i love my cat dearly. adore him, really. his personality suits my temperment in every way. there’s only one thing wrong – he’s not a dog.

if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

the other day i was running along listening to a new music podcast. a guy was trying to introduce a song by jason lytle – “the ghost of my old dog”, and explain why he liked it so much. he started out by saying, “i love dogs”, and as he was doing so, he began to get audibly choked up.

and i had to stop in my tracks – suddenly it became too difficult to breathe past the lump in my throat, too difficult to see through the swimming tears that filled my eyes.

but if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

i’ve scarcely known much of life without a dog. when i was just three months my parents adopted a dog who became mine, my girl. i don’t know why she was mine – after all, there were 5 of us in the household. but she was. and when she passed away at a ripe old age, my family felt no shame in mourning her death openly, demonstratively. we took leave of school and work, because nothing else felt right but to honour her absence. at 14, it was the first time i’d ever experienced such an immediate loss.

we had other dogs, of course. lovely, warm family dogs.

but you don’t choose your dog – they choose you.

i would only fully realised this when my then-husband and i went to adopt a dog together. we went to a local no-kill shelter, full of a variety of older dogs and puppies, big and little, loud and quiet. we went around the cages once, made a pretense of playing with and examining other dogs – but i knew from the moment i saw her, that she was mine.

we went back to the assistant to ask if we could take her around the block for a walk. “which one?” she said.

“the black and white one with the long hair.”

“oh her – are you sure? she’s got a problem with her back leg.”

and indeed she did. turned out that she’d been born to a mother with distemper. she was the only pup from the litter to survive, but had nerve damage to her hindquarters – as a result, one back leg had atrophied badly, dangling a few inches above the ground like a dead limb.

but it was too late – she’d already won me over completely. i would later tell people there was something in her eyes that reminded me of my first dog. i don’t believe in reincarnation, but that same spirit came through to me so clearly when she looked at me, a quizzical, eager expression on her face which said, “what are you waiting for?”

what could we do? she came home with us in a taxi that day.

we were told suzie was a lab mix (apparently mamadog was a labrador) and she had floppy ears and a gloriously swishy tail. but it only took one trip to the local park for someone to say, “oh, what a beautiful border collie!” we went home and looked up border collies on the internet (this was before the “babe” movie) and it was a dead cert.

she was a border collie all right. in looks, in intelligence and in energy. she never let her bad leg get in the way of tearing around after other dogs in the park or herding our two cats around the tiny apartment. eventually, that activity rehabilitated her leg – we were no longer stopped on the street by strangers asking what kind of accident she’d been in, and her limp became barely noticable. i let myself forgot her original disability. i allowed myself to forget that she was born with problems.

i can still imagine her licking my face, and smell her feet that inexplicably smelled like cornchips. i still know exactly what the fur between her eyebrows felt like, the curve of her narrow chest. i can still see her play-bowing to engage the cats in a game of chase, and looking at me with that same quizzical, eager expression whenever i spoke.

suzie was my dog. she goofy – there was no other word for it really. she was goofy and quirky and full of exuberant personality. she always looked like she needed a good haircut with her untameable fur sticking out in all directions, and i loved that she always looked a just a little bit wild and scruffy. she was hilarious in her peculiarities – she would nibble buttons off of any clothing just to roll them around on the floor, she would do almost anything for raw vegetables, and she easily learned tricks that we never intentionally taught her. suzie was endlessly adaptable. she was perfectly behaved in the city – waiting patiently for us outside the neighbourhood shops, sociable with other dogs at the park, quiet in our small apartment. but she was equally happy in the suburbs – chasing and eating bees out of the back garden, riding seatbelted in the back of the car, well-behaved on visits to other’s houses. we took her everywhere with us, and suzie was that perfect mix of affectionate and independent – happy to be cuddled and played with, but never seeking it out excessively, and just as often content to curl up in the corner of the room, where she could see your reassuring presence, but not be underfoot.

relationships with people are complicated, fraught with potential disappointments, irritations, sadness and anger.

relationships with dogs are pure and true. dogs hold no grudges when you lose your temper, don’t sulk if you let them down. the love of a dog is the simplest, most essential form of unconditional love. whether you’ve had a bad day, whether you are sad, whether you are neglectful – they want nothing more from life but to love you. and to get up the next day and do it again. that kind of trust and adoration… rather than providing a meaningless ego boost, it actually causes you, just for that short while, to strip away all your petty human pretenses and facades. a dog’s love is humbling in its perfect, infinite way.

if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

so when my husband and i split up, it went without saying that he got the two cats, and i got the dog. and as heartbreaking as it was to lose my cats, for i did love them tremendously… i simply don’t think i could have gotten through that period of my life without my dog. that goofy, sweet flying furball of boundless love.

shortly after the divorce, two things began to unfold simultaneously: my plans to move to london, and suzie’s declining health. she began to be stiff getting up the stairs, and the vet confirmed that she had some arthritis. getting around on polished wood floors became a little treacherous. a few months later, there was a scary episode where she wouldn’t put any weight on her back legs – a late night visit to the nearby pet hospital couldn’t resolve anything, and so the next day she was heavily sedated for xrays. the xrays came back clear (somehow she’d fallen and badly bruised her hip bone), but i will never forget when they wheeled her out unconscious on the gurney and my immediate thought was “that’s what she’ll look like when she’s dead.” my sister had to console me through floods of tears.

following her xrays, she had a bad reaction coming out of the anaesthesia. for the following 24 hours, she seemed utterly terrified and confused, whimpering and trembling whenever i was not physically touching or stroking her. i brought her up onto the bed with me, stroking her until i would doze off and her whimpering would wake me to pat her again. it was the only night she slept in the bed with me, and i spent it sleeplessly curled around her warm body, trying desperately to soothe her fears. i even called in sick the next day to be with her.

if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

she recovered from that fall, but only got stiffer and less surefooted. meanwhile i was putting things in place for my move. i had a six month visa, but nothing more, and so my intention was to see if i could secure a longer term visa before bringing her all the way over to london. i didn’t want to put her through a transatlantic flight until i was sure i’d be bringing her for the long haul. it seemed like the most sensible thing at the time. i left her in the loving care of my mum and sister, who looked after her as well as i would have myself.

but when i returned, things were dramatically worse. she no longer had any strength in her hind legs and couldn’t walk unassisted – my mum had purchased an actual dog wheelchair and sling, and she did okay getting around in that. but she was a border collie, after all – she wanted to run. she wanted to fly as was in her nature, and those quizzical, eager eyes told me she couldn’t quite understand just why that was no longer possible. and i’d squandered those precious last six months of her life, through my own selfishness. something i’ll never forgive myself for.

i did it, of course – the single most painful experience of my life, was taking hers. for eight and a half years, she was my very best friend. i hadn’t realised there was something missing from my life before her, but i can’t put into words how much was missing without her.

she was mine – but i was so much hers. in joy, sorrow, sickness, and health – who knew when i picked her that i was entering into a marriage with a 47 pound, fluffy, black and white border collie? but i was, and i am a far better person for it. it is impossible to describe what that kind of love brings to your life.

i could not have asked for a better suzie. she made me laugh every single day we were together, and i swore she could read my mind sometimes. it was a love story from day one – the fact that she was a dog was simply a fluke of nature.

more than six years later, the very thought of her can make me choke up listening to a podcast, halt me in my tracks on the pavement.

but if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

the ghost of my old dog – jason lytle

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in other sad news, i am rushing home to be with my failing grandfather. any good wishes you could spare will be appreciated.

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