“Partners” by B. Lynn Goodwin was one of ten honorable mentions in this year’s inaugural Writing It Real Personal Essay Contest. The essay is followed by response comments Sheila sent to the essay’s author, as promised for all ten honorable mentions.

Partners
By B. Lynn Goodwin

I was in my twenties when I told my parents I was getting a dog. My mother said, ”There’s nobody home most of the day.”

“He’d be alone all day,” my father added. “It wouldn’t be fair to the dog,”

I figured he was right. I had my own apartment and a teaching career” but I bowed to parental expectations. I was responsible for over 180 drama and English s1udents, but I was afraid I could not give one little doggie the time, attention, and love he deserved.

At age 57, I no longer teach. I still live alone, but recently I decided to put an end to the emptiness in my condo. I did some online research and found an eight-year-old Shih Tzu waiting to be re-homed. “He’s perfect for a first-time dog owner,” a woman told me over the phone. I went down to Fremont to meet him and watched him sniff every plant in the yard, before lying on the porch in the shade. A family was taking a younger Shih Tzu for a walk, so I took Mikko. He was gentle and good and didn’t bark. He seemed to want nothing more than someone to love him, so how could I fail?

I loved his foggy white fur and the charcoal markings. I loved his soulful brown eyes, and his mellow disposition, so I paid my money, took his paperwork, and lifted him into a worn red crate his foster mother had belted into my car. As we drove away, I turned to the back seat and told Mikko, “I’m new to all this, but I’m going to stop and buy you doggie food and dishes and whatever you’d like.”

Nothing.

“Are you all right?” I asked, wondering if he could hear me through tile plastic walls of the crate. I hoped he didn’t have the same selective hearing that used to plague my tenth grade students.

On our first night together, I put his recommended food, the small bite version of Neutro-Natural, into a new metal bowl. I filled the bigger bowl with water. Then I called out, “Suppertime.”

 Nothing.

I went to the door and sang, “Supper, supper, supper / Super dupper dupper / Supper supper suppertime” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Nothing. Not that I blamed him.

I went back to the kitchen, took a metal spoon and went clank, clank, dank against the edge of the bowl. He came to the kitchen door and peered in.

“You may eat?” I said, waving my hand graciously towards his bowl. Nothing.

“Bon appetit? Chow down?” If there was a command for eating, I did not know it.

I turned to the sink, and heard his tags clink. I twisted around in time to see him sniff at his supper and step back.

“This is what they told me to feed you,” I protested. Like this is gonna help. Like he speaks English.

He looked up and his eyes seemed to say, “No. This isn’t right.”

“What?” I demanded.

He continued to stare at me. I was afraid my parents might have been right when they told me it would not be fair to the dog.

“What?” I repeated, feeling both sad and frustrated because my new little buddy could not answer in words. Watch for clues. If dry dog food doesn’t work, try a little water in it.

The water worked; I had solved our first crisis. A bit of low fat cottage cheese, suggested by a woman we met on one of our woofie walks, was even better.

When dog walkers learned that Mikko was my first pet ever, they shared tips. While Mikko exchanged sniffs with Lily or Biscuit or Rascal, I learned about Mutt Mitts for poop collection and Shampooches for grooming.

“How old is he?” the other dog parents would ask.

“They told me he’s eight. He’s a rescue dog.”

“He seems so mellow. I wonder why someone let him go,” one dog walker said.

I wondered that too. His papers showed his vaccinations and neutering, which had happened four months earlier. Was he once a breeder dog? Did he run away from a home where his owners were cruel or indifferent? Did his owner get transferred or move to an apartment that wouldn’t take dogs? Did somebody die?

His story remains a mystery. He came knowing rules I could only imagine enforcing:

Wait for permission to walk on the carpet.

Stay out of the kitchen during food preparation. Never take food from anyone’s hand.

Never chew on anything.

I wonder if he was so well trained because he once lived with lots of other dogs. I wonder if he ran away or got lost. I hope he is not lonely.

