Coming Home – To Living With Dogs

Going away on our camper van adventure meant so many things to us. It meant a week of relative freedom – from responsibility, from routine, from ‘normal’. Gosh, we needed it! Coming home, then, truly was a return to ourselves, to all the things. We missed our kidults, our bed was divine to sink into, the shower was possibly the best I’ve ever had in my life. And… the welcome home from two puppy dogs called Woody and Jesse was a celebration of the very best kind of love.. 

Unconditional. Unquestioning. Whole body love.

Woody and Jesse are our crazy, undisciplined, chocolate coloured Murray River Curly Retrievers. You need to know them. They’re the answer to every question you may have about love and life and energy and how to live life to the fullest.

Let me introduce you.

Woody’s real name is Hollywood. He holds the title as the first dog I have ever owned in my entire life. Woody is precious to us in so many ways, as dogs often are, but he has some extra family stories to carry. If I were in any way spiritual (ok, I am, just a little) I would tell you that Woody was sent to us by my beautiful Nan. She had a soft spot for dogs, Nan and Pop would care for my aunt’s Labrador when they were working overseas. Every single dog she came across acknowledged her as a special person worthy of love and devotion. It seemed appropriate that we find some small way to assuage and acknowledge her loss by bringing the love of a dog into our lives. At Nan’s funeral we heard about how, as a young girl, Nan adored the movies. As all siblings are wont to do, hers made fun of her and soon nicknamed her Hollywood. It made sense to adorn this puppy who had joined the family with this name in her memory. When Woody showed his adoration for having his arm rubbed exactly like Nan used to do for us… I knew. 

Nan knows this dog. He’s meant to be here.

More than a handful. There are lots of dogs living in our neighbourhood. They are all members of pairs. Watching them play and keep one another company convinced me that having just the one puppy in the house was actually a cruelty and when the pandemic hit I was convinced that now was the time to bring home a friend for Woody. What were we thinking???

Jesse is actually appropriately named Jester. We picked the name before we knew him – he either shrugged his shoulders and grew into the hilarity of it or we fluked the perfect name for this clown of a puppy dog. We nearly didn’t choose him. I had another puppy in my hands when this bolshy little fellow kept making his presence known around our ankles and with his confidence he stole our attention and won us over. His high-jinks then should have been a hint.

Jester is full of energy, he cannot eat or drink enough to fill himself and he is wily! He can leap any fence, sniff out any hidden food and break into even locked metal containers to claim the prize. The vet knows him now as the dog who has poisoned himself (sigh). He’s ‘that dog’ in the neighbourhood who escapes and helps himself to some other dog’s food and barks at the kids riding their bikes. He is highly embarrassing and socially unacceptable. And yet he is loyal and gentle and completely gorgeous. When he sees you after an absence he cries. Seriously, literal sobs of joy that you’re here! You’re back! I love you!!!

Naive dog owner that I was, I never considered that they might bark ferociously at the delivery van so that packages were tossed on the step and escape made, or that I would have to chase recalcitrant puppies pretending to be hearing impaired all over the neighbourhood in my pyjamas. I definitely never anticipated that I would lose most of the room in the bed! I imagined walking every day with my two well-trained companions at my side. We were going to be so fit! I pictured them obediently responding to my call, demonstrating their intelligence by fetching a ball.

Woody and Jesse have been by our sides, loyal and constant, ever since. They’ve taught us some seriously useful lessons. 

1. They taught me to stop sweating the small stuff. I cannot keep the house clean because of the copious dog hair, there are pieces of toys and bone all over the yard and all of their hair and we have had to clean up ‘accidents’. And everything is still ok. Huh. There you go.

2. There is nothing that can’t be made better with a hug. Jesse in particular has taken to this remedy with gusto. He leaps up and wraps himself around your neck and lays his head against your cheek and just loves. His whole body quivers with the happiness of it and, once you’ve regained your equilibrium from the full frontal love bomb, you, too, will vibrate with joy.

5. You can cope with anything if you’re in the company of the people you love. You can let the vet give you your immunisation. You can meet the new dogs and the new people and be brave. You can even sleep in a tent surrounded by unfamiliar sounds because the pack is snuggled up with you.