What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised?
We are dog people and have had dogs for most of our married life. Not all of it. There was a ten-year stretch when we were renting and persuading a landlord to accept a dog was almost impossible. That was before the laws changed.
My family had a dog when I was growing up. His name was Winslow, a blue roan cocker spaniel, black and white and full of personality.
Winslow was loved and cared for, but he was very clearly a pet. He lived outside during the day and was allowed inside in the evenings, provided he stayed on his mat. If he moved even an inch off it, he was corrected. He became remarkably obedient. We never walked him either. We simply opened the back gate and Winslow took himself for a walk around the neighbourhood. Eventually he came home.
When I think about that now, the whole arrangement seems strange. But at the time it seemed perfectly normal. Winslow was an animal the family owned, loved and cared for. He belonged to us, but he did not have a central place in family life.
Our dogs have lived very differently. They have not simply been pets. They have been companions. We walk them once or twice each day. They come to work with us. They go to the beach on Saturdays and church on Sundays. We choose cafés and restaurants where dogs are welcome. They sleep inside. They accompany us through the ordinary rhythms of our lives. They are not fitted around family life. They participate in it.
That may be the biggest difference between the way I was raised and the way we now live with dogs. The relationship has moved from ownership and care towards companionship and shared life.
Winslow had a mat. Nia has a lounge.
That small contrast probably says more than I could say in a paragraph. Winslow was welcomed into our world on certain terms and for certain periods of time. Nia assumes the world is hers as well. She doesn’t simply live in the same house. She shares our routines, our outings and our spaces.
Perhaps we have gone too far, but our ideas of what constitutes good care have changed. Once it seemed enough to provide food, shelter, affection and a secure backyard. Now we think about exercise, stimulation, companionship and presence. Caring for an animal has come to mean not simply meeting its needs but sharing something of our life with it.
Winslow belonged to the family. Our dogs belong in the life of the family. There is probably no going back from there.
The Afterword 
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