Book Review: Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, by Alexandra Horowitz

If there is one book you read as a dog lover, dog owner, dog handler, or dog professional, let it be Alexandra Horowitz‘s 2010 book, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know. The only fault I find with this book is actually a fault of my own: that I didn’t find and read it sooner. In the Q&A section beyond the book’s main chapters, readers encounter this question: “How is your book different than other dog books? Does the world need another book on dogs?” Before reading Horowitz’s answer, I knew mine: Yes. If it’s this one, definitely. Yes, it does.

Inside of a Dog is different from any other dog book you have ever read. Rife with short, heartfelt narratives about Horowitz’s own experiences with her beloved dog, Pumpernickel, affectionately called Pump, this scientific and informative piece is relatable and human.

Though Horowitz herself says this “is not a sentimental book,” I would describe it as an effortless mix of sentiment and science, though I admit the likelihood that that perception stems largely from my own sentimentality. I have always loved books that make me cry. Perhaps I was foolish not to think this book would be one of them. The idea that a scientific, informative book of interest to me for practical purposes and general curiosity would make me cry, never crossed my mind. I expected to learn, to be intrigued. I didn’t expect poetry. I didn’t expect to smile so often or cry so much. I never expected so informative a book to also be so emotional.

Human beings act on emotion as much as, if not more than, on reason, so Horowitz’s ability to make sensitive the science, or to make readers sensitive to the science’s ramifications for our own dogs and the quality of the relationships we have with them, not to mention their quality of life, is only appropriate, to say the least.

Her writing utilizes an extensive vocabulary I admire, and is poetic, eloquent, and even tender. The way Horowitz manages to make so educational a book so personal is impressive. Despite its informative nature, the book successfully avoids a didactic tone, and opts instead for a relatable one that is engaging, illuminating, and perspective-changing.

Human beings act on emotion as much as, if not more than, on reason. Horowitz’s ability to make sensitive the science is appropriate, to say the least.

The biggest disappointment about this book is actually the biggest disappointment about humans’ relationship with dogs: that despite so much science, so little has changed in the last 11 years regarding our relationships with our dogs. People are still uninformed or misinformed, and their dogs–and their relationships with them–pay the price.

One of my favorite literary characters, Anne Shirley, often discusses kindred spirits. Ever since I met her on the page, Anne felt like an old friend to me. She is the reason I savor sunsets and sunrises, can’t keep myself indoors on a beautiful day, and shamelessly used the phrase “alabaster brow” in much of my pre-teen ramblings.

When I read Mary Oliver’s book of poetry, Dog Songs, recently, I found a second kindred spirit on the page. Here is a woman who writes about cancelling a trip because she feels her dog does not want her to go, who says one of the most beautiful sights is a dog running unleashed on a beach, who relishes waking at night to snuggle her dog.

Now, I feel as though I have found a third: Alexandra Horowitz, an advocate of sharing our beds with our dogs, of reveling in the joyful greetings we share upon reuniting after a day apart, of not bathing our dogs or cleaning our homes as frequently as society would have us believe we should, and of allowing a dog to be a dog–and understanding what that means.

One of the biggest ideas in the book is “Umwelt,” a German word describing the way a particular being experiences existence and the world. By understanding that our dogs’ Umwelt is not the same as ours–in large part because their sense of smell is primary, where our sense of sight is; because their eyeline is far lower than ours; because of a whole slew of other often overlooked facts–we can better understand their needs, desires, behaviors, etc..

If you want a more informed, fulfilling relationship with your dog, do yourself–and your dog–a favor: Read this book. Learn its lessons. Take them to heart. It will change your life, and your dog’s, for the better.

© Amanda Sue Creasey

AmandaSueCreasey.com

Book Review: Dog Songs, by Mary Oliver

The first time I saw Mary Oliver’s book of poems, Dog Songs, it was sitting on a short stack of books on my mother-in-law’s coffee table in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I wondered how it was possible I didn’t know such a book–one seemingly written for me, if I took it at its cover–existed without my knowing about it. I thumbed through it, but between walks on the sound, visits to Seagreen Gallery, naps, and various other weekend endeavors, I kept too busy to give it a good reading.

I left with the intention of buying my own copy to explore.

That was in January or February.

In March, the pandemic made its entrance into mainstream American experience, and we didn’t return to the Outer Banks to visit my mother-in-law until July. I read a few of the collection’s poems, but the TV was on and the family room conversation was interesting, and I couldn’t properly focus.

I left with the intention of buying my own copy to explore.

“There is not a dog that romps and runs but we learn from him…Only unleashed dogs can do that.” — Mary Oliver

In August, I sat cross-legged on the floor, my knees under my mother-in-law’s coffee table. Dog Songs still sat on top of the short stack, where I’d left it the month before. The family room was quiet. Nacho and Soda were gnawing on antlers near my feet. I picked up the book and read it, almost in its entirety. Compelled to write in it, I got on Amazon right away–and finally bought my own copy to explore.

