She heaves belabored sighs like I did in my twenties (so dramatic!). She dreams. She startles easily and doesn’t lick or leap at strangers. She cowers when we encounter anything but squirrels on our walks. In short, she doesn’t seem like a typical dog, much less puppy. No; Tosca is an old soul, moody and mercurial, silent and standoffish (in two weeks I’ve only heard her bark three times)—in other words, she’s basically like a cat. It’s a bit bewildering. Yesterday I told a friend that she’s all I feel compelled to write about. Then write about her, the friend encouraged. Because of course when you’re writing about the dog, you’re also writing about other things. And so I will. Because she’s felt oddly allegorical from the start (and what, ultimately, isn’t?).
Years ago, before adopting Tosca, my family came close to adopting another dog. At the time, I was advised by a colleague—the zealous owner of two German Shepherds—to pay very close attention to the dog’s behavior upon meeting. He insisted that it should be alert, engaged, happy, playful, wagging its tail, making eye contact, rolling over for belly rubs. My colleague acted all of this out as if we were playing a game of charades while I nodded, similarly pretending that I’d never seen a dog before in my life. As it happened, the dog we almost adopted was not like this—hence the “almost”. Neither was Tosca, but we brought Tosca home, anyway, because we’d committed to doing so for our daughter. Despite her eccentric temperament (perhaps even because of it), she somehow felt like our dog.
What’s interesting is how quickly she’s become my dog. I’ve read that they do this; they pick their person—nominate an alpha, as it were—and, in sizing up our little family, she must’ve decided that I was the leader of this outfit a la O Brother, Where Art Thou?. My husband doesn’t mind (I lost him to a love affair with our cat years ago), but my daughter does. The dog was her present, after all, and even though she’s the one who mainly feeds and plays with her, Tosca has nonetheless become my shadow. I find myself tripping over her constantly, as she’s always at my feet. And as any dog lover will tell you, there is no purer pleasure (or annoyance). Particularly now, when I sense my other shadow, the one for whom this curious creature came to belong to us in the first place, drifting ever farther in search of her own lovely suns.
Well, then 