A New Orbit
When the thing we orbit around orbits around us.
It’s 4:35 AM. Cameron and I are both up, brewing coffee. Daisy, our eight-week-old golden retriever puppy, whines for her breakfast, still an hour and a half away. We each got up three times during the night, carrying Daisy down the stairs and outside to go potty. She went nearly every time, her tiny bladder just big enough to last two hours.
Cameron bends down to pet Daisy’s soft head — smaller than his palm — and asks her cozily: “When will you return our lives to us, Daisy?”
I laugh over my cereal bowl, my answer as dark as the bags under my eyes and as cynical as my current semi-conscious state.
“Never.” The truth hits me like a truck, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I explain it to my therapist this way: “We orbit around Daisy now. She’s our sun. Our every moment, every day revolves around her.”
When we brought her home for the first time, Cameron and I thought we were well-prepared. We’d purchased the toys, the food, and puppy-proofed our house to allow for a smooth transition. We talked through our work schedules and the sacrifices we’d have to make to welcome an entirely dependent being into our lives. We’d grown up with dogs and convinced ourselves we knew what to expect.
We did not anticipate the persistent cloud of sleep deprivation, the chew marks all over our hands, her sneaking off to potty when she thinks we aren’t looking. We’d probably imagined something like our old dogs — souls we had lost and mourned.
In my experience growing up with three dogs, they are surprisingly as alike as they are different. Rosie was stoic and loyal; Bo was dense but sincere; Riley is cunning and anxious. Each dog’s personality bloomed right before our eyes, becoming more defined as the years passed.
I didn’t know who Daisy would become or how, though I vowed to myself that I’d love her because of it and, at times, in spite of it.
She cried for the first few minutes of the car ride. I’ll admit: I was scared. I’d just taken her from all the life she’d ever known, hustled her out the front door while her mother was looking the other way, and figured I deserved some kind of karmic punishment.
She cried when we walked through our front door too. She looked at our cream-colored corduroy couch and whined for the family we’d left behind.
It’s painful to wonder what she was thinking, and what desperate feeling prompted her whining and crying. I wanted to comfort her in her distress but didn’t know how. Not only did I not know her yet — I didn’t know how to address her discomfort.
After one month with Daisy, she’s still a mystery. So far, we’ve learned that she’s curious, fearless, and cuddly. We’ve learned that she’d rather be exploring every nook and cranny of the house than be held or doted upon with treats.
This is both the delightful and searing truth of dog ownership. You know them in spurts and assumptions and guesses, unable to decipher their language or speak to them in any discernible way. They don’t seek to be known — they only seek to be loved, which is an entirely different thing. We concoct stories about their inner lives without context or proof, ascribing our human desire for knowledge onto their distinctly non-human selves.
The way Daisy finds something of interest in every blade of grass, every pebble, every stick — the ways in which she interacts with the natural world are beyond my own reach. So I laugh, I coo, I praise.
Just as Daisy is invested in every seemingly meaningless crack in the concrete, Cameron and I are invested in the minutiae of her life. Peanut butter is her favorite treat; she scratches the ground before falling asleep; she loves to sleep on my lap in the car, but only if her snout can rest on my elevated wrist.
She’s the most precious thing that has ever happened to me. I’ve known her for less than a month and I love her so much it feels like my heart is beating outside of my body.
Though the challenges have been weightier and more unexpected than I’d imagined, my therapist offers a reframe:
“As much as you and Cameron orbit around her, she orbits around you — both of you. Your relationship is her sun. The better you’re both doing, the better she is.”
This truth hits me like a truck too. Huh, I think. The reality of our reciprocity hadn’t dawned on me before then. She depends on us for her survival, and Cameron and I have seized the opportunity to care for her in the best way we can.
I’m afraid our life before Daisy will never be returned to us. And somehow, I’m okay with that. In fact, I can’t imagine life without her. There is no life I desire without her paw prints leading the way.
Plus, it helps that she’s the. Cutest. Thing. Ever.
I look at this picture and know she’s eyeing that dead leaf as if it is the most interesting thing in the world; the same way I look at her.
Until next time,
Kiera