Back when I had my hair died red, people used to joke at work that I had no soul because, on top of being a ginger (my fair skin made the hair seem natural), I didn’t like chocolate or dogs. As interesting as all three of those topics are, today we are going to tackle the animals. Not literally. Don’t call PETA. No animals will be hurt in the creation of this blog post.

Like every other child ever, I wanted a pet dog.

Alas, the parents were allergic. No animals with hair, but lots of stuffed animals made up for it.

The only pet I kind of had was my brother’s bearded dragon, Gollum (in case you didn’t know, this nerd comes from a whole family of nerds). He wasn’t mine, but he was in the house and I learned to stop jumping at the random scurrying coming from my brother’s room that startled me when I was home alone.

So I grew up and out of my desire for a dog. In fact, I grew grateful for my parents’ allergy. Dogs do weird things I don’t get and they don’t seem to understand when I explain to them that I would like them to stop. Through friends with pets, I discovered the inescapable horrors of shedding. You have to walk them, feed them, and pick up their poop. They cost money I want to save for travel. I concluded that dogs are responsibility that will trap me and keep me from my dreams, so by the time I was informed that my parents made up their allergies so I would stop asking for a pet dog, I wasn’t even mad about it.

I did still understand the value of pets. They teach kids responsibility and how to deal with loss. And at some point (I don’t remember the exact moment), I realized the seemingly primitive intuition that specifically dogs possess like an ancient wisdom that allows them to sense when humans are scared or sad, and that gives them the ability to truly love their owners. I understood intellectually that this was all possible, but I still judged those who call dogs people or referred to themselves as dog parents. I understood that dogs could have important and valuable connections with humans, I just didn’t plan to ever experience it for myself.

Enter the love of my life.

I had never had “pet dog” on my deal breaker list when dating, but it sure wasn’t an attractive quality to me. It was actually a pretty helpful indicator of how interested I was in someone. If the dog is enough of a reason for me not to stick around, then we wouldn’t have made it anyway. I could overlook it if need be, but I was attracted to indifference towards animals in others.

We met at work (probably because humans are too involved with their phones to interact with other humans unless they have to, but I digress). The type of work place that allows dogs. And at a place of work like that, word spread pretty quickly that Jackie is not a dog person. I never wished them harm or anything, and if they were in danger, I would help them. I just didn’t feel emotionally connected to them or really actively care about them. I also don’t want to touch them or have them touch me. No slober, no hair. Please don’t let your dog touch me.

He was adorable. You know, except the whole dog thing. He brought his dog to work every day. And every day he was very respectful about making sure that the dog did not jump on me or touch me at all. On days when he would walk down my aisle to get to his desk, he would stop at every cubicle on his way as every other coworker got excited to pet his dog. Then he’d pass my cubicle with a hold on his dog’s collar. At first, the dog seemed extra curious about the only person who wasn’t reaching for him, but little by little he learned I wouldn’t give him attention and he stopped pulling towards me as they passed my cubicle.

A heeler. That’s the type of dog Kona is. I didn’t know that was a breed, but when everyone surrounding you asks, you learn these things. And apparently, as I also overheard at the office, heelers are one-human dogs. Kona would listen to his human and no one else. He needed to be with his human at all times. He needed to know where his human was, to be able to see his human. It made him a little needy, but it also meant he was never a flight risk. So once inside, he would let Kona off the leash because Kona wouldn’t go anywhere without him.

It was a bad day. Winter is hard and this was a particularly bad one. I had almost called in sick, but fought through the anxiety enough to put one foot in front of the other and get out the door. I got to work and I didn’t look at anyone, I didn’t talk to anyone.

Kona’s human took a different route to his desk that day as he sometimes did. He and Kona did not pass me, did not see me not looking at them. Still, to say hello to my team, his human popped over to the end of our aisle, about 2 cubicles in front of mine. I waved politely to avoid any questions. I could not see Kona, but knew he must be where he always was: at his human’s feet. I looked back down to my work that I needed to somehow get through and I heard his human’s voice calling him in confusion: “Kona. Kona?”

Then 40 pounds of fur padded into my cubicle, the one he had learned to ignore. In surprise, I turned my spinning chair towards him. He gently placed his front paws on my knees, and licked my chin softly three times. It was not aggressive nor excited, but tender.

His human was embarrassed. Kona was licking the one person on the planet who does not like dogs. “KONA.” Kona immediately returned to his human, who gave me a look of confusion. “He only does that when he thinks something is wrong.”

Without seeing me at all, Kona could feel my emotions or energy or something enough to know to leave his human to come comfort me. I was impressed. I was impressed by a damn dog.

I did not all of a sudden fall in love this dog that impressed me and that comforted me. His human, on the other hand, was harder to resist.

