The love of a dog isn’t always easy to describe. If dogs could talk, maybe they’d help us to understand it a little better for ourselves. But there’s a magic in these unspoken bonds. There’s a beauty in the connections that arise when no word is ever spoken. Dogs ooze character, and their non-verbal lives don’t detract from the connections they form, and the personalities they develop.
One of the most beautiful, most hilarious features of these beloved friends of ours is just how much they vary. Sure, there are some common bases. The butt-sniffing, tail-chasing, walk-loving, and spot-circumspecting are almost universal in the world of canines, it’s true. But for those who’ve never had a dog, it can be easily missed just how much personality lies beneath those fun-loving, fur-coated exteriors.
With my first dog, it took me awhile to fully see it. I got her for my eighth birthday, but it wouldn’t be until years later that we truly connected with one another. We played and walked and I’d call her inside when she barked too much. (She had a penchant for barking at the undefined black of the night. We called it dark-barking.)
But by and large, as I went through elementary school and middle school, we were just cohabitants. It wasn’t until high school that I began to realize how hard it would be if I were ever to lose her. We hadn’t become the best of friends yet, but she was always there for me. After every day of school, whether good, bad or momentous, she’d run to the door and greet me, leaping at my knees with ecstasy in her eyes. She was a being of unrestrained whimsy and she was a creature of unconditional love.
She loved sticks. She was a little speck of black lugging moss-covered logs through timeless meadows of green. She always went for the biggest ones. But she tried her best to trim them. With determined eyes and an overjoyed smile, she’d gleefully and growlfully remove those bits she didn’t like.
She loved the winter. She would leap through snow taller than she was, disappearing entirely in-between her valiant leaps and bounds. On our adventures, she would chase the balls of ice I’d kick as we walked, the hardened chunks of blackened February ice sliding back and forth between us until they’d crumbled to pieces. She was amazed each time that I found new ones.
She loved the summer, too. Whenever we neared even a trickle of water, she’d turn into the most committed of detectives. She’d pull so tightly on her leash that she’d choke herself, but the sound of running water was so enthralling that the need for oxygen fell by the wayside. She’d cry wildly until I’d throw stones into the stream. She’d dart feverishly from side to side as she’d chase each new ripple that radiated outward. The game could go on for hours and hours in stream after stream. It was her favorite place in the entire world to be.
She loved the car. She’d dash to the door at the mere mention of the word, and she’d stick her head out the window wherever we drove. Her ears would flap madly in the breeze as a look of sheer joy stretched wide across her face. She braved the winds of our strange world like the most courageous of pilots.
She loved her family and she made it known. It’s profound how much affection can be communicated without even an exchange of words. It extended well beyond the choral extravaganzas she went on each time a fire truck neared our neighborhood. She’d whine and cry when she missed us, and she’d jump for joy when we returned. She saved her most emotive songs for her best friends. And in her whines, cries, growls and jumps for joy, she made her thoughts known. She made sure her love was felt.
In our seventeen years together, we only grew closer. By that final year, we were spending every day together. It got to the point where she practically refused to go on walks if they weren’t with me. We explored meadow after forest and stream after stream, making sure to stop and chase rocks in each of them.
Losing Boo was the hardest thing I ever had to go through. For weeks we agonized as a family over what was best for her, and for weeks Boo fought her very hardest to hang on. We scheduled to put her down three times, and each time she caused us to cancel the appointments with her miraculous recoveries.
In those first weeks when she was gone, the void that she left in our lives went beyond words. It was soul-crushing. It didn’t feel real. Each morning I’d wake up to another bad dream I couldn’t escape. The emptiness was horrible.
When we got a new dog, it took awhile before his presence in our home stopped feeling like the most horrible of betrayals. His name was Butters. To even call Butters ours, though, felt like a cruel lie. Even in his puppiest adoration I couldn’t help but feel the weight of Boo’s absence. I wanted him to be someone else. I wanted him to be another dog. I just wanted to see Boo again. In Butters’ first month in our lives, he felt more like a distant concept than a unique and soulful creature.
But those naive and loving eyes eventually wore me down. He wasn’t Boo, but he was a dog with a personality all his own. He was Butters.
Where Boo was brave, Butters is timid. She was a courageous woman and he’s a fearful man. Stairs, doggy doors, elevators, bugs, sudden movements and new rooms are among his growing list of phobias. Where Boo loved water, Butters is terrified at the sight of mere droplets. In fact, he hasn’t yet braved the depths of the kiddie pool in our backyard.
Where Boo was crazy, Butters is stark raving mad. His favorite game in the world is “couch.” How exactly this game formed in his erratic puppy mind, I can’t be sure. But it’s spurred by sudden movements, new people, or anything at all out of the ordinary. And when it happens, Butters quickly puts on an impossibly silly look of ecstasy and determination. At this, the first movement will send him sprinting joyously toward a couch.
When chased there, he turns into a bouncing, wrestling, raving couch gremlin.
Sometimes he runs under tables instead. When found, he expects nothing more than a few pets or a tummy rub.
He’s very loving, too. But his loves are different. He loves his dad with a fiery passion. When he leaves sight, Butters breaks into a chorus so emotive it reminds me of Boo. But where she was an alto, he’s decidedly soprano.
He loves walks and car rides, too. But where Boo was a tireless adventurer, Butters is a sophisticated homebody. He loves walks, but he also loves asking politely if he can go home after fifteen minutes. With an obstinate paw over the leash, he’ll decide on sudden whims that he can walk no further. In fact, I have a growing library of photos of Butters refusing to go for walks in beautiful places.
While Butters isn’t Boo, he’s still one of the most loving, most eccentric little canines around. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t like streams, or that elevators petrify him, or that his aimless barking is more of the day variety. He’s Butters and he never needs to change. He’ll never be Boo, but he’ll always be Butters. And I’ll always love him all the same.