It arrived on my front porch three days later. Between now and then, I have dog-eared most of the pages in the book (which seems appropriate for a book named Dog Songs), and written notes, memories, ideas, and inspirations on just as many.

This morning, while my husband ate his pancakes, he nodded at the book where it sat beside my elbow on the kitchen table.

“Look at all the pages you’ve dog-eared in Dog Songs,” he said. “You must’ve really loved that book.”

And I did. In addition to making me feel like Mary Oliver and I are kindred spirits in terms of how we perceive and relate to dogs, her book made me think, laugh, cry, and remember. Here is someone who feels about dogs the same way I do.

Top: My dog-eared copy of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir; Middle: My dog-eared copy of Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs; Bottom: my current journal

On a more literary level, I was deeply impressed with the book’s depth, and the deceptive simplicity with which it digs. Oliver’s poem, “For I Will Consider My Dog Percy,” which appears on page 69 of the book, provides a perfect example. She describes Percy as “a mixture of gravity and waggery” (71)–and so is the book itself, filled with poems of sorrow, philosophy, joy, grief, pleasure. Poems like “The Wicked Smile” and “A Bad Day” bring humor to the collection, while others, such as “Dog Talk,” are more sobering.

Through her poems, Oliver seems to express the disconnect that sometimes exists between our human expectations of dogs, and a dog’s true nature. The poem that begins the book is aptly called “How It Begins” (though, of course, “it” is not just the book). This poem begins with the assertion that “A puppy is a puppy is a puppy” (1). Many subsequent poems in the book seem to echo the message that a dog is a dog is a dog, no matter our efforts to change him, whether through breeding or training. “Her Grave” advises readers, “A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house,/but you/do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the/trees or the laws which pertain to them” (25). In “Dog Talk,” she reminds readers, “Dog promises and then forgets, blame him not. He understands what is wanted; and tries, and tries again, and is good for a long time, and then forgets” (115).

But then one day after I have left this world of particulars, you will look at the face of a little, brown dog and her brother, and you will know– I didn’t take up all the room in your heart; I just made it bigger. –from “This is Love Eternal”

In her poem “A Bad Day,” Oliver imagines a conversation with her dog Ricky, during which he says, “‘Honestly, what do you expect? Like/you, I’m not perfect, I’m only human'” (93). The book as a whole seems to remind us that dogs–and people–should be left free to live according to their own nature, embracing their imperfectness. Her poem “School” describes a dog many people might label a “bad dog” or a “dumb dog.” The first several lines of the poem describe the speaker’s inability to get the dog to listen or obey. It defies, ignores, or misunderstands every command it is issued, “like a little wild thing/that was never sent to school” (49). The last four lines of the poem, however, reveal that this “dumb” dog is perhaps wiser than the speaker. “It is summer,” the speaker says as the epiphany breaks. “How many summers does a little dog have?/Run, run, Percy. This is our school” (49). In “Dog Talk,” Oliver asserts that a dog “that all its life walks leashed and obedient down the sidewalk–is what a chair is to a tree. It is a possession only, the ornament of a human life,” but “There is not a dog that romps and runs but we learn from him…Only unleashed dogs can do that” (119).

As the dozens of dog-eared pages in my book can testify, many of the poems in Dog Songs speak to me, but the one that touched me the most deeply–the one that makes me cry and smile and ache and sigh– is “The First Time Percy Came Back,” on page 77. This poem echoes my own experience with Jack, and all the times he has come back–one as recent as yesterday, when Matty, the Littles, and I found a sock on the trail to Fossil Beach in Westmoreland State Park.

Finally, a note on the layout of the book: The left page of every spread is blank. My first instinct was to dismiss this choice as a waste of paper–imagine all the trees that could have been spared had the backs of pages been utilized for text. But as I read, I found myself penning my own poems onto those empty pages, pressed between Oliver’s verse. Those blank backs-of-pages weren’t a waste of paper at all; they were there waiting for me to fill them with my own inspiration from Oliver’s work. And I have, and will likely continue to for a long, long time.

Below are some works-in-progress that resulted from my reading of Dog Songs, which, I am sure you realize by now, I recommend (and to be honest, I could go on and on about the symbolism of the unleashed dog, the metaphors Oliver uses to convey the lessons dogs have taught her and the lessons they can teach humanity, the theme that dogs connect us to our origins–but this is a blog post, not a book–so I’ll just let you read the book for yourself).

The Adoption

One day,
you were hungry and alone--
only you did not 
know what hunger
was,
or what aloneness
was--
only that you
needed.