If I get home later than expected, Mikko is at the door, tail in full wag, eyes shining with relief and joy. My Person is home, I imagine him thinking as he jumps and whirls and flies around me. As soon as I reach down to pet him he lies on his side, tail thumping the floor, eager for a doggie massage.

I dump my purse and grocery bags. “I love my welcoming committee,” I tell him as I rub his back with one hand and his tummy with the other. His eyes look past me. He is in Doggie Blissland.

Mikko earns his keep as my official alarm system. When the UPS man drops off a package, or the mailman comes to my door, or my neighbor passes by on her way to the garage, he woofs up a storm. When I leave him in the car to run an errand, he greets everyone passing by. He speckles the car’s back windows with nose prints. He’s quiet, though, when I return to the car. He looks up with an impish grin and pants.

As I open the door and say, “Hello, Meekster Deekster. I told you I’d be back,” I wonder if I’ve become a bit of a nut case around my dog. It’s okay, I tell myself as I start the engine. I waited fifty-seven years to bring a dog into my life. He’s here and I love him.

Mikko prefers returning books at the library to waiting in line at the bank, though he is a perfect gentleman in both places. People waiting at the library checkout line grow wide-eyed when they see him pad past on the cold, slate floor. “How cute,” they whisper in conspiracy with the two of us, for dogs are not allowed in the library.

He is still assessing my scatterbrained approach to his life. “Want to walk?” I ask before I am ready to go.

He stands up, tail wagging.

I point to my feet and say, “Let me grab my socks and shoes. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

He sits back on his haunches to wait. When I return he is staring into the path of sun-illumined dust motes stretching across my entrance hall.

I head for the door, and then run my hand around my left wrist. “I have to find my watch. I’ll just be a minute,” I say.

When I come back, his tongue is lapping at his hind flanks, where he was neutered four months ago. “Are those licks of mourning? Are you afraid of losing more of yourself? Or is this your way of handling dry skin?” I ask in a loving voice.

He lies down and puts his head between his paws.

I stuff one of my biodegradable Mutt Mitts into a pocket. He circles around me ready for the leash ritual. My fingers fumble and I remember the “unfair to the dog” line as I struggle to connect the leash. Why do I still struggle with my family’s old rules? No time for regret or remorse. Mikko is eager to go.

I reach in my pocket and roll my eyes. “I forgot my keys. I’ll be right back.” Mikko stares out the screen door at a million blades of grass, waiting to be sniffed. “I’m sorry I’m not more organized,” I tell him. He doesn’t seem to care. He just wants to get going.

We walk twice a day, early in the morning and again at sunset, sometimes in our neighborhood and sometimes at a park. I love the way the long, low sunlight bounces off his shimmering coat, tinting it gold or amber. He is teaching me that every ivy leaf and blade of grass has a scent of its own and doggie odors carve a path that humans cannot read.

His head swivels when a car goes past, or a bird twitters, or a bleached blonde chats on a cell phone. Is he looking for his former family? Does he miss their routine and rules?

Though Mikko is powerless over my disorganization, he exerts his will as we walk. Stop. Sniff. Shift. He digs his nose into scrumptious-smelling ivy. Stop. Sniff. Shift. His nose fits into a flower’s center. He inhales deeply. Sniff. Shift. Pee. Sometimes he ambles. Other times he races after a squirrel and his leash becomes the reins of a runaway horse. Though he is a mature dog and not a toddler, I’m learning to pick my battles and the pace we walk is not one of them.

I worry that I care too much about his approval. I worry that I misread or overanalyze his needs and wants. All he wants is his food, his walk, his routine, and my love.

Daily, he shows me I am capable and competent, able to fill a supper dish, able to provide walks even when I am exhausted, and able to care. He gets me out of myself and brings out the long-buried love I have never given away. He has never once made me feel I am unfair to him.

