husky
The husky was coming home from doggy daycare; somehow, they’d run out of boarding space. She had to go.
“I thought it might be today,” I’d joked. “Impeccable timing.” My best friend apologized to me.
No, I assured her, this time I had not been upset by the dog going to summer camp for a few days. I’d already realized it was, obliquely, so that I could have a few days alone: to disintegrate and reintegrate, to have the meltdown I should’ve had 15 months ago. Hell, to melt down the way I should’ve right after my mom died, before GamerGate, before marriage. Now that I’d had my all-important meltdown, I’d anticipated the dog’s welcome return. And not a moment too soon, either, because I’d also gotten a bit lonely again.
The dog was dropped off at home, and she was not happy about it. The house is completely empty, except for little old me: no generous community of people to get attention from. She likes to go up to each person one-by-one, looking cute, like a kid.
As the wind kicked up, I thought I noticed the husky getting rattled. I’d been letting her walk in and out to the backyard as she pleased. Then I’d thought I’d heard her come tearing up the hallway. Instead, when I went to check on her, she was on the back patio, looking a bit gloomy or distraught. The sky had become strange.
“Are you scared?” I asked her. Being a dog, she said nothing.
“Augh!” I said, pretending to be startled by something. Co-startled, she jumped up and ran past me into the house.
“Mhm,” I said. I closed and locked the back door, brought the blinds to half-mast, and turned on Lofi Girl to mask the sound of the wind blowing. I eventually went back outside and took down my hummingbird wind chimes, which had started to sound more violent than charming. I closed the door again.
Now that music was playing, I dropped to my knees next to the dog to help coregulate her. I put one of her Lamb Chop toys next to her head. This is the one that has been meticulously unstuffed. (“Lamb Chop is chopped,” I gasped the first time I walked into the living room to a scene of carnage.)
“Better?” I asked. The dog licked me appreciatively.
The smell of her saliva on my forearm was foul, absolutely fecal.
“What do they feed you at summer camp,” I said, horrified. I stood up and retreated, now needing coregulation of my own. I sanitized my arm.
The dog has been hunger-striking since getting home. I once pointed out to the family that, at doggy daycare, they very likely don’t care what the dog eats, so long as the dog does eat, which probably means the animals get to eat whatever they want, whatever they will. As a result, these pets are consistently returned to their homes with loose stools, along with an unambiguous animosity toward the food dish. Transitioning back to normality is mutually taxing.
When next I checked in on her, Lamb Chop had somehow come more unstuffed, was now Lamb Bear Rug.
“Good girl,” I exclaimed. I love self-directed play! I began trying to pick up the stuffing. The dog wanted me to leave it there. I laughed and raced her to the stuffing. She pawed at my hands happily.
“I’m disposing of the evidence before anyone gets home,” I told her pointedly.
Seeing I was losing patience, she picked up a small squeaker, a transparent plastic bellow, and held it in her maw, side-eyeing me mischievously.
“Drop it,” I said, not playing around. I think she might’ve suddenly remembered, just as well as I did, her most recent choking incident. She dropped it.
I squeaked it a few times before disposing of it. She looked sad as I began to dispose of the polyester stuffing. I sighed.
“Do you want to say goodbye to it,” I groaned.
I held out some stuffing. She sniffed it. She was going to eat it. I pulled my hand back. “No,” I said. I let her sniff it again. Only sniffing, sneaky girl. She looked at the fistful of polyester solemnly. I tossed it into the trash, laughing. I gave her ear some love.
Huskies are so brat. They are extremely lovable, they make people laugh, but also, the shelters are sadly full of them. People get one since they’re gorgeous and loving—man’s best friend—but then are horrified, unprepared, upon discovering huskies are still so much wolf. It’s a major investment of energy, focus, concentration.
I sent my best friend, not a TikTok, but a screenshot of a TikTok, in which traffic had halted because a husky had decided to gaily roll around in the crosswalk, nipping at the leash, while her owner struggled to get her to stand up again. The dog was visibly having a blast. The only sound in the TikTok, I explained, was a random driver, who was filming this display and laughing hysterically.
I have previously surmised that we “project a lot onto our dogs,” but I also believe there is very little an innocent being can do to deflect these interpretations back onto you. So if you love your pet, you might as well project traits that you love onto her, which does a lot to prevent any of your own minor resentments, which the animal obviously does not deserve anyway. It all brings new meaning to “it’s not the dog, it’s the owner.”
Rather late at night, my friend Sam texted me a video of his dog. I replied with a video of the husky. She was belly-up in my doorway, unresponsive, blepping slightly, a drama queen, fully pretending to be dead.
