A Girl and Her Dog

At three o’clock this morning, I decided that what my story needs is a dog. I don’t mean just any dog, but a best friend, a confidant, a beacon of good will and comfort. Any girl in crisis needs a shoulder to cry on, even if it’s of the furry variety.

My revelation came due to the exhausting battle I have waged with my dog’s stomach. For the past three weeks, we believed that the tiny Shetland sheepdog suffered from a simple bacterial stomach bug. No amount of medicine, expensive dog food, or specialty diets has helped. As I write this, he sits in a veterinary office awaiting the diagnostic tests that will determine the cause of his instable constitution.

Without him, I feel a sad sense of freedom. I don’t have to say, “Stop licking the baby’s mouth.” No one waits at the door to be let outside, and mixtures of dog food and boiled chicken don’t have to be prepared. Unless I roll in the fresh mud, there won’t be any paw prints on the couch.

Although part of me rejoices in the ease of taking care of only one cat and one child, I miss my friend and feel an instant pain of guilt for taking him for granted. Who was with me and licked tears off my face when I suffered a miscarriage? Marty, my Sheltie. Who curled up on the couch with me every time I felt waves of morning sickness? Marty. Who watches out for the baby and takes care to be gentle? Marty, of course.

We become so accustomed to doing things for our pets, that we forget the wonderful gifts they bring to our lives. They join our families not to clean the crumbs off our floor, or retrieve the paper, but to become loving members that wait at the door with eager anticipation for us to come home.

With this in mind, I plan to create a dog in The Bottetree that will be my main character’s rock. He will soothe her pain, but also provide joy. It’s ironic that before I’ve blogged about the people in the book, I’ve mentioned bottle trees, colloquialisms and now dogs.