The dog showed up on a Tuesday in January, which was a bad month for me for reasons I will not fully explain here except to say that I had recently retired, recently moved to a new city to be closer to my daughter, and recently realized that being closer to my daughter did not mean being less alone.
She appeared on my back porch at six in the morning. Medium-sized, brown and white, with the patient, settled look of an older dog who has learned that getting excited about things is not always worth the effort. She sat outside the glass door and looked at me with an expression that was difficult to read but impossible to ignore.
I opened the door. She walked in, found the warmest spot in the kitchen, and lay down. She did not seem to be asking permission. She seemed to have made a decision.
I checked for a collar. None. I posted on the neighborhood app. Nobody claimed her. I took her to the vet, who estimated her age at around nine years old and said she was healthy but clearly had been outside for some time. The vet asked if I was keeping her.
I said I hadn’t decided yet. I was seventy-four years old and did not have a plan for a dog.
She was home when I got back from the vet. She had moved from the kitchen to the living room and was asleep on the couch with the absolute confidence of someone who had fully resolved the question I was still working through.
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