An Open Letter To My Dog's Previous Family

To My Dog's Previous Family:


I don't know anything about you.

I don't know where you live, what your name is, what kind of car you drive. I don't even know what language you speak. You don't know anything about me, either. Chances are you'll never see this, chances are you'll never know I ever wrote it, but I feel to need to write it anyway. Because the thing that links us together is one of my very favorite things in the entire world.

We named her Sydney. I don't know what your name for her is, and I wonder about that a lot. I wonder what toys she loved at your house, and whether you knew about her weird affinity for playing with towels or how much she enjoys eating squash and cucumbers. I wonder what she was like as a puppy, and I want to see what she looked like then. I can only imagine that she was heinously cute.

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Sydney's haircut when we found her. This is how you probably remember her.

The one thing I don't ever have to guess about her life before us is the fact that you loved her. I found her in 2014, joyfully rolling around in the leaves on a patch of greenery and trees heart-stoppingly near a freeway entrance. She was trusting of people, as though it would never enter into her mind that someone would hurt her, as I believe your kindness taught her to be. Her thick husky fur had been lovingly cut, probably to keep her cool under the July sun, and she was wearing a sturdy black collar, signs of a family who cared for her and wanted people to know she had a home. But that collar had no tags to lead us to where that home might be. My family and I tried everything to find you, from Facebook posts to physical signs to putting her description in the "Lost Dog" section of the local newspapers. Eventually, we gave her to the SPCA, in hopes you would look for her there, with instructions to call us if she had reached the deadline of her stay and would have to be put to sleep.

She lived there for two weeks before we got the call.  There wasn't a question about picking her up, but there was an uncertainty about keeping her. At the time, I liked her a lot. I thought she was pretty, smart, patient, and sweet, but just previously to finding her,  I had been promised to opportunity to pick out my own dog for the first time in my life, and keeping her would mean giving up that chance. And on top of that admittedly selfish hurdle, she was somebody else's dog. She was your dog. You had raised her, fed her, trained her, loved her for the first two years of her life. She was not mine.

But when we walked into the SPCA to sign the adoption papers that would authorize us to take her home something happened that changed that. I hadn't seen her for two weeks, and I'd assumed she'd forgotten about me. Still, I asked to see her, and they opened the door to the where the dogs lived. She was in the one of the first kennels in my line of vision, and her head was resting on her paws, a bored, lonely expression on her face. But then she looked up, and she saw me standing there, and she knew me instantly. She got up to her feet, dancing in the way she does when she's excited, beside herself with joy, looking at me with that intense, pure love that only a dog can give. And from that moment on, she had me. I'm obsessed with my Sydney girl. We had to leave her there because she was scheduled to be fixed (although they discovered, upon shaving her belly and finding a surgical scar, that you had already gotten that done, yet another piece of evidence about your responsible and loving dog ownership.) That extra week without her was tortuous. But we eventually were able to bring her home, and she's been one of us ever since.

I don't tell you this to cause you pain, if you ever see this. I want it to be clear that my intention is not to rub it in that she lives with my family now. I do want you to know, more than anything, that she is loved. She's safe, fed, and she has two small-dog siblings that adore her to the point of driving her crazy. She wears a pink collar now, but we keep that black one with us, tucked away safely. I love to dress her up on holidays, and she bears it patiently, like the good girl she is.

Halloween 2015.

One of my personal favorites. We printed it out, and now use it as a Christmas decoration.

She makes me happy when I'm sad, and she's helped me through some difficult, stressful times in my life. I love her so much it's stupid. When I go away on trips, I ask whoever is housesitting to send me pictures of her. And as I'm preparing to move out of my family home, the thought of being so far away from my dog makes my heart break, even though I know she has more than enough love to go around with my family members who will stay with her.

She loves car rides.

In the end,  there are countless questions I could ask you if I could, endless things I would love to be able to tell you, if I ever met you. But the biggest thing I would want to say, besides letting you know that she's safe and happy, is to tell you thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to have this sweet puppy in my life. Thank you for taking care of her when she was yours.

I promise to take care of her while she's mine.