Howling at the Moon with My Husky
On new motherhood and dogs.
It feels comic, my inclination to write a disclaimer here. ATTENTION: This is a post about a postpartum mother and her dog! Deep breaths!
I published a Note once about the clackity clackity sounds of my dog’s nails scratching the chalkboard that has become my mind for the past 11 months. A rogue woman commented on it that I am “horrible,” that she “loved her dogs more after she had children,” and that my “dog deserves better.” She deleted her comment a few hours after she left it, and then she disappeared into the ether never to be seen again.
I didn’t think an onomatopoeia would be so controversial, but here we are!
Motherhood is hard (brutal, sometimes) and beautiful (always), simultaneously, but as soon as mothers talk about the undisclosed hard stuff that is seemingly frivolous but actually grating (the dog), some troll crawls out from under her ivory bridge to try to convince me that I’m a bad person for voicing it out loud.
Nice try, lady! I’m not issuing a disclaimer: my dog is uprooting my sanity, and it has nothing to do with love. Bark bark!
I’m thinking a lot about mothers and dogs these days. I’m thinking a lot about how others react when I say that my dog is often a nuisance around my new baby, a postpartum rage trigger, or a postpartum anxiety amplifier — and that it’s always just about the never-ending, monotonous yet all-consuming tasks that strip away everything about your identity except for being caretaker/milk-maker/baby protector, which is complicated by a four-legged, living, breathing animal you suddenly don’t have as much time for because duh — you don’t even have the adequate time to shower, or eat, or think about your own personhood.
I’m thinking a lot about what it means when a response to this sort of reply is, “Aw, poor dog.”
I promise, the dog is FINE.
Layla is a uniquely fabulous canine. She is a white Siberian Husky with bright blue eyes. My husband adopted her when she was just 8 weeks old. She had been bred to sell in a place you would not want any precious creature bred to sell, sold to another family, and then returned a few days later.
Austin was looking for a puppy at the time, saw this heartbreaking story online, and drove hours to adopt her. She was the only puppy left in her litter; the runt, too small for the preferences of others and alone on a farm, returned.
He has loved her from the moment he saw her and gave her a second life.
When I met my husband, Layla was barely two. Uncertain of strangers, usually, Layla clung to me immediately, and I loved her, too, from the moment I petted her perfect fluffy face.
Layla has always been, and remains, an incredibly well-behaved husky. She rarely barks. She only howls on command. She will not run away off-leash. She does not jump or lick. She perhaps believes that she herself is a human.
She loves the outdoors. She is a champion hiker, even though she’s not a graceful runner. She loves eating dirt, bugs, plants, trash — anything that stinks. Her stomach is made of steel. She ate an accidentally dropped pile of raisins once, refused to throw them up, and carried on as if we didn’t just drop $2k on an emergency veterinary bill.
She likes to climb, and she likes to sleep, and she will always tell you which one she’s in the mood to do.
She curls up like a croissant to snuggle. She loves hugs. We have loved her deeply her entire life, and she has loved us in return — it is a mutual, compassionate relationship between living beings. She is an innocent, pure animal that we are entrusted to keep safe, and we do so willingly.
But there is a baby in the house now. Our baby. Our miraculous little human made from stardust. Anything that threatens the baby, or takes time from the baby, or creates chaos for the baby, or creates chaos for mommy and daddy who are trying to keep the baby alive and thriving, is a stressor.
I think that Layla thinks my daughter is a dog and she’s encroaching on her territory. I would love to ask her, but unfortunately, she cannot speak. She also cannot read this Substack post.
By the end of the day, every day, I am zapped. By the end of the day, every day, the sound of Layla’s nails clacking wildly on the hardwood floor is equivalent to the sound of 99 ambulances whizzing by with sirens harmonizing in different pitches.
I vacuum twice a day. I then gather up all of the fur I’ve collected and I knit myself a nice sweater. I’ve made an entire collection. I unravel them sometimes when I feel myself unspooling and call it Performance Art.
