The face of her is grey, but she looks younger than she is, if you think about dogs and how they are 7 times older than people. Bronwyn was loved from the moment she walked in through my front door. She’d had a bit of trouble in her early life, before we met. Starved and wandered all through downtown, skinny and scared but still loving, the old girl was much younger then. Even though she and Ralph, the main dog in my life at the time, didn’t always see dog eye to dog eye, they agreed to disagree and stayed at opposite ends of the house for many months.

I write mostly of Ralph, his dog spirit hovering around me like the ghost of dog-mas past. I can’t resist writing about him, because I miss him, and conjuring up words about him will conjure up the dog himself, majestic and wooly, beast of my heart. Then I write about Gudrun, tiny and new, the alpha dog and the littlest member of the family. I can’t help but talk about her because she is so HERE. Her presence is huge, even though she weighs all of 7 lbs. But Bronwyn, quiet, pleasing, polite, mid-size bronnie – is no squeaky wheel and therefore she doesn’t get greased. She is loved of course but that love is contained. It doesn’t spill out into poetry as readily. It is a love that doesn’t need to announce itself. It just exists, day in, day out. Good dog.

The first few days of Bronnie bursting into our lives were hectic, like a drug coming on, fast and wild. She had been found downtown. Someone drew a picture of her and faxed it. I said of course, please, send her asap. She came cageless and disheveled in the back of an old station wagon. She ran up the stairs and deep into the house. She jumped up on the bed and stayed there with me. her fur fell out of her in clumps and haystacks. There was a faint network of scars all over her dog body, like a map of pain, showing me what had happened and where. Gradually her blonde fur grew over the scars. I can’t see them anymore, as if they had never occurred.

I will sometimes actually rest both my nostrils on her graying snout, soft as anything, snorting her up into my face. The smell of her is bracing, electric and warm, the dogness and the love jolting me back. Bronnie’s not a licker, like Gudrun is – Chihuahua to the bone. Bronnie holds back and waits. If you stick your face out for her to lick, she might touch her nose to you one time, but that will be all you get.

You were and have been and still are love of my life, even though you are to the rest of the world nothing but a dead dog. Isn’t that funny that my soul mate turned out to be an animal? It makes sense. I am just an animal too. Frankly, I think you got the short end of the soulmate stick. You could have done much better than me, although you wouldn’t have found anyone who could have loved you more. I loved you more than anything. I love you still. More than words can express.

I wanted to say hello to you, and let you know that three years on after your death, I think of you always. You reside in my mind, where there is a window in my soul, the sun of my heart shining into it, and you lay right in the warmest spot, your long body stretching in the heat, no pain in your hips.

I look for you in the morning, every day, my hand reaching instinctively over on the side of the bed, where you once lay beside me, knowing I couldn’t leave the bed without waking you, why you selected that spot when you first came and stayed there for your entire dog life. Of course, you’re never there, and its been three years but I forget, and every morning I reach for nothing, my futile reach. If only my arms were long enough to reach you where you are now. I will continue reach for you, morningtime groggy grabbing at nothing, until finally in death I will find you once more. There will come a morning where I will not wake, and that is the day we will meet again.

Bronwyn and Gudrun, your dog siblings, do well in your absence. I can’t tell if they miss you, but my grief clouds everything. All I do is miss you. Yesterday Bronwyn got down to that space under the house where you kept all your secret toys, your beloved tennis balls, your big bitey rubber tire. I hadn’t been down there since your death. Your daddy and I couldn’t go down there. It hurt too badly to clean it out. It hurt too much to admit you were not returning to us. We left it. we pretended it didn’t exist, then pretended silently that you were coming back. That was the only way to cope with your loss, to tell lies to ourselves. The inestimable loss of you, it took nearly all of what we had inside to get by, to get through it. You were our son. You will always be.

I went down to help Bronwyn climb back up, as she’s not nearly as nimble as you were, and can’t come up on her own. I saw all your precious tennis balls you had stored down there, muddy little green treasures, packed into the crawl space as if it were your tomb, as if you were a grand Egyptian king, your pleasures neatly laid out for you alongside your sarcophagus, so you might have them in the afterlife. I think I might move your ashes down there, to reunite you with your things, but that would mean I would have to move them from your old bed, and I can’t bear to part with them. Not yet my love. Not yet my Ralph.