“Would you even care,” she seemed to be asking. “What if I were dead here on the floor right now, had dropped dead in your doorway. Would you even care.”
Look at this, I told Sam. I was gonna have to step over her pretend-dead body to brush my teeth.
As I brushed my teeth, I glared at her. “Hey,” I said. Her death act continued.
“Okay,” I said. “If you don’t respond, I’m gonna start sticking things in your ears. To confirm signs of life.” I moved toward her with my hand. She sat up, believing a pet was coming.
I pulled back. “Yep,” I said to her. “Thank you.”
I explained to Sam further. She required strenuous amounts of attention even on a regular day (as do I), and my mere one self could not begin to come close to the amount of attention offered by the employees and attendees of puppy summer camp.
Still, she’s become very obedient. (Not really, I explained, it’s actually more like a partnership, adding that I’d had to discover my own inner dad, my own fierce will—or at least, a performance of sternness.)
Earlier in the day I’d asked her if she wanted a treat. She’d jumped.
“Aha! Gotcha!” I crowed. She’s been pretending, for 7 years now, to not understand English.
I’d given her a treat. She’d wanted to get into playtime right away. No way. I made her finish chewing first. And swallow.
“Did you swallow? Keep swallowing,” I told her. I waited, keeping her toy hidden behind my back. I’m not doing another stay-up-all-night-to-see-if-you’re-choking night.
Also, fetch. I’m teaching her to play it—but not using a clicker or treats, as she is not that kind of dog.
“Oppositional defiance disorder,” I explained to Sam.
She won’t play it. Instead, she does what my cat Jezzy always used to do, which was chase down the flying object, tag it (stamp on it) with her paw, and then sit down next to it. “Do you love me enough to walk all the way over here and pick it up and toss it again for me?” Dogs don’t speak English, obviously, but this seems to be the mentality. I’m not claiming to be a pet psychic or Doctor Doolittle, but I do understand ‘mourning eyes’.
The answer is, yes, one time, I will do this once. I will walk over, pick up the damned thing, and throw it again. After that, I’m done. I fold my arms. I have hip problems. “Play my way, or not at all,” I tell her. Begrudgingly, she will bring Flat Chop to me.
Sam went to bed, and so did I, briefly. I woke up from a nightmare, drooling and ravenous. I went into the kitchen and began microwaving a Marie Callendar’s Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with Broccoli.
The dog appeared in the entryway and laid down.
“I don’t think so,” I told her, “not with how much black pepper I’m about to put in this.”
She tried lying down in front of the garbage bin instead.
Sighing, I left to look up how much broccoli she could eat. Or rather, I began to leave, but then returned and pushed my plate to the farthest back burner—if not, it wouldn’t be the first time a dog had gotten my meal while I was googling whether she could have any of it—and I left. I walked back in with the answer.
“No more than ten percent of your diet, okay?” I joked, of broccoli.
I stirred the fettuccine again, then dropped a tiny cheesy floret on the floor, trying to not dwell on its sodium content. She wolfed it down.
“Sucker! That was broccoli inside that cheese!” I said to her. I dropped a piece of chicken next. Then I stirred lots of black pepper into my meal. “You’re done,” I told her, “no pepper for you.”
I sat down with my dish and my iPad. When I finished my meal, she whimpered.
“I don’t like that you learned whimpering at daycare this time around,” I told her. I inspected my basically-empty bowl, then put it on the floor.
She licked the cheese away. She sneezed.
“That’s what I thought,” taking away the bowl. “Let’s hope no neurological problems.” I carried the bowl to the dishwasher, enjoying our time together. “Top rack. This really shouldn’t go into the dishwasher at all, except that now you’ve licked it.” The dog can tell I’m negging her, she just cannot tell how or why.
I sat back down and returned to reading. She looked distraught.
I put my foot on her paw. She inspected my foot to check if it were something she could eat, a little snack. She huffed, realizing it wasn’t a snack foot, and turned her head from it, unimpressed.
“Not food—only my love now,” I said.
Not buying it.
“Yeah, can’t make a meal on love,” I said to her, smirking.
Where had I heard that before? Oh. I’d been the one who’d said it—recently. I began to cry. I quickly recovered.
I thought back to my earliest childhood resentment: the feeling of going unfed. I’d been lanky, malnourished, wolflike, just shoulder blades and butt bones. I’d only been fed, if ever, in order to shut me up. Aha.
Now I was, in a reversal of fortunes, rather husky. That was kind of funny. I smiled. What the majority of people don’t understand is that this is due to long-term gastroparesis, and also in no small part to mitochondrial dysfunction: in fact, a genetic predisposition to surviving famine.
I got back onto the floor and coddled her head.
“I just love us,” I told the dog. “Do you understand?”