Original article in boston.com
The secret messages on the dog bed
By Elissa Ely
February 28, 2010
FOR SEVEN blessed years we lived with a dog we knew almost nothing about. We loved her unreasonably, and after she died, we gave away the elevated food bowls designed to decrease her neck strain, the custom treats, the cushions in each room of the house. But we could not give away her bed, dented from years of dreaming, full of odor and her air. It lay on the floor in the master bedroom, empty, though not unoccupied.
Months later, we met a new dog, who came to the Rescue League with a medical history but no other information. He walked rapidly around the adoption pen - not barking, not wagging, not looking behind him to see who held the leash. The folder said he had been given up twice, and the last owner had left a few words of advice on a questionnaire. It was in a child’s penmanship.
“Cooper is a nice dog,’’ the writer wrote. “But you must be VERY VERY FIRM with him.’’ The word was crystal clear. Cooper did not need to elaborate.
We brought him home, wondering how his anxious bones would stick in a place they had never been. The first few nights, we slept downstairs with him. He was our guest, and it was the polite thing to do.
When he finally came upstairs with us, he trotted into closets, peered around shower curtains and looked out windows. There was no real curiosity about the second floor, though. He was just taking anxious inventory.
Then he wandered into the master bedroom and saw the dog bed. We had forgotten to remove it. It was a sign of an earlier occupant, but an occupant who had disappeared - maybe been given away, maybe been treated with firmness. The bed was full of secret messages.
He poked a nose into the dents, and found no softness anywhere. Whatever was left of its original plush comfort was long gone. It would be awfully uncomfortable to lie on.
He lay on it. Two paws hung over one edge and his head dangled off the other; he was an adolescent in the shorts of a child.
But a year later, with a half-dozen superior sleeping options available to him (including the master bed itself), he continues to lie on it.
A dog with an unknown life took comfort from another dog with an equally unknown life. They will never meet, and we will never understand what this bed means to Cooper, who we have also come to love unreasonably. We think of it as a message left in a bottle, set adrift unintentionally, found by the reader who needed to read it most.
Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
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