There’s some dog guests today at the house, which makes my dog children crazy and wild with excitement. New dog butts to sniff, unfamiliar tails to chase and everyone’s precious little hackles go up, making all the hair on their backs look like they’ve gelled them into tiny Mohawks. The thing about dogs is that if you really look, they are all kind of the same colors, but the variations of these hues and the ways that they manifest themselves are infinite and unpredictable yet at the same time contained. These dogs are all different but there’s something ancient about them that makes them seem like they are from the same dog stock, that somewhere in history they came from the same dog place. It’s all the same dog family and dog genes and dog tree.

When my big dog ralph was alive, he would growl frightfully at canine social callers. He had no patience for puppies, and would turn any or all onto their backs at the most minor offense. It seemed like there was a thread in his jowls running up his snout, and when it was pulled it would lift his face up into a werewolf grimace, which would disappear as fast as I could say his name.

The littlest dog guest, Emily, also has this thread, right on her nose, a teensy stitch to display her displeasure at being sniffed by my Chihuahua Gudrun, who looks positively giant next to her toy breed runt body. I speak in a high nasal tone which makes this sweet visitor feel safe and she wraps her entire being around my neck like a muffler and I can feel her bones vibrate with my breath.

What a gift it is to be around animals who love people and I think that dogs are the most loving of all. I can’t speak about cats, as I am allergic and haven’t ever gotten to know one because of the sneezing and swelling that inevitably commences whenever I am close to one, but dogs I can attest have an affection that is unparalleled. No person has loved me like my dogs have, and I cannot be sure if I have loved anyone as purely and selflessly as they do seemingly without effort. I love how dogs don’t fear intimacy. They are daringly close and unashamed of their dog emotions and don’t hold back a thing ever.

This is why it is exciting to meet new ones and have dog visits and small canine events. The presence of pets is life affirming in the warmest and furriest way. I thrill at their elegant spines and how their dog legs move fast under their dog chassis. I can understand why people hoard animals and collect more and more to the point they cannot function and must have their beloved pets removed by the authorities and their houses razed to the ground to rid the floorboards of the ammoniated smell of a hundred animals or more peeing on the same spot.

It gets to me when these people have to let go of their important creatures, and I cry right along with them on the tv, as I couldn’t even imagine this. I could never. I remember the diehard folks during hurricane Katrina, standing on their rooftops with rifles, refusing to leave their animals behind and threatening to kill anyone who tried to make them. I get it. that is me right down to the ground. I could never let one of mine go. You would have to kill me first. Even in death, I can never let them go. They are mine and remain mine forever and ever. It’s my responsibility and my great pleasure. It is an honor to care for animals and this I never take for granted.

When I was adopting Ralph, he was just a baby black dot of fur on a desk. I filled out a form and scratched him under his chin where I would learn that he loved it best. There was a sudden commotion, as an older graying muzzle poodle was brought into the animal shelter by his owner, and the volunteer tried to calm him, as the owner, who I never saw, left the dog there without so much as a good bye. The poodle let out the most blood curdling scream, a howl that hurt my heart and ears, just one long note, held out and sustained in isolation and abandonment and fear.

the volunteer shook her head. “People have no respect for life. That dog is perfectly good. Perfectly healthy. She just doesn’t want him. No respect for life. None at all.” She looked at me with tired eyes that had seen much dog tragedy. She pet Ralph on his puppy fluffed chest, and she didn’t know his name was Ralph as he hadn’t even been named yet. “You take care of this dog. He’s a good boy. He will be a good dog for you.” I nodded solemnly and looked away not sure what else to do.

“I can tell you will do a good job.”

I knew that I would too.

The volunteer picked up the poodle, who would not be consoled. The dog flipped and squirmed and wrenched himself out of the volunteer’s arms and ran full force back to the entrance, pushing on the heavy wood and glass door with all his dog might as if it was the only thing keeping him from his owner’s side.

