A new dog transforms the nature of a family, he or she upends the rhythms of life, our notions of nurturing, connection  and emotion. A new dog can show us who we really are, can help us see things we could not see or admit.

I’ve always wondered why it brings so much joy to people to see their dogs play, it brings out so many vivid feelings of peace, satisfaction and even joy. But why should it?

I think about the poor raccoon, who has never learned to manipulate the emotions of people, who has never learned the great art of unconditional love, which has given dogs such a special place in the lives of human beings, and spared so many of them from the very cruel fate so many animals suffer at our greedy and violent hands.

Raccoons do not get human names, sleep in bed, get fed so scrupulously, treated so lovingly.

We humans have already destroyed half of the animal species int he world, we are working on the other half and calling it animal rights, and we spend so much time focusing on the abuse of dogs, but so little on how much love and care is given them, and why.

We know why human beings mistreat animals and one another, we are flawed, incomplete and cruel. Just look at their news.

But why do we love our dogs so much? We can easily live without them.

I think it is because they fill holes in our lives, bring out our better angels, focus us on connection and love. In my case, they have stubbornly taught me how to be a human, given me the magic of feeling, lost to me by life sometimes.

Maria and I both come from broken families, we are in some ways outsiders and outcasts in our own lives, if we had not found one another, I am not sure I would have survived, I cannot speak for her.

Yesterday, the two of us, restless and obsessive people on the move, sat for an hour or two in the bright sun, doing what we never do – being still. We were watching Fate and Gus come to love one another, watched Fate play with Gus so generously and lovingly and with such care, we were shocked.

You are over the top over that dog, Maria said to me. No, I said, not really. You are over the top with Gus, I said to her, just a few minutes later. No, I don’t see that at all, she said. There were were, unable to see the reality of our own feelings, a writer and artist, shy of trusting such feeling.

How remarkable,  thought, how much alike we are in this way, how much we reflect and mirror one another.

I don’t see it in myself, she doesn’t see it in herself, but we see it in the other, and so many of you see it in me and in her. How revealing and fascinating is that?

Gus, a small thing, full of love and energy has touched the nurturing parts of us, the part denied us, the part we lost somehow along the road, and have denied and dismissed in ourselves.

I lost two children to death and disease, Maria gave up the idea of children, she did not trust herself to do it well.

For me, this is a hole that can never be filled. Perhaps that is not completely true.

We both grew up outside the womb and cocoon and safety and community of family, so central to the lives of so many other people.

So here we were, sitting in the shadow of our farmhouse, under our beautiful and regal maple trees, laughing, reaching for our cameras and Iphones as our beloved border collie and this strange little creature, roll around in the grass, playing with one another, reenacting the timeless rituals of dogs and their connections. We were incredulous, riveted, smiling and laughing. We could do this all day, we said. We almost did.

Fate is so much like us, intense, restless, on the move, and her she was transformed right before us. She was having so much fun, even more than chasing sheep. Gus had opened her up, just as she had opened me – us – up.

We were laughing, smiling, we were still, at ease, we could have sat there for hours. Every new dog is a change for me to learn about myself. This morning, Gus came up to curl up next to us in bed, a new ritual in the early morning hours when he comes out of his crate. A small and curious creature, the size of a rabbit at nine weeks old, bringing this exhilaration and peace to two restless people, forcing me to see another truth about myself, one I have always resisted, entering our sometimes frantic lives so easily and completely.

What dogs can mean to us.