Earth Experiences #13: How to Dog

Lessons from Ruby

My Substack is free, but writing is how I pay my bills and feed my pups. If you’d like to subscribe, please do! If that’s too big a commitment and you’d like to make a one-time donation instead (maybe a really good cup of coffee?), I would appreciate that as well. Many thanks for your support.

---

Two nights ago, Julie was washing dishes, and I was sitting in my recliner with my feet up, watching Love Is Blind (because I’m obsessed).

“Is Ruby okay?” she asked with genuine concern in her voice.

I looked at her from my chair. “Why? Where is she?”

Julie pointed toward the floor under my feet, and I peered over the edge of my recliner.

What I saw was astonishing, and it looked like this:

Most of you will think that’s just an ordinary dog laying on the ground like dogs are wont to do. It was hot in the rig, and she was sprawled out, panting, like hot dogs are wont to do.

But Ruby is no ordinary dog.

In the seven years since I adopted her, Ruby has never plopped down on the ground in the middle of a living area.

She is a girl who prefers quiet, dark, safe spaces. She likes to hide in the bathtub when her anxiety runs high. I put a bench next to the bed so she can sleep under it, and it’s one of her favorite spaces now. She prefers to spend most of her day in a crate under a desk.

When George and I first met her, she was curled into the corner of a cold, empty room at the Toledo Humane Society, her head tucked into her paws in the classic If I can’t see you, you can’t see me pose.

When I approached her, she trembled with fear. When I offered her my hand to sniff, she didn’t know what to do but shiver in response.

“What has to happen to a dog to make them forget how to be a dog?” my cousin, Sherri, asked when she first met Ruby.

I don’t like to think about what Ruby’s life was like before I found her. I don’t like to consider the pain this sweet, gentle soul might have endured. All I know for sure is that she came from a “neglect and abuse situation” in Mississippi. I don’t want to know more.

What I do know for sure is that Ruby is an extraordinarily special dog. She’s always been more cat than dog in her approach to life: wary, uncertain, timid, skittish. For the first year I had her, she spent most of her time under the sofa. She would squeeze herself into the tiniest of cave-like spaces where she felt safe and protected. I would have to get down on my belly to attach a leash to her collar so I could gently pull her out to go potty. And when she slipped her collar an excruciatingly anxiety-producing time or two, she would run full-tilt toward a copse of trees where she could lose herself in their leafy shadows.

I’ve had to dive a time or two to catch her. So has George. So has Julie. Ruby is nimble, speedy, and driven to run by some kind of innate fear that I might never be able to touch.

So to see her prone on the ground in the middle of our living space was, indeed, an unfamiliar and alarming sight.

But you know what?

Ruby was perfectly fine.

When I bent down to check her, she lifted her head a bit and then laid it back down as if to say, “No worries, Crazy Lady. I’m okay.”

When Ruby was two years old, a vet suggested we get another dog to help Ruby learn how to be a dog. That’s how we found Sissy. And tiny step by tiny step, the vet turned out to be right.

Before Sissy, Ruby never barked. She never wagged her tail. She didn’t like to be touched. She wouldn’t make eye contact. When she was with other dogs, she’d just run like her life depended on it—back and forth and around dog park fence lines. She wasn’t interested in socializing or playing. She still doesn’t know what to do with a toy, and she has only recently begun responding to treats.

But she’ll chew on a stick now because she’s seen it so many times from Sissy.

And every time she dogs like a normal dog, it’s a cause for concern—then celebration.

So, although a dog lying prone in the middle of the floor isn’t necessary a reason for a party, it is if the dog is Ruby.

It took her over seven years to be comfortable enough to stretch out on a rug and relax.

Every once in a while, she’ll even jump up beside me and sit for a minute.

She never stays long. She has pacing and panting to do, and her numerous circles around the island can’t be skipped. I’m not sure if that’s the Border Collie in her or the excruciating anxiety.

But every moment she sits with me and lets me pet her silky, soft head is a victory.

I’ve waited seven years for her to accept my love and affection, and I’d wait another lifetime if that’s what it took to gain her trust.

Baby steps. Consistency. Love. Boundaries. She’s teaching me all of these things while she learns how to become a dog.

She is forever worth the wait.

Love always is.