Sharing With Sherman: Introduction to the Blog

When I got Sherman, I had forgotten what dogs smell like. Not that he was a lot of dog to smell, that little ten pound package of black fur and tidy brown eyebrows, but the scent was there when the adoption people handed him to me officially outside of the pet store and his neck landed near my nose. And I’m not thinking of the wet dog, or doghouse smell, but that earthy one, that deep, deep smell of childhood, from when we had puppies every year and I spent more time roaming grassy paths on all fours than walking. I did however, spend a substantial amount of time hiding from my hairbrush wielding mother who wanted the bits of grass removed for some reason that I didn’t understand at the time.

But this was going to be different, I could tell. This time, there was no puppies-going-home day, and no pastures to play in. This was my dog, my forever-for-fifteen-years dog. And I was in shock that I had actually done this, that I had actually committed to take care of something living, me, the girl that could kill an aloe vera (yes, a cactus) and who struggled with the idea of committing to a pair of running shoes that might last longer than a year. But there I was regardless; holding a dog officially labeled 12 months, and trying desperately to remember everything I needed to buy before I took him home.

The shock must have stood out on my face as I stared at rows of dog harnesses, dog collars, dog leashes, dog hair clips, and dog collar bling, because one of the store employees came over and helped me fit a little blue harness on him. Liberated from the daze a bit, I wandered the store several times, slowly accumulating food and snacks and a bed and then we went out to my truck, where he promptly sat down in the bed on the passenger seat and looked at me. Maybe this wasn’t such an overwhelming thing after all?

Back home, my room was immediately claimed with a glance and a settled little body on my bed. As I set down pet things, a vivid memory came back of my first dog, now 16 and lurching around the backyard back home. It seems that every house has a Wilma, a dog that has been there through “It All,” and as I worked myself up to adopting this new dog, it seemed that suddenly everyone was telling me stories of their old dog. I heard more stories about why people got dogs and what they meant to them in those few weeks than I had in years. But then, maybe for the first time I was listening.

You see, going through a Master’s program in Teaching is a lot. My time this year has been spent in my classes or in high schools and middle schools or doing homework. And there is something in that combination of stress and caring that has birthed primal need to LOVE SOMETHING. I have seen it in all my classmates, who getting engaged and adopting cats, and caring for each other with deep determination. I jokingly told my mom at one point that it was to be a dog or a relationship with the first guy I met when I walked out the door. She, very seriously, said, “pick the dog.”
Then, in the midst of that are the stories, the ones from the teacher I am working with, from one of my favorite professors, from my parents. These stories of getting a dog that fill in the details on some bigger piece of life, like the last child going to college, or a puppy that comes to live in the hole filled by one of those old dogs who had been there through it all, or of a small white peekapoo that takes on caring for a family knocked from four to three.

Dogs, and the stories we tell about them, often are the bookmarks in our lives, the record keepers. That was what finally pushed me over the edge on my adoption dilemma – the hope that even though this is my year of exciting decisions made just for my, by me, and about me, that I will still have a friend there with me surviving it and going on to the next step with me. And that is the point of this blog, and why it’s called “Sharing With Sherman.” This is my next step, I have made the big decision to share it with someone, and the friendships we carry with us (sometimes literally) are the pieces of our story most worth sharing. Under that guise, this is also a blog about me becoming a teacher, and the terror and joy and exhaustion of going through this program, and onto my first big girl job soon.

Besos y abrazos,
Emma

PS. it turns out Sherman could fit into a carry-on crate, and that Portugal and Chile don’t have mandatory quarantine on pets entering the country. Whoever would have looked into that kind of thing before adopting a small Chihuahua mix, huh? ;)

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PHOTOS!

Growing up with the Border Collies my parents raised (and still raise) as sheep and cattle herding dogs. I am around 8 in this picture.