More than ten years after losing all of my pets, I now have a puppy. A corgi. She came with an insane ability to jump on beds nearly three times her height, a wild taste for shoe laces and electrical cords, and a face full of innocence and naivety.
Because I adopted her after a divorce and in the middle of what could be the worst or best time of my life, I named her Hope. In the church I grew up in, they defined hope as the “confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings of righteousness.”
Blessings sounded nice. I certainly longed for them. I decided to expect them as well, and my dog would help remind me to do that.
Purchasing her was not done on a whim. For years, I had been scouring the adoption sites, researching corgis. While married, I had talked about getting a dog often. I even tried to pawn off the reason being for my husband’s well-being. I thought he would benefit from an ESA (Emotional Support Animal).
Deep down, I knew I would benefit from an ESA.
It took me a while to piece together the reasons why, but like too many things, it stems back to my childhood. At the height of our pet-loving era, my family owned eight pets: three cats, two dogs, two guinea pigs, and one fish.
Our house could hold the abundance of animals. It had three floors and a backyard with more than enough grass space, even with the inground pool and sandbox. We didn’t start out in such a nice place, but upper-middle class had its perks.
Of course, despite what fictional books teach you, a nice pool didn’t guarantee me friends at my school. And our large home certainly wasn’t filled with happy family times.
In fifth grade, I lost the few close friends I had. They didn’t have the cleanest reputation, but it didn’t really matter to me . . . until they started stealing and I told the school secretary. Unfortunately, the friendship didn’t die quietly. My old friends hacked into my Facebook account (the top social media platform at the time—feel free to laugh about that) and publicized mean posts about me on my page.
So, on top of losing anyone to hang out with at recess or after school, I also lost my Facebook account. I took some pretty big hits that year.
Maybe it would have been easier if my family members were more available. My sister, nine years the elder, didn’t live at home anymore. My parents were on the brink of divorce and a secret financial crisis. My extended family was few in number, and they lived nowhere close to me. So, I became really good at playing Super Mario Bros. WII and designing clothes with my Project Runway kit.
Before this mess, my pets had brought additional joy into my life. During that period, they were my only source of connection. I’d fall asleep with my cats on the couch. I’d run around with the dogs in the backyard, or splash water at them from the pool. I’d talk to my guinea pigs about all the “happenings” at school.
When my parents’ financial struggle lead to us short selling our house, a lot changed, but I still had my some of my pets.
Sure, I was moving away from the friends I had finally made and going to a junior high I had not planned on attending, but I had my two dogs, my two guinea pigs, and my one cat. The rest had passed away or been given away.
My cat became my best friend. Again, feel free to laugh, but instead of “man’s best friend” this cat was a girl’s best friend. I carried her all around our darkly lit rental home. We hung out in my room when my parents argued, unless I became apart of it. When I wasn’t talking to the webcam as a pretend YouTuber, I told my cat about my thoughts and what was going on in my life.
Friends came, but my attachment to my pets stayed. I started taking my dogs out on runs. Their presence benefited me emotionally and physically. When my parents divorced, the house quieted. If it wasn’t quiet, it was because of something good like friends or because of something really, really bad.
In the bad moments, I had my pets. I could cry to my cat. Pet my dogs. I was cared for.
Then my mom got into law school. We moved from Utah to Nebraska. My sister got one dog. My dad was in charge of the other. My dad took ownership of my cat. We lived in an apartment that supposedly didn’t allow pets, and months when I found out they did, it was too late.
I was in a new state, starting high school with complete strangers, going through a bit of a culture shock, and doing it all while my mom was preoccupied with the high demands of law school.
Those years were darker than the ones before. I went through similar experiences, similar wrongs, similar pains. But my pets couldn’t save me anymore. When I cried in the bedroom, I wept alone. When my mom wasn’t home with me, no one was home with me.
The loneliness enveloped me. Eventually I made friends—ones I still hold dear to my heart. But when friends had plans and lived their own lives, as most human beings do, I was alone again.
It wasn’t until my adulthood that I realized my pets had saved me as a child. My house contained trauma and heartache, but my pets gave me emotional protection.
So, now I have an ESA. I can’t say she always calms me during my anxiety or relieves me during my deepest heartache, but she’s a part of my life I wouldn’t give up. At times, she surprises me and reminds me I can still laugh when I thought I was too sad. She forces snuggles on me when I’m feeling alone again. She gives me a reason to go on walks, something I need but have always struggled to do on my own.
Before, in many ways, my pets had saved me. As an adult, I know my corgi can’t. I’m old enough that it’s time for me to save myself now—and that has meant attending therapy and practicing healthier emotional processes.
But I will never forget the first pets I had. They gave company to a lonely, little girl, who was too young to save herself. They gave me comfort in a seemingly comfortless place. They gave me hope.
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