This year my dog Rigby and I are turning the same age – 35 – and for the curious minds out there, of course we are planning a bomb-ass birthday bash.  But before we party hard, I wrote her a depressing love letter about how I miss my first dog and have realized that I will never have a dog as great as her, and how it makes me sad for all of my future dogs knowing they are being put up against unreachable expectations.

Rigby is my second dog and is true to her name, which comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby, a sad lonely lady. Rigby is the polar opposite of Scout, and at times, I suspect she is a feline. Her anxious tendencies and intense fear of separation ensure that all of the toys in the house have chewmarks and all of my bras are carried away to Never Never Land, which resides under our bed where she hides for a majority of the day. But regardless of how Rigby perceives being the second dog, I want her to know will always love her deeply, but deep down I will always hope that she grows up to be my first dog.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

Back before I died inside from a bad job and a lack of sparkle, we had a black Labrador Retriever named Scout after the protagonist Jean Louise Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.  Scout was our first baby, and she taught me to be me:  how to explore, revealing that Chicago has more countryside than I realized and that Colorado is just as beautiful as the pictures suggest.  I almost witnessed her plummetting to her death on a hike in Boulder where she chased a tennis ball down a steep ravine upon catching the scent of water and not fighting to urge to immediately find it.  I spent every pre-bedtime snuggling her for at least fifteen minutes, lathering my face in her snout and nearing suffocation from smothering my face in her thick mane; my husband missed me during those years but understood the necessity of the cuddle.

Scout was diagnosed with bone cancer when we took her to the vet for what we thought was a broken paw but ended up being a tumor-infested shoulder that burst the bone surrounding it.  A large piece of my soul was lost when Scout went into the ether, and I am still searching for it to this day.  As I put my forehead to hers for the very last time, I sat in the room and watched the universe drain from her eyes as she was infused with death.  It took me more than a while to pry myself off of her and leave her side for the remainder of eternity.

As we contemplate adding another dog to the household, I wanted to write a letter to my current, future, and past not-first dogs – all of the dogs after Scout.  Cheers to the dogs that will never be good enough but try hard to get the job done, for you are the ones that need the most love.

Dear Future Dog

Dear future dog, please slobber all over my face with your smelly, rat-scented breath.  It invigorates my soul.

Dear future dog, please run in between my legs after you lay outside in the sun for hours to imitate the feeling of straddling a large comforter thrust out of the dryer.  My inner thighs need more of you.

Dear future dog, please perform an acrobatic routine whilst making your descent off of the couch.  The sight of your butthole in my face, opening as wide as a newborn’s yawn, never seeming to close, brings me extreme pleasure.

Dear future dog, please have mercy on me when I yell at you to stop speaking, for no creature should have its voice revoked.  Barkers unite, howlers revel!  Maybe not at 5am though…

Dear future dog, please take up the entire side of my bed, forcing me to insert myself under the covers like a kid who forgot a sleeping bag and has to share.  And when I lean over to kiss you, please inhale like you took a fresh bong rip, and exhale with fury, spattering spitticles all over my face and your whiskers, and be sure to give out an exonerable sigh that resurfaces my suspicions that you really can talk. And when I finally get situated in our shared space, please get up at that exact moment, move two feet away, do a few circles, and plant yourself on my newly-bowed legs. And when you do that, please rest your head on my thigh and make me feel safe, sound, and smothered – more secure than a newly-swaddled baby.

Dear future dog, please search in the yard for slimy yet crusty tennis balls that lie near ancient piles of poop I have neglected to pick up all winter.  And when you find the goods, bring them to me and pile them in my lap like sacrifices for my kingdom, streaking my pants in the sign of the dog.  And if I fail to tend to these neon spheres of goodness, nudge them onto my shirt to make a mud-streaked ensemble, for I am now the ruling queen of Muddledtennisballland and you shall never go without a dirty ball for as long as you shall live.

Dear future dog, please gain momentum to cannonball into the water like boat being pushed out to sea. Please perform an expert, synchronized paddle routine, swim far enough where I become convinced you will run out of steam and force me to rapidly contrive a plan to save you, and on your return to the shore, please hack up what sounds like steel hairballs until you make it to safety and rush to my side to douse me in a hefty sample of the almighty pond water.

Dear future dog, please throw out my rotator cuff from using the tennis ball launcher for hours on end. I crave the pain and attention.

Dear future dog, please let your mind, soul, and body get as lost as that tennis ball you are trying to locate as you run paces back and forth in a fervent yet diligent manner. And make me wait longer than I want to while you navigate it with your outrageous sense of smell; the suspense is killing me.

Dear future dog, please scope out that massive mud puddle when we arrive at the dog park, and be sure to immerse yourself in it like a person who just found a new religion and celebrated it with a full-body bath in the spirit wat.., errr, mud. Cleaning the bathtub and carpet are two of my favorite pastimes.

Dear future dog, please put your nose on my leg when I least expect it, propelling me six feet up from thinking I was prodded with a wand made of liquid nitrogen.  Once I come back down, tap me again, this time longer since your nose will now have received the powers of warmth, transferred from my flabby thighs to your leathery snout.  I will be ready for it, and I will dig it.

Dear future dog, when you go to take your seventh nap for this day, please put your paws together like an elephant balancing on a wooden box.  Please be open to me squishing all of your paws together, and please be ok with me rubbing my face within the twelve righteous paw pads, for these are the receptacles that infuse me with life every morning – give us this day our daily corn-chip-smelling bread.

Dear future dog, please shed your coat all over my house like a Grammy-winning diva slipping out of her sequined cloak on stage mid-song.  Please store up monumental tufts that fly away like a grand finale when I go to give you a full-body scratch, and strategically place said fluffballs by a place of violent airflow, so they can catapult onto my freshly-made lunch.  I will dine like royalty.

Dear future dog, please make me believe you are human by the time you reach four years of age.  Convince me that your presence is necessary, and overtake my mind so that I could not imagine a household without you.  And at the four-year mark, please turn into a completely different canine and emerge with superpowers, extreme muscular definition, and a serene outlook on life.  Make me understand that one’s twenties are a special time of discovery and that one’s thirties are when the true self is found.

Dear future dog, please do not fear me because you have been waiting almost a year for me to bring home your sister dog, my first dog, the one who I suddenly took away one morning after a fabulous game of fetch in the backyard.   Do not be afraid that she never came back, and do not deem me evil for her abrupt disappearance.  Please trust that I took her somewhere safe where she is happy, comfortable, and well-fed.  And please forgive me for making you trust me after this, for no one should have to put their faith in a person who takes away something as important as a best friend.  People are asked to trust a fake deity on the regular, but you do not deserve to be treated as such.  You have a right to the truth. And please know that I did not want her to go either.  Dear future dog – please help me get through this.

Dear future dog, please do not fret when I come back one day with another one of you. And please be patient with the new friend as it is my way of giving you companionship during times when I cannot.  And please do not get upset when I snuggle with the new companion; you have not been replaced, you never will.

Dear future dog, please know that you are the reason I live my life.  Without you, life would be dull, grey, and unable to be traversed due to the giant, flesh-eating army of uneaten crumbs.  

Dear future dog, I love you.