Until

one day--!

And you never
went hungry again,
nor were you alone.


This is Love Eternal

No matter how many years we share,
it will not seem like enough.

And no matter how aware you are that some day will be our last day,
you will not be ready.

You will not be ready

to say goodbye
when I am ready to go.

And yet this does not stop us from starting.

And this is love eternal, though time is limited.

But it was never about how you would feel losing me--
only about you what you could give me.

I know that.

You will feel like you let me down
and wonder why you didn't do better;
you will feel like there's a hole in your heart,
an emptiness in your day.

It is an end you know will bring sorrow,
but it is unselfish and glorious and beautiful,
and no sorrow is deep enough to 
steal this love.

For this is love eternal, though time is limited.

And sometimes you will look at me
and, thinking it impossible, you will wonder
how you will ever love
another dog
this much or
this way 
again.

But then
one day
after I have
left this world of particulars,
you will look at
the face of a little, 
brown dog
and her brother,
and you will know--
I didn't take up all the room in your heart;
I just made it bigger.


Roommates with God

My husband said
living with Jack
was like
being
roommates with God.

And in the way
that God is
unconditional, ever-present
love--
that is true.

Sumo Says Goodbye

There’s not a clear cell signal here, but there’s a clear view of the milky way.

And here it is that Saturday morning, we laid Sumo to rest beside Smokey and Baxter, under trees, where crickets chirp all day long in the perpetual twilight of the shade.

He died Friday afternoon, outside in front of the house on Goddin Street.

That very day I’d been thinking Sumo probably had several more years left, just plugging along like he had been.

On Wednesday, Matty’s birthday, we saw him for the last time. He’d become so low-maintenance, he was almost a non-entity. He would greet us and was then happy just to sleep on the floor in the room where everyone was, sometimes staying there long after we’d switched locations, maybe not knowing we’d moved, maybe his near-blindness and near-deafness hiding our departure from him.

And now he has departed from us, as quietly and invisibly as we had from him a hundred times before, not saying goodbye, not wanting to stir him from his slumber.

And now we are as surprised at his departure–taken so as not to disturb us–as he, waking up to find himself alone, must’ve been at ours a hundred times before.

© Amanda Sue Creasey

https://amandasuecreasey.com/

Guest Post: 14 Pounds of Courage

Charlie is 14 pounds of Toxirn courage. He is aggressively friendly and has never met a person who doesn’t love him. This little guy has a long list of funny fears, though. He hates bicycles, mopeds, and unknown items by the curb on large trash day. He hates the robot vacuum that, to him, turns itself on and chases him around the house. He even hates walkers. Imagine my surprise when we first adopted him and he barked not at random strangers, but at an elderly woman with a walker!

The thing about Charlie, though, is that he’s incredibly brave. In such a big world, he is always gentle to creatures smaller than himself. He adores head rubs and scratches

Charlie III
Charlie enjoying some rubs and scratches

behind the ears from children, even as they run at him in groups clambering to love the little dog. “Look how tiny he is!” they giggle with delight, even sometimes awkwardly trying to pick him up. He licks their faces all the same. He fearlessly runs to greet huge dogs and doesn’t think twice about the fact the other dog could eat him for breakfast. He doesn’t care, either, because in his mind, he’s just saying hello. He’s incredibly happy and loves to share his toothy smile with everyone.

What’s amazing is that this boy doesn’t hide from things that scare him, but confronts them directly, barking to deter them. He perches on the edge of the couch to valiantly defend it from the vacuum. He barks menacingly at dogs walking in front of our house…on the other side of the street. This is his home and he wants to make that clear!

Charlie shows me it’s okay to be scared, but to face those fears instead of hiding from them. When he’s around, it becomes clearer what it means to be a good person and have an appetite for life. Above all, he proves that love wins in the end. People will still love you even when you look a little wild (up to and including having Albert Einstein hair). Happiness is achievable just by virtue of being around the people who love us most.

Charlie II
Charlie with a favorite toy

Charlie’s people are everything to him, and that’s perhaps the most profound message anyone can learn. Community, family, and love for others are some of the strongest

Charlie
Charlie enjoys an outdoor adventure.

bonds we can create. It doesn’t take money or fame to achieve true happiness, but compassionate connection and the realization that we’re all just people trying to live joyful lives. We often get caught up in surviving monetarily and forget the simple pleasures – Charlie doesn’t, though. Watching him really puts life into perspective.

We are Charlie’s people, and he is our boy. I can’t imagine a life without this smiling, tiny-mustachioed boy who is a continual source of joy in our lives. It’s just a plus that he proves taking multiple naps in a day is completely acceptable.

