We decided to get a dog for two reasons, ostensibly. First, we were in the midst of what is for much of New Orleans fairly routine and almost seasonal: a summer crime spike. Suddenly, come summer, a whole host of adolescents, invariably African-American and poor, with no structured activities, no adult guidance, no funds for summer camp, and few viable community centers, are adrift in the city with little to do in the intense heat of Louisiana's summer except get into trouble. Idle hands are the devil's playthings? So, it seems. In any event, some contingent of young boys (they are typically boys), often led by a few young men who act as "role models," end up turning to armed robbery or home invasions as the best available alternative to, I don't know, baseball practice or swim team training. Of course, it's more complicated and deeper than I make it out. The seeds of discontent and the urge to act out or up are planted earlier than one idle summer in a fifteen-year old's life—in the homes, school system, economy and culture of criminal youth. Nevertheless, by last summer, the question for me became fairly uncomplicated: burglar alarm or barking dog?

So, anyway, my anxiety was inching upward, along with my blood pressure, as it usually does when I hear of several armed robberies during the day, within a block or two of our house. Thus, when my husband returned from the local farmer's market with my son, Dylan, on a Saturday morning to report that they had tussled with a pack of puppies from a local animal shelter and that Dylan had fallen for a particular tri-colored pooch with floppy ears, I could swear that I felt my heart swell in my chest, burst like a rose, and sprout lushly colored petals as a soft furry image blossomed in my mind to compliment the rough, weedy and fear-infested space that was, at that point, my emotional landscape. A puppy….Dylan's puppy. Our puppy. "Was it sold"? I asked my husband, breathlessly. "No, they took it back to the shelter." "Can we go and see it?" I pressed, with a sudden edge of desperation. "It's a long way," my husband answered, after a measured pause, a pause fat with the desire to avoid both conflict and the question at hand. "I just want to see him," I persisted, undeterred. Within an hour we were speeding down the highway to the distant town of the shelter in which the puppy of my imagination awaited my help.

But I'd be lying if I said my suddenly undeniable puppy lust was all about crime. After all, an alarm system would ultimately have proven less expensive, less damaging to our recently refinished hardwood floors, less challenging to our pet cat, and easier to leave when we went on vacation. No, there was another factor. That old biological time clock, which had indicated to me the lateness of the hour, was despite many months of punctual sex and one miscarriage later, still faintly ticking. And no amount of rationality could enable me to see that a canine companion is not a second child. Namely, because I was not, at that point, admitting to myself that my impulse to get a dog had anything to do with the fault line that fractured my heart when I finally faced the reality that my childbearing years had likely passed. If anything, I thought, in addition to guarding our home, a dog would be a source of entertainment and diversion for Dylan.

As it turned out, when we reached the shelter, I was less than enthusiastic about the puppy of our quest, which looked to me like a short-haired hound dog mix. Having grown up with purebred Shelties and a Golden Retriever, I harbored a preference for the more lushly longhaired breeds. Nevertheless, my newly awakened longing did not allow me to settle for this conclusion to the story. Rather, in the weeks that followed, I began to scan the internet for pictures of lonesome pups across the state. It became, in fact, a daily obsession, even as my typically more rational husband came to feel increasingly ambivalent about the idea. Finally, I came across what I believed to be the dog of my dreams: a sad and delicate-looking young female, with a thick brown and white a coat, who was called "Felicity" and labeled a "sheltie/collie mix." I showed it to Chris, who shrugged his indifference. The next day, hoping for a different response, I showed him the photo of Felicity once more. "It's okay," he shrugged again, "but its coat is too long. Imagine all the brushing." Slightly crestfallen, I continued my search. A week later, after considering a golden retriever/basset hound mix that we dismissed after finding a photo of the incongruous hybrid as an adult, I showed him the snapshot of Felicity for the third time. "Yeah, she's pretty cute," he answered unexpectedly. My heart stopped. "Really? You think so?" "Sure," he said, and returned with his coffee to the morning paper in which he was absorbed. Mornings are Chris' best time of day.

Within minutes I emailed the shelter my interest in Felicity. A day later I received an email and application form back. Within the next week we were walking the reticent Felicity, who had been discovered on the lam as a month-old pup, around the compound of her shelter, and I was in love. The next day, after a round of negotiations with Chris on how we would divide up responsibility for Felicity (Dylan had announced that though he would like a dog, he was not old enough to clean up its mess), I drove with Dylan and a leash and collar to the shelter and bought my first dog.

Like most relationships, the one that developed between the pup, who we renamed "Clio," and me in the next year was not unambivalent. While I adored the gorgeous animal I had handpicked based on her image online, I had to admit to the initial hardship of housetraining and corresponding marathon walking schedule, my regret at her eager pursuit of my already-neurotic cat, my horror at the damage she very quickly wreaked on our hardwood floors as she slid across a room in pursuit of the cat, and my exhaustion at having to rise every morning at dawn for her 6:00 feeding schedule. Moreover, when the dust cleared, I was able to admit to myself that my initial mania over getting a dog probably was fed by the grief I had felt from not becoming pregnant again, from the foreclosure of my fertility and the corresponding loss of possibility women often experience at this juncture of their lives.

However, Clio did, in a paradoxical sense, restore an aspect of my youthful self. As a child, I had loved my dogs. Had doted on them with unqualified devotion. When I went to visit my cousin for a weekend, I would worry incessantly about my dogs' emotional well-being, would pray throughout the day that God would protect them. They were, literally, my best friends. This all changed in high school when I became consumed with boys and social activities. At that point, too, my parents were in the process of getting what would prove to be a messy divorce. Seemingly in response to the household tension and general neglect, my dog at the time (a golden retriever), began to suffer seizures and would no longer go on runs with my dad (who was in the process of leaving my mother). In separating myself from my dog, it was as if I were separating myself from my feelings, which would have, undoubtedly, led me to a sense of loss. This sense of separateness from and indifference to dogs carried over into most of my adult life, during which, for years, my attachment to pets extended only as far as pausing to refill a cat's food bowel or mechanically change its litter box.

In this light, my sudden and irrational drive to get a dog seems to have been born from a desire to heal, and it seems fitting and significant that Clio returned to me that simple girlish joy and empathy I once felt for dogs, and more broadly, for the natural world around me. Walking Clio, I began to notice and talk with my neighbors and to re-attune myself to other dogs, as well as to the vegetative life through which it is her pleasure to romp.

In the end, too, Clio has become a companion to Dylan, with whom she shares a boundless energy and love of play. Last but not least, she has adopted us as her "pack" and guards us vigilantly, barking at strangers throughout the year.

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