Dogs are not about something else. 

Dogs are about dogs. 

[malcolm gladwell]

I woke up this morning under my husband's arm, the grey dawn filtering into our warm room, and once I was out of bed I immediately got down on the ground to cuddle my dog. She is a stately but snuggly creature, gentle and knowing. What a creation dogs are, loving and faithful and utterly violent, superhuman, pre-human, her small heart not quite the size of my fist beating in her chest, all fur and brutality and sweetness. I think there are only one or two small soulmates such as this that any of us can have in a life, and she is mine.

She was named after Eleanor, my mother's dog that she had at my age. I only remember her old and blind, but I have always heard stories about her young and fast as the wind, flying after rabbits. My mother has had many dogs in her life, their images rotated on and off our fridge, but Eleanor's photo has stayed propped on a tall shelf in our house for my entire life. Even as a kid, and a compulsive thief of photos and other memorabilia, I knew to dust around the photo and then put it right back. Eleanor is the only dog I have seen her weep over.

When I hug Norah on mornings like this I know that one day she will be gone, and I will miss her always, and imagine that she comes to me in a dream and I can hold her one more time, just like this. Her rumpled ears, her wide grin, her early-morning scent like fresh baked bread. I imagine how much it would mean to me, on a day in this far-away future, to hold her one more time- if I walked into a room and saw her there, against all reason, miraculously leaping for me, not cold in a grave but wonderfully alive- and I hold her as though it is the last time. She is the only companion I had throughout my entire early adulthood until now, the only one who went everywhere with me, the only one who saw it all. She and my husband are the only two things I still have from Flagstaff.

I know she will have to leave someday. For the first time I am thinking about this, as she sometimes rises stiffly and slowly from bed in the morning, or isn't able to hike as long as she used to. The only thing that comforts me when I think of this is that Eleanor is somewhere on the other side of that river, that maybe she will recognize her namesake and bring her over. I know in my bones she will be very kind about the fact that Norah has never been able to catch a rabbit or truthfully any animal at all in her entire life.

After I hold her I stand to go brush my teeth, get ready for the day. She curls in on herself and falls asleep, twitching, her lip lifting over her teeth, dreaming the maniacal dreams of dogs. I feel the whole shape of my love for her, this mysterious creature from the woods, from the wild, then I let myself quietly out the front door. I'll be back tonight. She will be waiting for me.