Author Bio

Charlie IVRachel Tindall is a passionate writer, blogger, and writing confidence coach. She has worked with numerous students in the classroom and building confidence in others is at the heart of all she does. When she’s not writing, she’s reading books, learning and building her business Capturing Your Confidence, watching lame TV shows with her husband, and playing with her adorably sassy dog, Charlie. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

That Little Brown Dog

One year ago today, Matty and I drove to the Richmond SPCA to meet “that little brown dog” (Soda) we had been thinking about for a month. During our meet-and-greet, we learned she had a brother–a tiny brown and white boy, then named Scotch. The adoption counselor said we could take them home for a trial sleepover, which we did–both of us knowing this “trial” wasn’t really a trial. Soda and Scotch were almost as good as our own.

Gotcha Day III
Soda and Nacho during their “trial” sleepover, June 21, 2019

After an evening of walks and snuggles and deciding Scotch’s name would have to change so we didn’t come off as lushes when people asked us what our dogs’ names were, Matty woke up the next morning and looked at me across our pillows, the little tiny dogs still asleep in our king-sized bed with us. “Nacho,” he said. And with the renaming, their adoption was solidified for us. A few hours later, we were back at the SPCA, signing the official adoption paperwork.

So, in honor of Nacho and Soda’s one-year “Gotcha Day,” here is the essay I wrote about them last summer, which would go on to win a $5,000 grant for the Richmond SPCA from the Petco Foundation.

It was mid-June. School had just let out for the summer. All year, I’d been looking forward to this time with my dogs, Jack and Sadie—trips to the river, after-walk naps together, sunset strolls in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That is what my summers had been made of for the last thirteen years—my entire adult life. My entire teaching career. My entire marriage. But this summer was different; Jack and Sadie had passed away. On this June afternoon as I turned my key in the backdoor, in place of a wiggling whippet and baying beagle: silence. I was alone. No dogs to walk. No dogs to feed. No dogs to settle in beside me on the couch while I wrote or read, waiting for my husband to get home. I didn’t know who I was without my dogs. The structure of my day disintegrated without them. Empty house, empty heart.

Soda was my glimmer of hope. She was a tiny, bright-eyed Chihuahua-terrier my husband and I had tried very hard not to see during our volunteer orientation at the Richmond SPCA several weeks before. She was six months old, not quite five

Gotcha Day II
Soda and Nacho during their “trial” sleepover, June 21, 2019

pounds, and seemed to expend all her energy attempting to engage us. Wherever we maneuvered ourselves in the group of volunteers, Soda weaseled her way around her corner kennel to position herself in our view, wagging her tail, wiggling her entire tiny body, and earnestly seeking eye contact. We looked away, went home, and didn’t talk about her until two weeks later when my husband asked, “Have you thought about that little brown dog?”

“Every day,” I answered.

We inquired about her, and within three days of Sadie’s passing, we got a call: Soda was available for adoption—and she had a littermate. We adopted them. Once more, we were a pack of four: my husband, Soda, Nacho, and I. The family felt whole again. Soda and Nacho renewed my sense of purpose and identity. Taking them to training classes at the Richmond SPCA with my husband, beginning and ending my days on a walk with them, and exploring the East Coast together all summer has given me the sense of fulfillment I lost when I kissed Jack and Sadie goodbye.

Recently, we were on the beach with friends. The Littles, as we’ve come to call them, trotted behind me wherever I went. “Do they follow you around like this at home?” a friend asked.

I thought for a second. They sleep with me in bed each night. Nacho shares my chair when I eat breakfast every morning. When I pull back the shower curtain, they’re both looking up at me from the bath mat. “Yeah,” I said. “They do.” I never felt more alone than I did at the beginning of this summer, but with Soda and Nacho, I am never alone. Thanks to two tiny dogs who weigh less than 15 pounds combined, my heart, so recently hollow, has begun to heal.

Gotcha Day
Nach, Soda, Matty, and me on June 22, 2019–the day Matty and I signed the official paperwork to adopt them from the Richmond SPCA.

© Amanda Sue Creasey

https://amandasuecreasey.com/

Guest Post: Finding the Good with Georgie Jane

A few days ago, while at the grocery store, I noticed that out of the folks who were wearing protective masks, a few of them had fashioned a bow on the top of their heads with the top tie of the mask. Particularly striking was the elderly woman in the motorized cart, grabbing produce, the top ties of her mask fashioned into a Minnie Mouse bow atop her head. It seemed so out of place: a contrast of an unexpected innocence and purity amid a merciless pandemic, a swarming store of covered people, whose expressions were hidden, fighting for the best bunch of bananas, and an accidentally gleeful cartoon of a woman.

The bow was akin to a bouquet of flowers centered on a table surrounded by a bickering family. It put me in mind of the pink flower my rescue beagle, Georgie Jane, cheerfully wore.

