My family is gone on holiday in Italy and I am looking after the house and my grandmother, who is staying in Ireland because she can't stand the heat. But staying in the house without that little thing running around the house just doesn't feel right.
To think that little over a year ago, I would have been one of those guys who never had time for dogs, didn't understand animal lovers and was actually a little scared of them. When my sister begged my parents to get one, I was a little annoyed because, well, I thought she would take over the house.
When they came home with her, you should have seen her! She was the tiniest thing. And here was me, cold hearted and frightened by this tiny creature - big man! For days I refused to let my heart be warmed by her adorableness and playfulness. I stayed as far from her as I could, though she kept trying to make friends with me, always coming up to me, leaning against my legs on two paws and looking up at me with her tongue sticking out. Everything about her genuinely looked like she was saying 'love me! I'm adorable!'.
Still, nothing.
A few weeks later, I was uber-stressed by college work and the end of the year assignments piling up on me. I was building the sets for one of the end of the year films that we would be shooting - I was acting as production designer for it. It had been a busy stressful day, and I had lost the stapler - one of those ones used to stick things on the walls. I turned the house upside down and inside out trying to find it but it was all useless, and all the while, Chloe kept hanging around me, pacing furiously and excitedly at my ankles trying to get some sort of a reaction from me. I'm bipolar, and it doesn't take much to turn me into an emotional mess. So, feeling the way I felt, I collapsed on the couch and got ready for the usual depressing thoughts to fill my head.
That's when Chloe must have realised something was wrong. She calmed and looked at me for a while. Then, she climbed on the couch and on my lap and laid there, calm and quiet.
It was the kindest thing anyone had done for me in years. It actually made me cry tears of tenderness. Ever since then, she has been my best friend, the best friend than anyone could imagine - I am just sorry that I had to wait til I got old to experience the kind of love that only a dog can give; a disinterested kind, as if loving someone was more than the right thing to do, but only natural and not to be questioned. Not to mention that having a pet around me has been nothing but good to me in an emotional sense.
But now I feel sad, thinking about her being in the kennel where she will stay for another ten days or so until my parents return, and I will eventually leave this house. I think that Chloe will be the thing I will miss the most. And you know what the most heart warming thought is? I know that right now she is thinking of me too, and all of us, and though she must be having fun playing with all the other dogs, she will be the happiest creature ever when she will come back.
Bless her.
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