The hardest part of life with a puppy was never quite what people imagined, as I look back on those days now. It wasn’t the early morning walks beneath gloomy grey skies, nor those windswept evenings when the cold nipped at your fingers, when sleep had barely visited you or your mind was troubled with distant thoughts. It wasn’t turning down journeys or declining invitations because, You can come, but please leave him at home, was always said with a certain look.
It wasnt the hair scattered over the sheets and clinging to your jumper, or even the surprise of finding a stray one in your pudding. Nor was it scrubbing the kitchen floor time and time again, knowing full well youd be at it again before the hour was out.
The worries at the vet not the bills in pounds nor that dart of fear youd miss something vital. It wasnt giving up a sliver of that easy freedom, because freedom quietly became us one day. Nor was it that your heart no longer belonged solely to you.
All that was love. All of it was living. Every bit was chosen freely.
But the hardest part crept up slowly, the way aches settle in your bones when a storm rolls in, or like that subtle English draught that at first you hardly notice but soon gets to your very core.
One afternoon it simply dawned on me: he couldnt do what he once could. He triedoh, how he triedbut he simply couldnt. Hed scamper towards me as always, but his pace was quieter, his gait less certain. His eyes still mirrored mine, yet in them I glimpsed that weary shimmer, gently admitting: Im here, but each day feels a little heavier.
And then you remember all the days gone, and you see who he is nowcompletely yours, trusting to the last.
Hed always believed in me: that Id be beside him, that Id help him, that Id come to his rescue. And for a time, I did. But no one can shield a friend from old age.
The sharpest ache is knowing that, while he was your comfort, for him, you were everything: his world, his sky, all his hope.
Youre never quite ready. Not ready to let go, not ready to witness the light fading from the one who taught you to love without restraint.
And then comes the silence. A thick, heavy quiet. The dip in the pillow where he used to sleep. The bowl, now dry, never to be licked again. And your own heart, broken to bits.
You wander out again, but this time theres only you. And you catch yourself speaking softly to the breeze, Come along, little one…
But if I could turn back the clock, Id choose it all over again. The tiredness, the sadness, the devotion.
For that love was true.
To share your days with a dog is to welcome fire into your homea warmth that lingers long after he is gone.
Because a dog comes into this world with just one wish: to give you his whole heart.
