“I’m trying to love this new dog but I keep comparing her to my favourite” by Alyson Soko

 

The only thing that made me laugh when our 13-year-old dog died was a Facebook comment by my daughter’s friend: “I know how much you loved him – though he wasn’t even soft.”

She was being kind. Simon was not a handsome dog. He looked like a mutt. Few would know he was a purebred Border Terrier.

Simon’s black and tan coat was wiry, giving him a dishevelled look. At 20 pounds, he was taller and heavier than he should have been. His nose was too long. A few of his teeth had been extracted each time the vet cleaned them, such that Simon sported a gap-toothed smile in his later years, and his breath smelled increasingly rank. No doubt I should have spent less time walking with him, and more time on dental care. His eyes developed that blue cast that old dog eyes get. Still, through the haze, he gazed at all of us with the pure love dogs bestow upon their humans.

Simon had been our blended family’s first pet, somewhat akin to the shared baby my husband and I never had. The sole boy among five daughters. We adored him.

Our girls wept the evening I returned home from the vet without him. Meanwhile, my husband and I surreptitiously dabbed our eyes and wiped away sniffles. After all, he and I are not criers. But as we climbed into bed that night without Simon between us, we sobbed with an intensity that surprised us both.

The next morning, still fragile, I walked the route my dog and I had walked each morning. People likely assumed I was talking to myself – which I guess I was – but I was chatting with Simon. Turns out, I’d speak to him a lot over the coming months.

I’ve had a few dogs, but Simon was the Best Ever. He trained himself. Seriously. He never nibbled on a pair of shoes, never dug in the garden. If he did take advantage of the backyard gate left ajar, he waited at the front door until someone opened it. Sure, he had a few puppy accidents. But when I came upon one, he lowered his ears and assumed a guilty expression. He was a smart boy.

Only once was I disappointed by his lack of remorse upon discovering a mess on the carpet. We’d just returned from a trip, and had picked him up from the dog sitter the day before. “Simon,” I queried, my voice stern. “What’s with that?” His expression was shameless. His eyes seemed to add, “When you desert me for 10 days, that’s what you get.”

Ten months after Simon died, I started looking for another dog. The breeder advised us we’d not have a puppy for at least another six months. So I searched online for a home-bred pup. After all, Simon had been home-bred. I trawled every rescue site for a puppy or young dog with a terrier face weighing less than 40 pounds. Clearly, I was becoming more desperate – er, flexible – though my husband wasn’t. When I floated the idea of a larger dog, he nixed it. He didn’t want an 85-pound bedmate.

My morning walks continued, though I sensed my strolls through the off-leash area of the beach without a dog in tow were becoming suspect. I felt like a childless adult who stands in the schoolyard at the end of the school day, while parents glance sideways, their fingers hovering over 9-1-1 on their cell phones.

Eventually, I found an almost-black female puppy, as yet unspoken-for. I had an hour to decide if I’d take her, and drove miles through rural Ontario to pick her up the next day. Her mother was a delightful tan Border Terrier. We’d been told her dad was a Border/Jack Russell Terrier cross. Perfect, I thought, as a Jack Russell’s size is similar to a Border’s, so this female pup should grow to be 14 or 15 pounds. The owner added that the father had a great disposition. Yet we never met him. We named her Scout, beginning with an S, in honour of Simon, and after Jean Louise Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, also a brunette.

At first glance, our girls fell in love with her. My husband was particularly taken with his “Little Scottish,” a name she’s come to respond to. Yet my heart didn’t open to her as I assumed it would. As I set about training her, I accidentally praised her with “Good boy.” I called her Simon so many times I stopped calling her anything but “My little girlie” in an attempt to break the Simon/good boy habit.

Pointedly, a friend commented, “Her name is Scout. You have to say her name to train her.”

Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic. After all, Simon and I developed a groove over 13 years. And while he’d loved us all, he truly was my dog. Had I made a mistake by getting a puppy? Would I ever feel the same way about Scout as I did Simon?

I look forward to her getting bigger. Though I overfill Scout’s food dish, she remains petite. Her silky fur is nothing like Simon’s rough coat. I turn away politely when people comment on my Yorkshire Terrier – which, given her size, is the breed I believe her father truly was.

But seriously, what difference does any of this make? Deep down, where I don’t really like to go, I have to ask myself: Did I expect Scout to replicate Simon, to fill the hole in my heart left by his death? How unfair of me.

I glance over at her as she lies on the heating vent beside my desk. She is cute. I’ll give her that. Tonight, she’ll nuzzle up against my husband and me in our bed. Tomorrow morning, she’ll lick my face to rouse me for our walk. But she’s ruined two of her collars, a TV remote and a pair of shoes I’d worn once. The strap on my purse hangs by a thread, surrounded by her tiny teeth marks. Last week, she jumped up on a man’s shins, though I firmly commanded “Off, Scout!” as I’d been trained in puppy class. Still, he gave me an earful.

I’m ashamed of how often I’ve said to her, “Simon would never have done that.” Thankfully, she doesn’t understand me.

When we returned from our walk this morning, I scooped her up into my arms. She weighs 10 pounds. Maybe. “You’re half the dog Simon was,” I whispered in her ear as I gave her a kiss, trying my best to love her as much as I did Simon.

Alyson Soko writes fiction and nonfiction, sad stories as well as ones she finds hilariously funny – though she’s not sure anyone else does. Recent work has been published in Bath Flash Fiction, in Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe & Mail, Prose Online, and has been short-listed and long-listed for various creative nonfiction contests. Mother to five girls and one dog,  Alyson lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

“I’m trying to love this new dog” was previously published as a First Peron piece in the Globe and Mail. 

Acknowledgements: Thanks go to Ellen Michelson, a fellow student in the Brian’s Intensive class, who generously gave her comments and edits to an early draft before submission. 

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