When I first started dating Zac, I wanted to be respectful of the dog. Kona was not my dog. I didn’t know his rules, his commands, his expectations. I sat back and watched the dog thing happen. I watched Zac play with him and leaned away if Kona got too close. I watched Kona do things he wasn’t supposed to do and waited for Zac to punish him. I cringed at the fur everywhere, but said nothing. Not my house, not my dog, not my rules.

As I became part of Zac’s daily life, I became part of Kona’s daily life. I had watched Kona whine when Zac left the house. My heart warmed when Zac told me that Kona started doing the same when I left. I felt important when Zac told me that every morning, the first thing Kona did when he was let out of his kennel was go look for me.

As I started to feel loved by Kona, I started to come to terms with the fact that I was dating a man with a dog. I decided to establish my role in the dog’s life, so I asked Zac to teach me Kona’s commands. I learned to have Kona sit, wait, and move forward. I learned that “okay” meant he could move forward if it came after “wait”, but “okay” on it’s own is a command he doesn’t seem to even register. The only other thing I know that is that finicky are software algorithms. Are dogs just cuddly computers?

One issue I was encountering was that every time I told Kona to “wait”, the release with “okay” ended up with him racing forward and jumping on something or someone. It was as if “wait” for him was the equivalent of “on your mark, get set” and “okay” was his “go”. I wanted to be able to have him wait and release him from waiting without the commotion.

I wondered if the fact that we used the command combo infrequently had an effect. Perhaps the rareness of it made it seem like a treat worth getting excited for. So, on my own, I started using it regularly: every time we crossed a threshold. Whether we were going from the outside to the inside or the hallway to Zac’s bedroom, if there was a door, Kona had to “sit” (closed fist) and “wait” (flat hand, fingertips up) for me to go through the door first. He could follow only when I said, “okay”.

The first few times I did this, he barreled through the door as soon as I said “okay”, still excited. It only took a few days though before he caught on. There was nothing special going on: this was just the new routine. He even started anticipating and sitting upon arrival to a threshold before I told him to.

Once I saw it was working, I told Zac about it (because I have pride and didn’t want to suggest it before knowing it at least had potential). As I mentioned earlier, if Zac is in the room, Kona is at his feet or at the very least has his eyes on him. But one day, Zac tried my new method. He told Kona to wait, left Kona in his bedroom, went downstairs, out of sight, into the kitchen, turned to look at Kona behind him and he wasn’t there. Zac went back up to his room to find Kona still where Zac had left him. Kona did not cross the threshold until Zac said, “Okay.”

This actually solved a minor safety issue, too. Due to Kona’s energy level and lack of understanding around his own size, he used to try to go through doors at the same time as people. If you didn’t fit side by side, he may or may not walk under/on you to get through.

Now Kona has to wait for all humans to go through the door first, which he does very well. And when he’s released from waiting, he walks forward calmly, whether or not a threshold is involved.

Do not misunderstand. Though we had taught Kona to have a calmer reaction to his release from waiting, that does not make him a calm dog.

One of the nice things about Kona is that he doesn’t tend to jump on strangers, just the humans he recognizes. Great for people at the dog park, not so great for me.

This is when Zac taught me that Kona doesn’t understand full sentences such as, “Kona, would you please not jump on me? This is a nice dress.” What he does understand is tone and trained commands.

With a little coaching from Zac, I learned what Kona does right before he jumps, at which point I started saying, “Ah! Ah!” in quick succession. Every time, I watched Kona stop himself last minute from jumping in response to my nonsensical sound. After doing that enough, Kona hardly even tries to jump on me anymore.

I starting running with Kona, too. The first time I went without Zac, I struggled with Kona slowing down and crossing in front of me. After almost tripping over him a few times, I tried saying, “Go, go, go!” It successfully riled him up and kept him moving forward at my side.

At the end of my run, I sprint. As I sprinted, so did Kona. When the “1 mile complete” chimed in my headphones, I came to a stop only to have my shoulder jerked forward by Kona who was still running on the other end of the leash. “Slow, slow, slow!” I yelled. He did not slow down, and I had to yank to get his attention. As I crawled forward, he kept trying to run forward. Exhausted, I could not keep up with him. “Slow, slow, slow!” I noticed that he got riled up, just like when I would shout, “Go, go, go” – and then I realized how similar those two phrases are. I immediately switched to, “Hey, hey” and he instantly slowed down. Different number of syllables, different vowel sound, different tone. The words themselves don’t matter.

As I became entangled in Kona’s life, he became entangled in mine. Specifically, his hair began to find a way into every crevice of my life. I started stashing lint rollers everywhere and choosing ratty clothes or clothes that would be easier to lint to wear to Zac’s house. At first, my comments were vague and futuristic. “When we live together, we will be dealing with this hair situation differently.”