Lauren V
Wearing her signature pink flower, Georgie shares Lauren’s lap with Gus, the family’s second rescue dog.

Before she was my Georgie, CALC0E, as reads the serial code tattooed inside of her velvety left ear, spent the first six years of her existence stuffed into a communal cage, being used for laboratory testing. She was then purchased and used by a college for a veterinary class, prior to her dump at a local animal shelter. She needed a foster home: a halfway stop between her past and her future, ideally in a loving home.

All too familiar with being handled, she froze and locked her little body when I lifted her from the kennel at the shelter to take her to my house to foster. She was programmed to

Lauren II
Georgie and Gus in their Christmas garb

brace herself, reflexively entering her self-protective state in preparation for a poke or a stick. She vomited during our car ride.

Over the next several days, I sat on the floor with CALC0E, holding her kibble in my outstretched hand during mealtime. Scurrying up to me, she would arrive to snatch the food from my hand with a strained neck and stretched, ready legs, prepared to dash off to the other room as she chewed.

She watched me constantly. She kept track of my position and whereabouts, and I witnessed her pause to discover her reflection in a mirror when her eyes left me long enough to explore. She learned to play, choosing a dancing leaf on the ground outside as her victim, rather than the furry squeaker toys piled in the corner.

She learned to let me pet her without self-protection, free from freezing into defensive please-let-this-be-over-soon mode. I clothed her in a striped sweater. She accepted a collar with a nametag and a fuschia flower, which, after signing the adoption paperwork, I decided would be her trademark. It represented the pink announcement of a birth into a new life, and the “It’s a Girl” declaration to the world, bearing the name “Georgie.”

She was at once difficult and easy to love. She was challenging and a piece of cake. She is ready and apprehensive and timid and eager and nervous and anxious always. She is every side of me I cannot stand, and every part which I love and accept in her. She never settles, and neither did I; neither do I.

Lauren I
Lauren, her husband, Georgie, and Gus pose for a holiday portrait.

I rarely tire of watching Georgie while she is in her curiosity, though on running-late-I-need-to-be-somewhere days, I am impatient with the amount of time her snout requires to discover THAT pavement smell or THIS damp leaf. I am always worried when she wades through fall’s leaves (thanks to THAT time she sniffed too close to a copperhead’s bite).  I can never see my television show over her body as she stands on my chest, the pointy part of her head pushed against my face. Recently, a pillow fort was necessary to prevent her from leaping onto me post-surgery and unfixing my fixed figure.

It makes me happy to hear her beagle bark as she sasses me into a cookie (read: carrot) after potty outside. I cannot help my amusement when I see her stuffed tummy after I catch her (again) breaking into that drawer where we should know better than to keep food. I purse my lips to keep from laughing when I tell her “it’s not time yet” as she tries to convince me she’s ready for dinner. She has a million nicknames, and answers to all of them. She is happy with her entire, wiggling body.

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Don’t we all deserve a CALC0E: a pink sweater; a pavement smell, a leaf-wading, wagging, sniffing, curiously timid chance of letting ourselves out of a reflexively protective life and into a Georgie Jane one? I believe we all deserve to find the Minnie Mouse bow, or the fuschia flower, in the middle of what can be a pandemic of tunnel-visioned, I-was-the-first-to-the-bananas selfishness.

Author Bio

Lauren headshotLauren Mosher is a self-proclaimed escapee of the corporate world. She is active in the community with her volunteer work, both in animal rescue and human welfare movements. She loves pink, has resided on both sides of the river (but won’t admit a favorite), and enjoys living the good vegan life. Lauren now resides in Midlothian, Virginia, with her two rescue dogs and her husband.

Want to share a story about your dog(s)? I would love to read it! To learn about submitting your own story, click here. Deadline: June 16.

Guest Post: Sumo in the Time of Covid-19

Love is blind.  I know this to be true because Sumo-Pokey (his hyphenated name derived from his physique as well as his general demeanor) is our blind and mostly deaf pug.  At

IMG_0102
Sumo enjoys the sunshine.

nearly 14 years old, he is becoming more and more like a pillow.  Soft and placid, content mostly to stay in one place most of the time, except around 5 p.m. when his internal alarm clock tells him it’s approaching supper.  It’s then that he begins to pace around the kitchen door, politely (and sometimes sassily) reminding us that another day has slipped by … a day when working from home has meant grading projects submitted remotely by my students, planning (and praying) for their continued online engagement in learning, and helping my wife herd our two granddaughters, Louise and Margaux, as they ride bike (Louise, age 5) and balance-bike (Margaux, age 4) relentlessly back and forth circling the alley behind our house.

