Rescue Dog
Everybody's got somebody, or so it seems from where I sit, watching the other dogs leave in pairs, watching them find each other. I see them through the windows of their new homes, curled up together on couches, sleeping with their noses tucked into someone else's warmth. I wonder what it feels like to be the one somebody reaches for without thinking. To have a place beside them that nobody else gets to occupy. I have learned the sound of the shelter doors opening and closing. I have learned not to get excited when someone comes looking. The volunteers say I am lovely. They say I have a good heart, that I am affectionate once I settle, that somebody is going to be very lucky when they find me. I wonder what they leave out when they say those things. What goes on the little card beside my name. Perhaps something about needing time. Or something about the way I sometimes mistake a reaching hand for something I should prepare myself against. Perhaps they mention that I am a little different, that I need someone who knows not every dog learns the world in quite the same way. I imagine people reading it and deciding there must be an easier animal somewhere. Someone who comes without questions, who has not spent so long learning to be careful. Someone who can be taken home and loved without having to explain the things that frighten them. I watch them walk past my kennel and stop at the next one. There is always another dog. There is always somebody who seems a little less complicated. I wonder what it must feel like to be the kind of dog people choose without having to think about it. The kind who runs straight into affection without first checking whether there is somewhere to hide. The kind who doesn't have to wonder whether being loved means eventually being returned. I think about the people who come looking for love and how carefully they must imagine it. Someone warm, uncomplicated, who will fit neatly into the life they have already made. I wonder if they ever consider that the dog who needs a little longer might have the most love to give. That the one who hangs back might still be watching them with a heart full of things it has never had anywhere safe to put. I have so much love. Sometimes I think that is what makes this difficult. I watch other dogs lean into their people, watch them settle against familiar bodies, watch them learn that the sound of a key in the door means someone has come home. I want that. I want all the ordinary things that happen when somebody belongs to somebody. A favourite song sent in the middle of the afternoon. A terrible joke that gets told again because it was funny the first time. The small details of a day that would mean nothing to anyone else. I want to learn somebody's footsteps and know when they are coming home. I want to sit beside them without having to wonder how long I am allowed to stay. I want to be the one they look for when they walk through the door. I want to love someone without having to explain why I do not always know how to let myself be loved. I want to watch a film together, fall asleep on the couch, wake up beside someone who hasn't changed their mind about me overnight. I want to be the dog someone misses when they leave the house. The one they talk to when nobody else is listening. The one they make room for without having to rearrange their entire life. I want the gentle hands, the affection, the little kisses pressed into my fur. I want to be fussed over and held close, to have someone make a little extra room for me on the couch. I want to know that when I need reassurance, I will not be made to feel like a burden for needing it. But I keep imagining the moment they realise I am not quite the dog they thought they were taking home. The moment patience becomes effort, when understanding starts to feel like something they have to keep giving. I imagine the careful conversation about how things are not working out. The drive back to the shelter. The volunteers telling me that sometimes these things happen, that there is still hope, that somebody will come eventually. I think about how many times a dog can be told that it is not their fault before it starts wondering what the fault might be. I wonder if I have become the kind of animal people love from a distance. The kind they feel sorry for, the kind they tell their friends about, the kind they would never want to leave behind if they could only take home something easier. I see the other dogs with their people and wonder what they have that I don't. Whether there is something in the way they look at someone that makes it easier to be chosen. Whether they know something about love that I have somehow missed. I wonder if there is a particular kind of dog people are looking for when they walk into a shelter, and whether I have spent my whole life trying to become something that doesn't exist. I do not want to be a good deed. I do not want to be somebody's lesson in patience or compassion. I want someone to look at me and see something they want. Something they would miss. Something that belongs in the middle of their life rather than somewhere they keep trying to make room. I want someone to read whatever is written beside my name and still reach for the latch. I want to believe there is a difference between being difficult to love and being difficult to choose. I have spent so long watching the other dogs leave that sometimes I cannot remember what it felt like to believe somebody might come for me. Sometimes I wonder if the hardest part of being here is not the waiting, but watching everyone else find exactly what I have been looking for. Still, when the shelter doors open, I listen. I hope. I yearn for the day when I find my human.