“Gallop apace, ye fiery footed steed,” I tell him as he trots along our tree-lined street. His paws go piddle-paddle to the rhythm of my words. He looks back to make sure I’m coming. When he sees me behind him, his eyes shine with trust. Then he trots on, and I follow, feeling slightly aglow from the warmth of his trust.

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In my response comments to B. Lynn Goodwin, I wrote that from the time I meet Mikko the Shih Tzu sniffing every plant in the yard, I resonate with the speaker’s observations of herself with her newly adopted dog. I enjoy the dog owner lingo in the essay–the affectionate way the speaker calls to her dog and the words she uses for the new gear in her life now that she is responsible for Mikko. Throughout the essay, I am eager to learn how life with Mikko is turning out, and I am interested in the way caring for Mikko will help the essay’s speaker deal with overcoming the parental admonition that led to a lack of confidence in her ability to care for a dog. However, this is also where I think the essay needs a bit more development.

At the essay’s start, the stated reason the parents’ had advised the younger speaker not to get a dog is because nobody is home all day. Later in the essay, when the speaker goes to feed the dog and the food doesn’t make a good impression, she mistrusts herself and calls on that phrase of her parents, “not fair to the dog.” Later there is logically placed emphasis on Mikko’s patience and the way that creates space for the speaker to figure out what needs to be done. When I get to the rhetorical question, “Why do I still struggle with my family’s old rules?” I realize I don’t know what the rules are. The phrase “unfair to the dog” seems to have become generalized from just not being home to be with the dog to not knowing how to take care of a dog to not being trusted to figure it out.

I think the situation the speaker is addressing is about more than rules and that one single parental admonition at the opening. By the essay’s end, when the speaker basks in the warmth of being trusted, I wish I had found out more about how she had been mistrusted and possibly learned to mistrust herself. The otherwise accessible and authentic thread about issues from growing up that are mended by owning a dog falls only a little short of being fully satisfying. I think there is room in here to show us how that one phrase, “wouldn’t be fair to the dog,” was one of a bunch of “isms” that influenced the speaker’s way of being. A variety of parental cautions might be used throughout the essay to build the idea that the speaker wasn’t taught to trust her abilities and her intuition about her needs and competencies. Perhaps the speaker can relate how working in the classroom affected her confidence and indicate how caring for a dog at home calls for skills she’s already practiced or for ones she hasn’t had to practice to date.

On a smaller scale, I am confused about why the speaker ponders if the dog was a runaway from cruel owners because she states that the rescue organization has papers that show a vaccination and neutering history. Perhaps the rescue agency took care of this, but knowing for sure and knowing how long Mikko had been with his foster mother would keep me from getting distracted by trying to figure out the discrepancy.

I also feel interrupted when the speaker returns to insecurity from not knowing Mikko’s history — “Is he looking for his former family? Does he miss their routine and rules?” I think that if the thoughts that arise in the speaker when Mikko swivels his head came earlier in the essay, nearer to the speaker’s wonderings about Mikko’s history, I wouldn’t feel interrupted.

There’s a dimension to this essay that is implied but remains unexplored — a re-evaluation of the family’s image of the speaker and how it affected her. Answering some of the following questions would help the author develop this dimension: What are the old family rules the speaker thinks she is still following that are unnecessary now? Are they all rules or are some of them judgments and assessments of her abilities that she disagrees with? Does the speaker feel that her parents’ rules and admonitions were about not trusting her or that because they sounded mistrusting, she learned insecurity? How is being responsible for a dog different than nurturing all of those students all of those years? What life circumstances made the speaker keep her love buried inside of her? At what deeper level is the author exploring her independence from old thinking?

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B. Lynn Goodwin’s work has spirit and warmth. It uses dialog, both inner and outer, to good effect in maintaining the essay’s pace and momentum. However, there are life questions that hover in the margins waiting to enter the essay. By bringing them into the essay, the author can deepen the emotional occasion for the writing and readers will feel closer to the essay’s speaker and the emotional journey she is taking by caring for Mikko.