It’s two years ago today that Leonard The Dog came home.

I’m making a tradition that can only end in the vale of tears, where all stories end… but there is something compelling about counting the days. How many days will we have? I have an inner nerd, if only I were better at mathematics. I wonder about things like how many miles I have walked in my life, so far. How far?

Loving Leonard is a fine thing. It’s much more of a breathtaking thing than I ever could have imagined. I mean that literally. This dog love, it cracks in my chest and catches in my throat. He is often my muse. There is a folder on my laptop titled: Love Songs to Leonard (the dog) not to be confused with any fragments of love, inspired by Leonard (the man).

It’s the proximity of human coupledom that has always defeated me. I need so much space, silence and solitude. The extrovert I thought I was, turns out to have been hiding the deeply introverted truth of me.  Living with Leonard is fiercely intimate. He’s always there and he sees everything. It is unutterably healing to be able to give myself up to this life sharing kind of love, that I’d thought was not to be my lot.

And you might say, but he’s a dog, not a person. You might think it’s not a true compare. You might never be able to grasp just how much one person can love a dog. This person. This dog. This love.

Almost all of those 730 days, I’ve walked out with Leonard. It’s unequivocal. It’s just what happens. This is the best dog medicine for my baseline depression. It doesn’t fix it, but rather takes it out perambulating. I would never walk myself through the days, through the changing colours and smells of the seasons. Sometimes it’s a labour to walk the length of my own corridor. But for the love and commitment to Leonard, I walk or stumble four to five miles a day. I know this because someone bought my nerdy self a little machine to measure the ground we cover.

Did I say that my dog is a comedian? He makes me laugh, even and especially when I’m very gloomy. He’s such an optimist and an extrovert: he shows me the good stuff every day, just being himself.

Last summer I had my bedroom redecorated. I bought my first ever bed. And because it is almost certainly going to be my one and only bed, I got a truly beautiful one. Then I got Leonard a new bed: a luxuriously simple, soft blue corduroy, beanbag bed. Up to this point, Leonard had a very nice, though not quite as nice as that, dog bed, in the corner of our bedroom. He spent a lot of time on the bed with me, but usually retired to his bed to sleep through the night.

I wanted him to sleep with me, which he did on rare occasions. It always felt like a bit of Grace when that happened. I always said, thank you.

And then, dear reader, the beanbag bed well and truly threw him. He wasn’t at all sure about the beans and all the moving and grooving that getting onto it entailed. Before giving up on the beanbag bed, which I was rather attached to, I initiated a small training programme to befriend the bed. Everyday I encouraged Leonard to approach and master the weird beans, and sustained by treats and compliments, he started to get the hang of it.

While this process was winding its way, Leonard took to sleeping up on the bed with me. It is oddly tricky to put this into words, but something beyond the shores of tenderness ensued. Sleeping very close together, each night, which I’m sure for Leonard was a tempory thing, has woven us more deeply together. It is quite something to sleep in such close company. It’s that proximity thing again… but, oh how I am able to delight in and cherish this. I wake frequently. I need to pee. My back and hips hurt. I wake up frequently in my beautiful, white ash bed, and he is right there: his body against my shoulder or a paw on my head. He snuffles and snorts and forgives me all the getting up and getting down, the rearrangement of body parts, both dog and human.

You might say I’m being anthropomorphic… nevertheless; we are more tightly linked together now we sleep pushed up against the other. Sleeping with another is an intimate thing: an intimate thing that I’ve never really known and tasted. For all the good company I have had in my bed(s) over a lifetime, no, not ever like this.

I’m going to post this anniversary, dog card from my window ledge, and walk out with Leonard into a sunny afternoon. Blessings and dog prayers for the next 365… and gratitude to Leonard The Dog, for sharing my days and nights.