The Neighborhood According to Dog
How my pup rewired my brain to include a mental trash map
When you’re thinking about getting a dog, there are certain obvious considerations.
Does your building allow pets? What supplies do you need? Can you afford said supplies, plus recurring expenses like food and vet visits?
The list could go on, and all are important things to consider before taking the plunge. Before adopting our little Azula, my partner and I considered them all.
Yet… dog ownership has changed me in other, unexpected ways, too.
Straight away, I fell in love with our little bundle of energy. Her sweet big eyes full of wonder, how she’d curl up into me in the face of the big, scary world.
Even the way she would stop and sit down, refusing to go a step further from the house on a walk, was cute. At first.
Soon enough, though, I realized that being Azula’s dog mom was going to be a challenge for me. Soon, I understood that it would rewrite a lot of the ways I think about the world.
You see, in a former life, I had a cat named Artemis. He and I shared three different apartments, and I was his primary caregiver for most of his life.
