Happy Gotcha Day 2022, Curtis Loew! Three Years Later

 I know you don't care when your birthday falls. You're a dog. You don't even know what a birthday is. And I don't know when your birthday might be, so I've picked the day I brought you home. You looked like a little goblin with your black mask and missing teef. You made me laugh and cry all the two hours' drive home at the wonder and enormity of that day.

 Most of what we do for our dogs, we do for ourselves. The fancy foods with bison, salmon and venison; the high-class leashes and harnesses--that's all for us. What a dog wants is sun on his flanks, fragrant straw beneath him,

a rabbit or squirrel to light out after, and the freedom to do that. What a dog wants is a hug, a kind word, his kibble on time, a soft warm place to sleep.

Curtis, you've got that. All that, and acres to cover, your voice bawling like a hoarse bell through the trees.

You're out coursing the woods right now, as I write. It's freezing and dark and spitting snow, but you don't mind. You're free. I have to be OK with that, and I am, because you are who you are, and you get to be who you are meant to be. How many dogs can claim that?

You came to us three years ago today, and my eyes well with tears to think how very much we all needed you, right then, when the world was crumbling around us. You took a look at the situation, and went where you were needed most. There you stayed. You didn't even know us, but you knew right off the bat you had a lot of work to do.

I watched you in astonishment as you put your soul-soothing magic on everyone.

You're such a good guy, such a simple, hearty soul. Life is simpler now than it was in spring 2019, and we have a clear pact. You do your dog things, and I keep myself busy doing my human things, and try not worry too much about what your dog things are and where they take you. 

But when you're gone for too many hours, and you are gone for hours at a time...

that's when I come after you, reminding you with the tiniest electronic ping that I am here, and worrying. And then you come boiling up out of the woods, thorns bristling all over your skin, often as not bleeding where the briars have ripped your velvet ears.

I throw my arms around you, kiss you, tell you I've missed you, and we walk home. I clean your wounds and give you your dinner and tuck you in, and the next day we do it all over again, the good bye and the waiting and sometimes the worrying.

In return for that, you are my everything, my strength in times of weakness, a warm woodsy scent filling my senses, reminding me that everything will be all right, because you are Curtis and you are here with me. For me.

You can be a warm puppy, dribbled across the blankets

or a commanding and noble presence with a deep bass bark--you have many moods. But you are unfailingly kind and good to me.

The first time I saw your picture I wanted you in my life. I'll never forget the feeling that shot through me when I saw you. I knew Kelly had found my next dog, without my looking or asking or even knowing it had happened. And the wild thing is that Kelly knew, too. No communication had passed between us, but you were calling to me. I heard you all the way from Oregon. I flew home to get you.

"Is he already someone's darling?" I asked.

Not yet, he wasn't.