A Girl and Her Dog

About a year ago, my husband and I decided it was time to get a dog. We had the house with the fenced in yard, the small child, the cozy family setting; all that was missing was a canine companion. While this began as a rather benign endeavor, the search for a pet became the basis for some of the only real battles my husband have ever had with one another. We argued about where we would adopt a dog from (I had dreams of adopting some poor unloved dog from the animal shelter, while my husband wanted to go straight to a breeder), where the dog would live (I said inside, he said outside-I was not willing to budge on this issue), what the dog's role would be in our lives. Some of these arguments became quite heated, but finally we agreed on a particular breeder (I liked the family who raises the dogs as they seemed to truly care about them and love them, and had many of their own) and began the search. In the midst of this chaos, a close friend advised me that my husband and I wanted a dog in our lives for different reasons. She'd observed a need in my soul that nobody else could fill. For my husband, the main reasons were protection of our home and child. I wanted the dog for these reasons as well, but there was something deeper at play here. I needed a canine companion for the sort of friendship one only enjoys with a dog. I'm not even sure I realized how true this was, or in what ways, until he came into our lives, all ears and paws. What I do know is that at some point, I gave in to the Universe and said a little prayer to the Goddess, asking her to bring us the dog we were supposed to have in our lives.

Sweet, beautiful Bacchus!!! He offers me love even if I'm grumpy and tired and unsociable to anyone else. He wakes me up in the morning with wet nose nudges and slurpy kisses at our bedside. Occasionally, he nibbles on toys and shoes and pieces of the wall that he isn't supposed to eat, but looking into those soulful brown eyes I can't stay upset with him for very long. I understand that he has doggie needs and instincts, just as he seems to understand that I have people ones which are sometimes equally as unpleasant. He has taught me that sometimes staying in the moment is the best way to live, that savoring the little things in life can bring one great joy and peace. Take today, for instance.

The news was a sea of sadness, with a few happy events peppered here and there like small beacons too tiny to bring light to the rest of this vast, dark ocean. School violence, domestic murder (as I type, two husbands stand accused of murdering their wives and a young girl lies in a hospital bed with possible brain damage because she was assaulted at school by another student), and more foolish educational bills were just a few of today's topics. So, when N decided to take Little One to the beach for an ice cream, I made the decision to take Bacchus for a long walk someplace we haven't wandered before. No sooner was the front door firmly closed and my little family on the road, when I looked at my big white dog and said the magic words,"Do you want to go for a walk, little boy?" Of course, what he heard probably sounded something like the teacher in those Charlie Brown cartoons: "Wha wha wha wha wah walk wah wah?" It doesn't matter. At the sound of the word "walk", he cocked his head to the side like he does when I've said something to grab his curiosity, then jumped up from his spot in the kitchen and bounded over to me. I quick buckle of the leash and out the door we went, happily wandering. When we were out there on the street, I wasn't thinking about much of anything other than how happy he seemed to be, how brightly the sun was shining, how wonderful the breeze felt on my face and in my hair. For just a little while, life was only about whatever patch of road we were standing at, whatever sights we were taking in. Dogs have a way of making us feel grateful, of helping us to realize that when we do something good for someone else (in this case, him) we also enjoy the benefit of feeling good, sometimes of feeling great.

In Celtic mythology, white animals appear often in a mystical context. Sometimes they are ferocious (as in a white boar), sometimes they are tragic (as in the story of King Lear and the Swans), sometimes they are gentle and beautiful, sometimes they are powerful. For this Celt, I asked for a dog companion who would be more than just a pet; who would be a walker on the path with me. And the result was purely magical.