Sometimes Sumo accompanies them, resting on the small patch of grass tucked between cement slabs that flank the alleyway, much to the pleasure of Margaux, who calls him “Sumo-Puppy” – an ironic moniker, but one that still holds its own form of truth, because to Margaux this old, blind, deaf pug is still a puppy who patiently receives her hugs and withstands her other boisterous attentions as she attempts to share her enthusiasm for life with him while he rests his oversized head on the memory-foam pillow he seems to love more with each passing week.

When Sumo is not patiently enduring Margaux’s attention, or sleeping on that beloved pillow, he’s usually at my feet while I attempt to work from the dining room table at

IMG_0254
Sumo turns a box into a pillow near the dining room table.

home.  That’s nothing unusual for him, or for me, since teaching duties don’t disappear when the students board their yellow buses every afternoon.  But somehow there’s something more comforting than usual in his regular presence there these days.  He’s a reminder that, despite the growing tumult of the pandemic, and the closure of my school building, the world is still going on in its usual, regular, normal pattern for some.  Indeed, the world will go on in its usual, regular, normal pattern whether or not I eventually contract COVID-19.

Watching Sumo-Pokey snore, his head on my right shoe as I try not to move my foot and disturb his slumber, I am reminded that there have always been diseases, and somehow the world has continued rotating every 24 hours, circling the sun every 365 days.  There’s no need to let anxiety about work or the collapse of the stock market or even the possible

IMG_0224
Sumo relaxes on his family’s deck.

loss of loved ones cause undue sturm and drang in my daily existence.  What will be will be.  I’ll have to be more intentionally like Sumo-Pokey, if the expected symptoms someday arrive.  If he can take Margaux’s poking and prodding without complaint, and wag his tail in the process even without being able to see her adoring face, I should be able to do the same should the coronavirus come calling at my door.  Sumo is a comfort, a living pillow whose patience and affection are offered without expectation of recompense.  I find comfort in his presence.

Author Bio

Smokey and Mr. G-S 1-6-2014Before becoming a high school teacher, Michael Goodrich-Stuart wrote and directed writers professionally for more than 20 years.  His first career was spent working as an advertising copywriter, copy chief and creative director in Michigan, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  During his advertising tenure, he received numerous industry awards, ranging from Addys and Tellys to Caddys and Echos.  Today he draws on his career experience in the classroom – combining a love for the English language with a past that paid him well for using it.  Michael is a graduate of Michigan State University, where he wrote for The State News and earned a degree in Journalism.  Sumo is his second pug.  He and his wife, Jill, have had Bundle and Smokey as well.  He also has four accomplished children, all of whom love pugs, their other pets, and their parents.

Want to share a story about your dog(s)? I would love to read it! To learn about submitting your own story, click here.

Call for Submissions: Write About Your Dog!

It’s probably pretty obvious, but I’ll say it just in case: I love writing and I love dogs. My dogs, Jack, Sadie, Nacho, and Soda, have inspired me in so many areas of my life–including my writing life, and it occurred to me recently that that might be true for a lot of you, your writing, and your dogs, too. So, in honor of my love (and yours!) for my dogs and for writing, I invite you to submit your own original piece of writing for consideration as a guest post on this blog. Before writing and submitting your own piece for consideration, I recommend reading this post as an example of the types of work likely to be accepted. Please do not feel like your submission has to focus on the pandemic; to the contrary, I welcome submissions about any way your dog has ever helped you see the bright side of things, lifted you up, taught you a lesson, cheered you up, kept you going, or made you smile. Posts will be accepted for consideration until 11:59 PM June 16, 2020.

Guest Post Nacho and Soda
My dogs have proven to be extremely inspirational to me. Above, Soda and Nacho take a break from paddleboarding on the Potomac River in the Northern Neck of Virginia.

Submission Guidelines

  1. Writers certify that they are 18 years of age or older.
  2. Prose submissions should consist of 250-550 words and poetry submissions should be 24 lines or fewer.
  3. All submissions should respond to the prompt: Write about how your dog/dogs has/have been a positive presence and influence in your life.
  4. Submissions should include a short bio of the writer, ranging between 50 and 75 words
  5. Submissions can include up to three photos of the dog(s) written about.

    Guest Post Soda
    Soda relaxes on a beach along the Potomac River.
  6. Writers agree to allow their full name, submission, bio, and photos to appear on this blog and the associated Instagram account, as well as on other associated social media accounts.
  7. Writers of accepted submissions agree to spread the word about their guest post on their own social media, including by sharing a link to their published piece on their own social media accounts and/or websites and by tagging the Mind the Dog Writing Blog Instagram account.
  8. All submissions must be original and true.
  9. Submissions may not have been published anywhere else at any time.
  10. Writers retain all rights to their work but are asked to acknowledge Mind the Dog

    Guest Post Nacho
    From the sand, Nacho watches his daddy paddle back to shore.

