Call this an evangelistic piece, if you will. I want to tell the whole world; I am not ashamed. I am now … a dog person — the worst kind. My car windows are covered in nose prints and drool paths. Photos of my dog are on my cell phone, computer, and of course, facebook profile. I pitch in stories about the days of puppy-training when moms talk about their newborn babies—and I don’t quite get why this offends them.
It started the summer of 2008 when my fiancé kept slipping in comments about getting a dog. Relentless, he even started doing impressions of our imaginary pet, panting and wagging his “tail.” But I would just roll my eyes and ignore his pleas.
You see, I was not a dog person yet.
Dogs need too much attention. They smell. They slobber. To top it off, this slobber causes an uncomfortable rash on my skin. For years, I used this as an excuse whenever a dog approached me in its annoying, overly-friendly, expecting-to-be-pet way. “Oh,” I’d say, raising my arms high above licking-zone, “I’m allergic.”
But there we were the weekend after our honeymoon: standing in the middle of the puppy room of the SPCA. And I was having a staring contest with a black-and-white puppy through the wiring of his cage.
“What about this one?” I asked suddenly, surprising even myself.
So, we took him outside to play. As the three of us frolicked in a field, I am sure we looked like a cheesy dog food commercial. We laughed. We jumped. We rolled in the grass.
Of course, my senses returned, and I started to list all the reasons why getting a dog was a bad idea. At that moment, the tiny furry creature placed a paw on my leg. And when I looked down into his puppy-dog eyes, I couldn’t remember a single one—not even the rash on my arms.
When my husband and I left the shelter that day, we couldn’t stop talking about the sweet puppy. But as our friends heard about the who-knows-what-bully-breed mix, who would grow to be over 90 pounds, their smiles became nervous. And we began to doubt our decision. After all, I didn’t even like dogs. How could I be considering this one?
But, all it takes is a mustard seed of crate.
Instead of the what-are-you-thinking look, one particular friend screamed in joy when she heard what we were considering. A recent dog-convert herself, she even had a crate we could borrow.
It was a done deal.
A few days later I sat in the passenger seat as my husband navigated home. In my lap, a tiny, black puppy named Samson was curled in a ball, nuzzled into my stomach. The crate sat in the back of our hatchback, empty. I had become a dog person, and there was no way I was letting him go—even for the ride home.