There is no question that we put too much on dogs. We project what we want to see onto them, and oftentimes, they become inadvertent repositories for our hopes, dreams and fears. When my sweet dog Buffy died almost exactly one year ago at age 14.5, I knew I didn’t want to do that. I actually hate when people try to turn their dead dog into a saintly avatar or a catalyst for life-changing enlightenment. At the end of the day, it’s important to remember Buffy was just a dog. A great dog maybe. A cute dog certainly. A sassy and huffy dog completely. But a dog, nonetheless. To honor her appropriately, then, I want to describe something much simpler. I want to tell you just about how Buffy made me feel and why that feeling came at the exact right time in my life.

When I adopted Buffy with my partner back in 2018, I was in the midst of several realizations. On a macro level, I had long thought the country’s problems were the result of bad people instead of bad systems. Having grown up in a Democratic household, I believed that our social and economic woes could be mostly laid at the feet of the Republican Party. The first two defining political crises of my life, the Iraq War of ‘03 and the financial meltdown of ‘07-08, only solidified that position.

My view began to change right around the time of the first Trump administration. I realized it wasn’t just a single political party responsible at fault—it was the entire duopoly. A psycho like Trump doesn’t get elected by accident. It has a root cause. There were many theories put forth in those days that attempted to name what that is.

The one I found most persuasive was that the rot in our body politic was metastatic not localized. It extended to the Democratic side of the aisle as well. Many in the party carried the stink of the War on Terror and the Great Recession just as much as Republicans. Moreover, their longtime pivot from the New Deal to neoliberal consensus had accelerated the country’s immiseration and left it vulnerable to Trump’s opportunism, manipulation and predation.

Meanwhile, assumptions about my personal life were similarly collapsing. People I had somewhat held up on a pedestal came crashing down around this time, while others had their stars rise. Many of these shifts were likely driven by the deaths, illnesses and upheavals that occurred back then. There is that age old belief that in trying or transitory periods people show you who they really are. I can confirm that this is true. In these moments, the performance of the self comes under strain. The airs people put on are stripped away—and only what’s authentic remains.

Acknowledging these apparent blind spots led to a loss of confidence, and not just in the exterior world but in my own inner perceptions. Given how badly I had misjudged select institutions and individuals in my life, it seemed reasonable to believe that nothing I thought or felt could really be trusted. That was, until I met Buffy.

I fell in love with Buffy pretty quickly, for obvious reasons. She was an incredibly endearing mixture of confidence, silliness and deep vulnerability. These traits first cohered for me a few weeks after adopting her. I was leaving for a work trip, and she was exceptionally excitable. As I said goodbye to her, she galloped around the room, leaping at toys and hurling herself onto the bed.

Suddenly, she stopped and one of her front paws jerked up as if pulled by an invisible string. Then she flopped over on her back near where Adrienne was sitting and exposed her belly, and that was basically the last thing I saw before heading out the door. Her leg/paw jerk would come to be one of her defining attributes over the next few years, appearing whenever she hit a certain threshold of excitement and delighting us every single time.

From the moment on, that feeling never wavered, and amazingly enough, I’ve never once doubted it. That’s because I think love is often grounded in two things: meaning and purpose. And that’s what Buffy gave me. In addition to all the laughs and joy that came from her silliness and weirdness, first and foremost, she brought meaning and purpose to my life.

I remember exactly when I understood the meaning, or to put it another way, the significance she represented for the first time. One night after Adrienne had gone to bed, I was walking in our quiet, tiny little house (which takes about 1 min to cover the entire surface area) and came across Buffy. It was late in the evening, and so naturally, Buffy was dozing, snoring peacefully amidst the warm glow of fairy lights.

No matter how hard the wind whistled in the darkness outside, her velvety mixture of brown and white fur rose and fell without interruption. I remember marveling at how I was now responsible for the miracle that was her life. I recognized how grateful I was to have my life now be about something bigger than my own wants or mindless pleasure-seeking.

In the flawed yet still wonderful musical biopic about the founder of the Shakers, The Testament of Ann Lee, the titular Ann (played by the immensely talented Amanda Seyfried) desperately wants to create order in a world dominated by chaos. In fact, her mantra throughout the film is that there is a “place for everything” and “everything is in its place.” The moment with Buffy curled up on the couch encapsulates this saying. I had always been missing profundity in my life. But with her, suddenly it snapped into place.

As for purpose, well, Buffy provided that to an even greater degree. One of the biggest things I lost confidence in the late 2010s/early 2020s was faith in my ability to do hard things. When I think about it now, this makes perfect sense. When you don’t really feel like you can trust your own mind, it’s pretty hard to feel confident in your ability to act under pressure. Each time challenges appeared on the horizon with Buffy, I remember thinking I would probably be able to respond. Deep down, though, there was always this sinking feeling that maybe instead I would just fall apart.

Thankfully, the few times trouble arose, that didn’t happen. When difficult moments popped up, I acted, and what’s more, it was far easier to motivate than I thought it would be. Not everything went perfect while mired in these times. There were lots of mistakes. Lots of fear. And yes, more than a little bit of pathetic blubbering. Still, I don’t remember much hemming and hawing. With Buffy, there was always clarity of purpose. For both Adrienne and I, it was always about doing everything we could as long as it was right for the dog. That was true from when we first met her to when we would eventually say goodbye seven years later.

Over the course of my 2018-2025 journey with Buffy, the deep uncertainty that had come to define my life gradually lessened. I can’t definitively say my resolute feelings for her were responsible for this change. I also don’t think it’s out of the question either. Like many others, my brain had been deeply rattled by the micro/macro events of those years. These had repeatedly reinforced how wrong I had been about things I long considered axiomatic. It’s credible that seeing proof of my feelings for Buffy play out in the real world helped counteract some of that and push my noodle in a different and healthier direction.

After all, neuroscience tells us that humans have a somewhat awful tendency to engage in habitual thinking until something finally disrupts the loop. Perhaps the seven years of clarity Buffy delivered was enough to make perseverating on my own weakness and fallibility no longer my number one, go-to move. And if that is the case, I am forever grateful to my Baby, my Baby Girl, My Honey, My Honey Pie, My Velvet, My Honey Bear and, of course, my Little Brown Dog.

Of course, if Buffy was still alive, none of this would matter to her. If I blabbed to her like I’ve just done to you, dear readers, she would likely stomp, huff, thrash and maybe even come trotting right at me with her mouth open wide. Obviously, that’s because Buffy was only a dog. Gratitude is not a concept that dogs can understand. Therefore, she would take its expression as merely an excuse to bully me for more treats or throw her head back violently and howl. Even still, the fact remains that because of Buffy self-trust went from anathema to accessible. So, while it’s true that Buffy was only a dog, because of this gift, to me she also was everything.