My intuition kept telling me to get a dog, and my rational brain kept saying no. I added up the monthly expenses, the likelihood of unexpected emergency expenses, and finally came up with a 10 year lifetime expense of near $20,000, the real cost of owning a dog. Although economically speaking it’s extravagant or unnecessary, it is quickly understood when you’re in the presence of one, that owning an animal is priceless.
Love is like that in the face of logic. It will quickly tear down any rationale you have built against it with a universal force powered by who knows what. A million suns?
“Limitless undying love that shines around me like a million suns that calls me on and on across the universe..”
John Lennon – Across the Universe
Maybe this void that I had in my life was impossible to ignore, I think that was it. Depression hits hard when you go from living one lifestyle and into the next like I did. Moving to Running Springs from Hollywood left me in this liminal space. I didn’t feel grounded anymore, uncertainty of the future was overwhelming and my heart ached from a painful break up.
After contemplating the logistics for months and coming to the rational conclusion of NO, one weekend near the end of July after my parents left from visiting, the lid blew off the pot of logic. My impulses knew that I needed that dog to love something, and be loved back.
I couldn’t continue denying the obvious comfort and joy of caring for a dog. My logic was proven wrong, I needed balance. That’s where the reality began to shift.
I hunted down Doberman breeders online. This particular breed to me was an obvious choice for being a home owner in the mountains. They’re not only bad ass, but extremely loyal and smart. I found a few breeders, and even got scammed out of $100 dollars from some guy who was masquerading as someone who had puppies up for adoption. It was quite brilliant, he used COVID as an excuse for not showing them and needed a deposit to know that I was serious about adopting. So, pulling on my heart strings, I sent $100 to this person knowing it could be a possible scam to say the least. Well it was, because he sent me a text asking for more money and blah blah blah I just called another breeder.
After being scammed out of $100 I got a hold of some nice lady in Pinon Hills, CA who had a litter of 5 Doberman pups. This is the same day I made the decision to get a dog by the way. I didn’t want to sleep on it much longer cause I knew that with time, my logical mind would talk me out of it. I drove over their house, saw the 4 week old ladies, and made the purchase that would break my heart open.
She’s 12 weeks today, I am writing this on our 1 month anniversary. We had an excellent day, Luci and I. We ran around, dug some holes, chewed on pears, got a bath, and napped in the sun light of one of those million suns.
In the month of having her, I’ve been more self-aware of my patience, kindness, confidence, and most of all how I treated everyone in my life that I loved. I was carrying a lot of bad karma from my past relationship. Luci provided a fresh new mirror into my heart that I was afraid to look into until she came into my life. I meditated a lot on how I treated my ex, where I was being selfish and ultimately monstrous.
The love in our lives is more important than trying to find the meaning to it, and the honesty and truth will always surface in the face of love. In my case this dog brought me peace. She showed my brain that life isn’t all numbers and logistics. Caring for more than yourself is apart of growing as a human in this endless cosmic cycle, because in the end all that was worth having was the love in your life.
My brain is firing on all sorts of new levels of self-care, appreciation and gratitude, and caring deeply for those I love all because I bought a dog. Maybe it’s no coincidence the english language spells it D-O-G.