    Writing Blog as the original publisher should the piece be published elsewhere in the future.

  11. Writers will not be paid, but will be featured on Mind the Dog Writing Blog and the associated Instagram account, including with links and tags to their social media accounts and/or websites.
  12. To submit a piece of writing, your bio, and up to three relevant photos, email your submission to MindtheDogWritingBlog@gmail.com by 11:59 PM June 16.
  13. Please allow at least three weeks after submitting your post for a response.

Don’t like to write or have a dog, but know someone who does? Please share this opportunity with them!

Have questions? Feel free to comment here, DM me on Instagram, or shoot me an email at MindtheDogWritingBlog@gmail. com. I can’t wait to read what you write!

They Really Keep You Going: A Personal Narrative About the Littles

A year ago today, Matty and I saw Soda and Nacho (then Scotch) for the very first time. It would be another month before we saw them again, and before we got to actually meet them, as opposed to just seeing them on the other side of their kennel bars. Because both dogs and writing are extremely therapeutic, and because I love both with an unrivaled intensity, it seems fitting to share here, today, a piece I wrote about the role Nacho and Soda have played in my emotional and mental well-being in the last year, but most particularly, in the last few months. Below is that piece.

It is a quintessential April morning. The air smells faintly of lilac and cut grass, silky-sweet, soft, and verdant. The laser-sharp but soothing call of cardinals cascades down from the trees around us, the birds themselves hidden amongst boughs whose leaves are just emerging, ready for their summer’s work. Normally at this time of the morning, I am at school, helping a group of teenagers work on the yearbook, watching the clock as lunchtime approaches and my stomach clenches.

Soda on the back deck
Soda lounges on the back deck while I work from home.

But schools shut down a month ago, so today, after calling students to check on them and sending them digital copies of next week’s assignments, I am walking my two eighteen-month-old dogs, collectively known as The Littles. They’re a pair of littermates we adopted back in June—back when we could still hug our parents and travel and go to the beach without a second thought about our social responsibility or personal health. Back when things were still normal. Before Covid-19 and its swift sweep around the globe.

I am deep in these thoughts when a neighbor stops his riding lawn mower as we walk by and says to me, “Those two really keep you going, don’t they?” He nods toward Soda and Nacho. I look at the two of them, 15 pounds combined. Their dark brown eyes meet mine, joyous, expectant, eager. His words hold more truth than he knows. I have lost count of the times I have told my husband how lonely I would be without them during this experience. Deprived of my routine, my students, my colleagues, and many of my friends and family members, my daily walks with The Littles are one of the few activities that feels normal, their company the only constant companionship I have during any given day. They are my purpose and structure.

Nacho on the back deck
Nacho rests on the back deck while I work from home.

My two small dogs have helped me become aware of the small pleasures of social distancing, instead of dwelling on the inconvenience and deprivation. Jarring alarm clock wake-ups have been replaced by slow wake-ups occasioned by snuggles and nuzzling noses. We go outside together and sit in the sun because it’s out and we can be, too. They are not confined to the crate; I am not confined to the classroom.

And although small, The Littles have cultivated a big appetite for adventure since I’ve been home. Unable to while away the hours shopping, going to movies, staying after school for meetings, or running errands, we have found time to explore secluded trails we didn’t know existed, often traipsing much longer and farther than I thought their short, little legs might carry them. We have stopped and stared at great egrets, blue herons, water snakes, turtles, deer.

We have also found time for learning. While we work together as they learn basics like “sit,” “stay,” “down,” “come,” and “leave it,” I learn to slow down. To give myself and others grace. To digest one day at a time instead of flipping through the pages of my

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The Littles, Soda (left) and Nacho (right), relax after a morning walk.

planner to August, and realizing every single weekend is booked until then. To be flexible in the uncertainty—because things are pretty backwards now. I used to make every effort to keep Nacho and Soda out of their crate; after all, they spent enough time there while we worked during the day. Now, we conduct near-daily “crate practice” to make sure that someday, when I start working somewhere other than the couch again, they will remember that the crate is a safe place, and that I will be home. I manufacture reasons to do this—to leave the house so The Littles can practice being without me. Sometimes I go for a jog or ride my bike, sit in the sun with a book, stroll a route The Littles aren’t fond of. They have given me this gift—permission to engage in soul-nurturing activities, time to relish the solitude I rarely had time for before. And when I get home, and crate practice is over, I am so glad it is not an empty house I return to, but one filled with the contagious exuberance and affection and companionship of two tiny dogs with two enormous spirits.

The gentle rumble of my neighbor’s idling mower brings me back to the present moment. I stand on the sidewalk. He looks at me expectantly from his seat, probably glad to speak to someone new for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long. It takes me just a second to remember he is waiting for my response. “Those two really keep you going, don’t they?” he’d said.