Did you know socks are the most annoying item of clothing to lint roll? I’m not sure why, but of all the things, that one really gets to me. So I started taking my socks off immediately upon arrival to Zac’s place and stuffing them in my shoes where they would be safe from the hair. Literally, I take one shoe off (still) when I get to Zac’s house, and never put my sock on the floor, balancing on the foot that is still in a shoe to take off my sock. Then I put my bare foot on the floor, stuff the sock in the empty shoe, take off my other shoe, and balance on my bare foot to take off the second sock before stuffing it away. Another option, of course, is to sit down to do this, but that’s only an option if I don’t mind getting hair on whichever pants I’m wearing.

I think I had about 3 meltdowns in one week about all the fur when Zac realized how much it was actually bothering me. I felt like I shouldn’t say anything because it was his place and his dog, but I was sleeping in those furry sheets and stepping out of the shower onto that furry bathmat, and putting my freshly linted clothes in his furry drawers. As I’m writing this back at my place, I am finding Kona hair on my keyboard. I started to put together that no matter what temporary solutions I was able to find, no matter how many fur-free corners I was able to preserve, if I wanted to build a life with this man, I would never be able to get away from the fur. There would be no reprieve of eventually going back to my fur-free house. I would live in the house with the fur. All the time. For at least the next 10 years.

About 6 months after those meltdowns, we have made a lot of adjustments. Kona gets bathed more regularly and brushed almost every night. We trained him to only jump on the bed when invited, which reduces the hair I have to sleep with, as does the fact that Zac often changes the sheets right before I spend the night (a thoughtful addition on Zac’s part that I never even thought of). Zac has discovered brushes and gloves to help minimize the fur takeover and I feel like I can breathe again – without choking on Kona’s fur in the air.

Seventeen months after I met him, Kona is still a one-human dog. If Zac and I walk opposite directions, Kona may whine at my departure, but he’ll stay right next to Zac. Sometimes, he might run after me for a bit or listen to my first command after ignoring Zac’s repeated commands. If Kona is sharing the bed with us when Zac gets up in the morning, Kona will uncurl from his sleepy circle of cuteness to come stretch out on top of me as if to say, “Dad got away, but you will not.” If a really big dog or human who Kona doesn’t know approaches us, he tends to put himself between me and the stranger, like he’s protecting me. In those instances, Zac jokes that I’m stealing his dog.

The fact of that matter though is that Kona is Zac’s dog. I like to think that he has learned to listen to and love me because he can tell how important I am to Zac, but I’ve also accepted my position on the totem pole.

As it has become clear that Zac and I want to build a life together, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I’m not just making a commitment to a man, not just a commitment to an animal, but to a man and TWO animals. Wouldn’t you know, Zac also has a cat. But that’s a story for a different time.

So after almost a year of dating Zac, how do I feel about dogs now?

Dogs do weird things I don’t get and they don’t seem to understand when I explain to them that I would like them to stop.

No, they do not understand full sentences. But you can train them to do pretty much anything you need them to do in response to commands made up of short, tone-heavy sounds/words/phrases of no more than 3 syllables.

Through friends with pets, I discovered the inescapable horrors of shedding.

This is still probably my least favorite aspect, but I can tolerate it with the ways we have found to manage the hair.

You have to walk them, feed them, and pick up their poop.

None of this seems like such a big deal anymore. Though in all fairness, Zac still does most of it. I guess I’ll have to update this article once we actually move in together.

They cost money I want to save for travel. I concluded that dogs are responsibility that will trap me and keep me from my dreams.

Now the travel I want to embark on and the dreams I want to achieve all involve Zac. So I guess this particular dog won’t be keeping me from that. He’ll be part of it.

I understood that dogs could have important and valuable connections with humans, I just didn’t plan to ever experience it for myself.

Well, the best adventures are the ones you never planned on having.

Do I still find it ridiculous when people refer to their pets as their kids? Yes. Do I disagree with those who call dogs people? One hundred percent. Am I dog mom? Absolutely. Wait – I mean, no! Damn it…

Yes, I love the dog who comforts the love of my life, who protects us, and is always excited to express his love for us or play with us or follow us or be near us or breathe on us or look at us. Yes, I love the dog who sometimes knows when I’m upset before I’m ready to express as much to Zac. I don’t like all the adjustments I have to make in my life to have Kona in it, but he comes with the man of my dreams, so he’s totally worth it. Plus, he’s a really good cuddler.

But I only have room in my heart for one dog in my daily life. So, no, Zac, we will not be getting another dog.

…to be continued…