I’m addicted to my dog

My husband and I finally had an empty nest — then I fell in love with Wally

“THAT’S my dog!” I told to Erik when I opened the email containing Wally’s picture.

It was the height of pandemic, and I’d been searching for months for a rescue pup. Every dog I’d fallen in love with had gotten a new home before I’d even submitted my application, probably because millions of other people were as desperate as I to ease the loneliness of quarantine. Then, a kind SPCA worker who I’d befriended texted me a picture of a six-month-old hound-pointer mix and said we could meet him that day.

“We have to go right NOW,” I said, grabbing my car keys. “We’re first in a line of people who want to meet this puppy.”

“You know I want you to be happy,” Erik began, as I gunned down the highway. “But can you promise that if we adopt this dog you won’t obsess over him?”

“Absolutely,” I said, careening into the parking lot. “This time will be different.”

I swore I’d never have another dog, after we’d put down our 14-year-old mutt George. From puppyhood to old age, his well-being had consumed me, so much so that it took years for me to agree to leave him alone, just so Erik and I could go to the movies. Although our hearts broke when George died, we felt liberated. At last, we were empty nesters with two self-supporting twenty-somethings, college paid off, and the freedom to come and go as we pleased.

We had our lives back.

Then COVID-19 hit, my freelance work dried up, and our kids moved far away — our son to San Francisco, and our daughter three hours upstate. To fight the crush of loneliness, I started visiting animal shelters and dog rescue websites. “You can’ have another dog,” I’d remind myself. “You just got your life back.”

Then Wally’s picture arrived.

He was small and timid, with pale brown spots and large dark brown splotches spreading across his silky white fur. His ears and amber eyes drooped, giving him a perplexed, sad look. As I kneeled down to pet him, he approached tentatively, coming just close enough for me to put my arms around him. I loved him instantly.

Just as instantly, the ache of missing work, community, and even our kids vanished. Wally was my antidote to feeling useless, and isolated. When I wasn’t walking him, feeding him, training him, or playing with him, I was shopping for bones for him to gnaw and toys for him to chase. No longer was I mooning aimlessly around the house, lonely and depressed about how the pandemic had shuttered my life. Entire days passed without my remembering to brush my teeth or eat. Not since the birth of our children had I felt this delightfully distracted.

Days that had become endless blobs of empty time resumed purpose and structure. Teaching Wally to sit and stay presented new goals to set and achievements to celebrate. Winning his trust gave me a sense of meaning. Best of all, having him on my heels wherever I went made me feel needed. Wally didn’t care about my unemployment, unproductivity, or lousy mood. He thought I was great and wanted to be with me all the time. Wherever I settled, he followed, cozying up close and resting his head on my lap, or my belly, or my foot, whatever was available. I became his world and because of that, he became mine.

At first, my preoccupation with Wally relieved Erik: With a puppy to focus on, I relied less on my husband as my sole source of affection. But my preoccupation soon turned into the obsession that I’d vowed against.

Like all new moms, I used to fixate on the color, texture, and size of my babies’ poops. As Wally’s mom, however, I brought fixation to a whole new level. Daily I worried: Is he eating and drinking enough or too little? Does he need more exercise? Is he getting too much? Should he sleep more or less? When he did sleep, I spoke in a whisper and demanded that others did, too. After summer ended, I kept running the AC because, well, Wally runs hot.

It gets worse.

I’d schedule work meetings around his playdates. When I couldn’t bear tearing him away from a good romp, I’d bump a meeting, pretending to be stuck in traffic. I’d start working before sunrise so that I had time to take him to the dog park. Sometimes, I brought work with me. I left dinner with friends to check on Wally, and once purchased a $20 petrified cheese bone to occupy him while we attended a concert. I’d counter friends’ invitations to meet for coffee with my own invitation to walk with Wally and me. Similarly, when Erik suggested a daytrip, I’d propose visiting the dog beach, where Wally can zoom faster, farther, and with more dogs than he can at the park. And, when Erik suggested some “special” time together? I’d be all in, as long as Wally needed a nap, so that I wouldn’t worry about him walking in on us or feeling abandoned when we shut the bedroom door.

Erik teases that my behavior warrants a call to the men in the white coats. Sometimes he complains that I worry more about Wally than him and, much as I hate to admit it, he has a point.

But I’m trying to get a grip by realizing that Wally will eat, drink, and sleep as much as he needs; looks sad only because he has droopy eyes and a furrowed brow; and, boredom, while it might incite him to maul my sneakers, won’t kill him.

I’ve made minimal progress. Erik and I venture out more, thanks to our dog walker. Although, I am learning to leave Wally alone at home and, for those special moments, to shut the bedroom door.

Still, there’s a point in each day when I head to the dog park not just for Wally but for me, because there is no greater escape from life’s frustrations, doldrums, and disappointments than watching him wrestle with his buddies and run, his ears flapping in the wind, his mouth stretched into a smile.

Andrea Kott

Public health writer/editor and author of the memoir, “Salt on a Robin’s Tail: An Unlikely Jewish Journey Through Childhood, Forgiveness, and Hope.”