I smile at him. “Yes,” I say. I smile at them, the little dogs who make staying home better, and give me reasons to get out. “They do. They really do.”

I invite you to share in the comments how your own pets have helped you stay positive–now or any time.

 

 

One, Green Row

Writers, at least those of us with a desire to share or publish our work, need a thick skin. There are always people with ideas pertaining to how we could improve our writing. Some of them are right. Some of them are not. There are always publications that will

Submission Spreadsheet
My record of 2020 submissions thus far

reject our writing–many more than will accept it. For years, I have kept color-coded records of the work I have sent out into the world in hopes of seeing it published. Red indicates a piece has been rejected, white indicates that its publication is still pending (Read: I haven’t heard anything back–yet), blue indicates that it has made it through some initial phase of the acceptance process, and green indicates it has been officially accepted for publication. Consistently, red (in other contexts one of my favorite colors) dominates my submission spreadsheets. So far, 2020 hasn’t proven an exception to this seeming rule. Above is my submission spreadsheet for 2020 thus far. You will note a whole lot of red. And one–one–row of green.

But that single row of green means everything–means more than the over a dozen red rows. That single row of green means the one piece that I most wanted to find a publication home, did. The original version of this piece, “A Search for Meaning in the Face of Loss,” appears on this blog. An abridged version, retitled “Always With Me, Still,” will appear in an upcoming edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Dogs, available at bookstores on July 14.

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The cover of Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Dogs, available in bookstores July 14. A story I wrote about Jack, which also features Sadie, will appear in this book.

The piece, the third about Jack and Sadie to appear in a Chicken Soup book, details the many ways in which Jack is still with me, leaving me signs (usually socks), comforting me, communicating with me, making me smile. Though I initially wrote this piece about a year ago, signs from Jack have not stopped materializing, and I am near-to-tears happy that the story of his ability to stay by my side will be able to reach thousands of readers around the world.

Ever since I submitted the piece in November 2019, I have held close to my heart the hope that it would be accepted. As the January 2020 submission deadline approached, I became increasingly eager to hear whether it would be included. My husband has probably lost count of the number of times I earnestly voiced my hopes, but as he shared them, he was patient with me.

Yes, I am disappointed about the pieces that, so far, remain homeless–but I will continue searching for their homes, and in the meantime, the red rows on my submission spreadsheet pale in comparison to that one, green row.

 

 

Vote for my Essay about the Littles in the Petco Foundation Holiday Wishes Grant Campaign People’s Choice Awards!

Those of you who follow me on Instagram in addition to reading this blog have already met The Littles, at least virtually. They’re two precious chihuahua-terriers we adopted from the Richmond SPCA in June. They’re littermates, and just celebrated their first birthday on November 17. Nacho is our little man, and Soda is our little lady.

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We adopted Nacho (left) and Soda (right) in June 2019. The essay I wrote about how they brighten my life will earn between $5,000 and $100,000 for the Richmond SPCA. The amount will be revealed at an event on December 20 at our local Petco. The essay could earn up to an additional $25,000 the shelter if it places in the People’s Choice Awards! Please vote for us here. (Photo Credit: Radiant Snapshots)

A few weeks after we adopted them, and knowing that I teach English and write a considerable amount (in April, I held a book signing to raise money for the shelter with Jack and Sadie’s story in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Life Lessons from the Dog), the shelter reached out to ask me if I would write an essay and submit it to the Petco Foundation Holiday Wishes Grant Campaign in an effort to earn funds for the shelter. Always eager to write, especially about my dogs and for a worthy cause, I gladly accepted, honored to have been asked.

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In November, I was notified that my essay about how Soda and Nacho brighten my life is a winning essay! I almost cried. At the time, the Littles weren’t even a year old, and they were (are!) already doing great things. On December 20 at 10:30 am, at the Petco in Carytown, the amount of the grant that will be awarded to the Richmond SPCA will be revealed (as will the amount of the Petco shopping spree The Littles and I will get to enjoy).

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We adopted Nacho (left) and Soda (right) in June 2019. The essay I wrote about how they brighten my life will earn between $5,000 and $100,000 for the Richmond SPCA. The amount will be revealed at an event on December 20 at our local Petco. The essay could earn up to an additional $25,000 the shelter if it places in the People’s Choice Awards! Please vote for us here. (Photo Credit: Radiant Snapshots)

Between now and then, though, we have another opportunity to earn money for the shelter! Right now, my essay and the Richmond SPCA are in the running for the People’s Choice Award. The shelter stands to win up to $25,000 in addition to the grant they will already receive. To read and vote for my essay, click here–and please please please spread the word!

One of the most fulfilling things I get to use my writing to do is serve worthwhile causes and benefit worthy organizations. Your vote for my essay can help me do that!