Two Dogs
One taught me about being alone, and the other is teaching me about belonging.
I’ve had two great loves in this life, and so far both of them have been dogs.
The first was Jasper. My soul dog, my rock, my little sidekick for fifteen years. I got him, a platinum-blonde Morkie, the year I graduated college when I was twenty-one. He jumped up at me from the litter of puppies and decided, before I did, that we belonged to each other. He had the biggest personality of any small dog I have ever known, and I don’t think he ever once realized he was small. From our first day forward, he pretty much never left my side: Tampa, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, and eventually Connecticut. Wherever we landed, home was wherever he was.
This was significant because, being recent graduates, most of my friends had scattered, taking entry-level jobs in each corner of the country. I was lonely, not knowing quite where to go next. So, in an effort to anchor myself to something, I got Jasper. And within days, he didn’t just fill the empty space. He made the empty space feel safe. It started to look and feel a lot like freedom.
In 2010, I moved to Minnesota to help start a company, knowing almost no one in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” There were days when twenty-three inches of snow would fall within hours and I struggled to get the front door open. I’ll spare you the logistics of how a lap dog handles a blizzard, especially one that leaves snow drifts towering over all four pounds of him. But he was always a good sport about it and I never felt alone, despite being alone in every sense of the word. He was the reason I was okay.
Then LA, and he was with me Saturdays at the park and Sundays at the flea market. In New York, he came with me to work, we rode the subways together, and walked Central Park. A boss of mine once told me she didn’t meet many people my age who picked up and moved cities the way I did. I don’t think I would have, honestly, had it not been for Jasper. I think I would have stayed close to home and the people I already knew. But Jasper gave me a subtle strength just being at my side.
When he passed, I packed my whole home into storage, and eventually moved to New York to be closer to family. Without him, my home was no longer a home, and so I removed myself from it. I didn’t return to it or open those boxes for over a year.
In a way, I was saying goodbye to a part of me, too. Loss often does that. It unmoors us and transforms us. And during that transition, an idea was born. I tapped into my loneliness instead of running from it and created a pet-loss support community, one that I needed and couldn’t find.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the painful irony of losing the dog who spent fifteen years teaching me how to survive being alone. Because it’s the loneliness he prepared me for, the reality of moving forward without him, that gave me my life’s work.
And then, almost two years after Jasper died, I finally felt ready to bring another dog home.
Theo has opened my world in the way that Jasper once did. Except if Jasper was strength and solitude, Theo is pure, ungovernable joy, with enough energy to power a small city. Instead of embracing solitude, we’re embracing togetherness. Because just as Jasper found me when I needed to learn independence, Theo found me in another season of my life. I’m thirty-eight, unmarried, no kids. It’s a lonely club to be in, especially because making real friends as an adult is hard.
But pets, especially dogs, help adults find community. They start conversations and turn sidewalk hellos into substantial conversations. Scientists call them social catalysts.
They’re not wrong. I’d lived in my building for months before Theo came, and I mostly kept to myself, apart from a little small talk here and there with my neighbors, none of whom I knew by name. Then Theo arrived, and everything slowly cracked open.
The dogs found each other first. The building staff keeps treats in the lobby, so chance meetings turned into social hours. We started running into each other on walks, then joining each other for playtime, and eventually planning playdates in advance. Now, at least once a day, we all go out together: me, my neighbors, and our dogs.
Carly lives right next door with her Staffie, Blue. Alexa lives upstairs with her cockapoo, Bing. They have become two of my closest friends. I’ve watched Blue while Carly was out of town. Alexa has Theo over for playdates. When Theo got neutered and I was a nervous wreck, she lent me four different cones and surgical suits and talked me through the whole process. That is not dog park small talk. That is someone showing up for you in a real life moment.
I’ve always wanted to live in a building where I was actually friends with my neighbors, where I could walk down the hall in my pajamas to go sit with a girlfriend or plan nights in with friends. It turns out I get to have that now. And I credit Theo with that. Can I say for certain I never would have met Carly or Alexa without him? Who knows. But I’m certain we would not have become this close, and I am so grateful that we did.
The clearest picture of all that Theo has given me happened earlier this month. It was the Fourth of July here in Delray Beach, and the town shut down the street for a festival, with vendors, live music, and crowds. I saw them setting it up and thought, “Absolutely not.” I have reached the age of treasuring yoga and a good night’s sleep far more than one more crowded night out. I fully intended to stay in.
Then I took Theo for his walk, and he made the decision for me. He beelined straight for the crowd, into the noise and the lights and the people, pulling me toward the exact environment I had already talked myself out of. I could feel how happy it made him, so I let him lead. I followed my dog into the middle of chaos and I was so glad I went.
We walked home under the fireworks, and I thought to myself: both of my dogs came to me at exactly the right time. Both taught me how to be a better version of myself. Both have given me strength, and both will forever be honored for the wisdom they leave behind.
Jasper taught me I could be my own home. Theo is teaching me that home was always meant to have people in it.
And this is the part I most want you to hear, because it is the reason I do the work that I do. If you have ever loved a pet like this, you already know they are not simply a companion. They are your reason to stay at home in the quiet, or your excuse to leave the house and socialize.They’ll give you the courage to eat in public alone or they get you talking to the neighbor you would otherwise pass in silence. And in a largely digital world where so many of us are silently starved for connection, our animals are often the bridge between us. They pull us out the door, into the crowd, and each other.
This is why pet loss grief is too heavy to carry on your own. Because losing them is earth-shattering, and largely unvalidated. Jasper’s passing was, by every honest measure, the greatest loss of my life, and for a long time I struggled to grieve for him. When I found others who validated my pain, I could feel the healing begin. So now I say it as loudly as I can, for me and for anyone carrying their own version of it: pet loss grief is real. And you don’t have to carry it alone.
Two dogs. One taught me how to be on my own. The other is teaching me how to find my way back. I needed both, and as much as it hurts to move forward through grief, the point is that it’s progress.
Progress, because I’ll always credit my independence to my first love. Because without him, I’d never have started Jasper. And because, as long as I’m lucky enough to have him, I’ll follow the second one into the crowd.