After my husband or I feed our baby, the real one, we have to feed the dog. Of course we do!
We also have to give the dog a Prednisone pill every morning.
We also have to take the dog to the veterinarian once per month because she’s a very special girl with a very special autoimmune condition called Addison’s disease and if she doesn’t get her Zycortal injection every month on the month she will die.
I trip over Layla’s giant, slow-moving torso when she scuttles behind me. She tries to be sneaky but she’s clacking, clacking, clacking and she is never sneaky. Then she’s scurrying like a cartoon who can’t get away until the animation kicks in and the wind stops whirring and she’s finally off to the races/the other room and I am standing in a dust cloud of overstimulation.
She begs and begs and begs. I’m touched-out, but she’s so hungry, apparently — she’s like, “Gosh, you give me all of this fancy kibble and all of this fancy meat and all of this freshly filtered clean water and I don’t have to hunt in the wild like my ancestors but I’m STARVING, you’re STARVING ME, you HAVE TO GIVE ME YOUR DINNER THAT YOU FINALLY HAD THE STRENGTH TO MUSTER TO COOK AND THE WHEREWITHAL TO REMEMBER TO EAT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GIVE ME THOSE SCRAPS BEFORE I STARVE!”
The grass in the backyard? Not grassy enough. A cozy corner of the couch? Not cozy enough. Must stomp on pillows. Must stomp on legs. Must be outside for only a moment. Prance, prance, prance! Miss Prissy Pants has wants, too.
The baby I spent nine months growing in my womb? The dog enjoys her in the same way she enjoys a chew toy she has outgrown. A little sniff here, and little sniff there — “Pfft, excuse me as I step on this freshly newborn human head and pretend like I didn’t do it on purpose because my humans didn’t pet me more than 50 times extra this morning.”
My daughter is obsessed with this dog who wants nothing to do with her — yet (I hope). She crawls at her at full speed like a horror film monster. We’ve given Layla her own “safe space” in the house to prevent any accidents, but a baby who has just discovered that she can really move cannot be stopped.
And a mom who is exhausted must now chase the baby to the dog. The mom cannot cook, she cannot clean, she cannot human unless the dog and the baby are in different universes. The husband has come home from work. Hello, husband! Take your spot in the ring.
My daughter squeals when she sees Layla. She has been saying the word “dog” almost more than “mama” and “dada.” She flips to the dog picture of every book that has one. And in these moments, I realize that my postpartum rage can be tempered.
I swallow it down and I watch my daughter watch my dog like she is a majestic, fairy tale spirit guide (she is). I take tiny sips of patience until I’ve simmered. I continue this observation period, this cool-down, until the sun goes down, baby’s head on a soft mattress (you know, when that actually happens), room dark and house lit by an orange sunset.
Layla is always waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs after The Rocking. She has transformed back into herself from The Before and so have I — momentarily. We saunter past the backdoor and lay on our backs outside, looking at the stars.
She catches the spiders and eats them so I don’t have to fear them. She licks my hand, just once, to let me know she hears my thoughts. I’m thinking about how much I love her, even though she’s just a dog, but she isn’t, she’s more than that, even though she’s driving me insane, even though it’s not her fault, even though I’m just trying to learn to take care of myself and my baby and everything else.
We roll over and find the moon. We take a deep breath. And we howl.
💌
Xo,
Violet Carol
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I kid you not, I went on your substack last night to see if I had missed this letter because I couldn't WAIT to read your take on this and it did not disappoint!!! As someone with 3-month-old and 2-year-old humans AND a doodle who has been driving me insane for the last, um, two years....thank you for putting words to the emotional turbulence of pet ownership in early motherhood. *DISCLAIMER TO ALL WHO READ THIS COMMENT: I STILL LOVE MY DOG, OK???
That was so good. ♥️ I honestly clicked in for the sole purpose of looking at dog photos and ended up engrossed and reading the whole thing!