Sometimes this Chihuahua Pomeranian mix and this Australian cattle dog mix will sit next to me, working on long, cylindrical gold dog toys I have cannily stuffed with greenies. The dogs go insane for greenies. It’s a dog drug for sure. It’s dognip. I worry about anything that creates that much desire and excitement, as I am projecting my own addictive tendencies onto my animals, so I really pack the greenies down into the toys, making it near impossible to get them out. The treats are broken up with slow patient licking at the base of the toy, and so when they are on the floor, working on these buried treasures, snouts passionately engaged in extrication, they look like my very own horn section.

Dog eyes close in rapture, as they are entrenched in the moment, the touch of the tongue to treat releasing a burst of greenie flavor that they go for again and again. the horn section has no honking trumpets or saxophones, but there is the rhythmic cadence of canine breath and licking, and every once in a while, there is a tiny squeak of a dog fart, which always smells much larger than it sounds, filling the room with the stinky aftermath of swallowed air from playing. So even if it doesn’t sound like a brass band, they are still tooting their own horns.

I am scared to admit this, but I really love the smell of farts. I don’t care where it is from. If it is my own, I suck it up into my face. I have actually cupped my own ass and brought the scent to my nose. To me this is a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. Dog farts are even more exciting. They smell like a good time being had, excitement and satisfaction and bliss, a dog body relaxing after busy dog activities.

There is this cute thing my little dog will do, that my big dog doesn’t. The little one, after she has finished her session with the horn section, will take her instrument into her maw and heave it down a full flight of stairs, watching the toy bounce down each step, trying to see if this will break loose the greenie I have jammed inside with a wooden spoon or a chopstick. She will then run to the bottom of the stairs, walking around the toy carefully and slow, like a forensic detective, taking in clues, looking for evidence, checking out the site of the impact, like a ballistics expert. When she is finished with her detailed assessment, she will take the toy back into her jaws and race back to the top of the stairs and do it again, filling the stairwell with a green sulphurous gas that makes me instantly tired, and we will both collapse together on my bed, her tiny body pressed against my knee, or just at the bottom of my feet, to make a dog/human exclamation point, and we fart together in harmony.

I woke up today with the warm weight of a Chihuahua dog on my chest, moving up and down with my breath. She moved slightly as I opened my eyes, positioning her butt onto my side, like she was attaching herself to my side with a USB, downloading all sorts of important dog documents into my hard drive.

Gudrun, the mighty leader of the house, with all of 7 lbs to enforce her will and way, is very calm in the mornings. She’s usually the first thing I see, her shiny black eyes like buttons on me, fixating on my face, willing me to wake so I can pet her. Sometimes she will sit on my slumbering figure like a succubus in a Victorian horror novel, which sounds much more ominous than it actually is. Other mornings I will find her in a tight curl next to my cheek, wet nose daubing my ear, snout trying to tuck into my neck, as its warmer there, she knows.

Bronwyn, my blonde macadamia white chocolate chunk cookie beauty, with her mysterious canine lineage, which we think is Australian cattle dog and something else shepardy, no one knows for sure, usually won’t get on the bed unless it’s the morning and I am alone or it’s just me and Gudrun. Bronwyn, even though she’s about 6 or 8 times gudrun’s size, will still bow to the wishes of the smaller dog. She knows she might get bit on the haunches if the Chihuahua is disobeyed.

Gudrun sits on me, to be close to her dog mother, and also at the same time to make a barrier of her body so that her sister can’t get as close. I must reach over the white dog to get to the blond dog.

How I love the soft flicks of their ears, deepening pink of the dog skin underneath the short straight lines of downy fur, how the fur elegantly splits to make ruffs at the back of the neck, laying flat behind the head and then laying flat the other direction on the face, so on the head you pet backwards but on the face you pet forwards, being very careful to pet the snout as you don’t want to catch any whiskers in your display of affection – better to go under the snout and scratch the chin where they like it best and lean their chins into you as you get in there, bony tangles of legs and paws, dog belly to human belly which are warm as hot tea on my lips, 4 eyes looking pleading me at me to get up and play.