and tries to take a bit out of it.

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Special thanks to Andy, my fiancé, for being Azula's work-at-home dog dad and the person who suggested I write this essay.