K9 RatPack

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🐾 On the Matter of Love (and the Many Objects That Represent It)

By Bark Twain

I have observed a curious and rather endearing habit among humans.

When they love a dog…

they begin acquiring things.

Toys of every shape and persuasion.
Beds in multiple rooms.
Blankets, collars, treats, chews—
objects carefully selected, carried home, and presented with quiet hope.

They place them before us as though saying,
“Here. This is for you.”

And we accept them, of course.

We shake them.
We carry them.
We dismantle some with great enthusiasm.
Others we leave untouched, for reasons known only to us.

This does not seem to trouble the human.

In fact, they often return with more.

It would be easy to assume these objects are the point.

But I have spent time considering this more closely.

The toy is not the love.

The bed is not the love.

The neatly arranged basket of treasures is not the love.

These are… attempts.

Attempts to make something invisible, visible.

Attempts to say, without words,
“I am thinking of you when you are not in front of me.”
“I want you to be happy, even when I do not know exactly how.”

It is a language made of objects.

A language we do not always speak fluently.

We do not need six beds.
We will choose the one nearest you.

We do not require the finest toy.
We often prefer the one that smells faintly of your hands.

We do not measure love in quantity.

But we do notice effort.

We notice the way you watch us when we receive the thing you’ve chosen.
We notice the hope in that moment.
The question: Did I get it right?

And whether we play with it or not…

we understand something important:

You were thinking of us.

And so, while we may not always use what you bring…

we accept what it represents.

A human, doing their very best
to turn love into something they can hold.

And perhaps that is the most touching thing of all.

Because we, too, have our own way of doing this.

We bring you sticks.
We bring you toys you did not ask for.
We place them at your feet with great ceremony.

Not because you need them.

But because we are, in our own way, saying—

“Here. This is for you.”