Last night, I got a bunch of concerned questions about a piece I wrote about the powerful messages dogs bring us, and I mentioned six or seven of my dogs, but not Fate.

Some people got upset about this, and there was an interesting exchange of opinions and feelings.

It was not a nasty fight in any way, but it was frustrating for me.  I do get frustrated when I don’t make things clear or when people just don’t understand what I am saying.

I didn’t feel the need to list all of my dogs throughout my life, and in any case, the messages dogs have brought me were not all similar. Fate is a wonderful dog, as was Izzy, but neither altered my life in the way Red or Rose or Lenore did.

“What about Fate?,” people asked me. What about Fate?, I wondered. She was lying happily by my feet at the time. If she’d fit the story, I would have happily included her.

Perhaps Fate’s impact on my life is not yet clear, but in any case, she’s not my dog, she’s Maria’s dog. She has her own perspective.

I think this was one of those things that reveal the quite natural, even inevitable,  gap between a writer and a reader.  How can people really know what is inside my head of I don’t make it crystal clear?

I had a hard time explaining that the piece wasn’t a love contest, or a laundry list,  or a popularity contest, but was instead about the very dramatic impact some of my dogs have had on my life – getting me into herding, moving upstate, divorce, meeting Maria, therapy work.

The piece wasn’t about who much I love the dogs, but how the spirit dogs often can support us or guide us or even lead us through a change of life, or a passage of life. Every dog is not alike, no matter how much we might love them.

I never did get the feeling I made my point, or that some people understood it, but the discussion was civil and open and I suspect, healthy.

One woman wrote she wanted to see Izzy on the list because she met him at a reading. I told her that this wasn’t a good enough reason for me to add him to that list.

I love all my dogs, but in a sense, Rose and Red (maybe Orson) tower over all the others in the way they changed me, and my world. I don’t need to list all of the dogs to love them, that wasn’t the point of the piece.

My very first dog was Lucky, who I got up before dawn to walk to school on a bitter cold morning to be first in line to adopt, and I got him. Lucky died six weeks later of distemper. My father bought me an ice cream cone at Rigley’s, the first and last time he did that with me in my life.

That was a heartbreaker, but did he change my life? I don’t see it.

Fate humbled me, for sure, I never could get her to herd the sheep, a curious thing for a herding dog from Wales.

Watching Fate work at the Mansion today, I was reminded once more of the extraordinary intelligence and good nature of this dog. She gets out of the car and rushes over to the Smoking Cabal, the Secret Garden denizens Bert, Nancy and Georgianna.

I love the cheerfulness, honesty and enthusiasm for life these three bring to the Mansion. They are upbeat and uncomplaining.

I keep asking them if they really want to smoke, they keep saying yes. It’s their call, not mine. A very thoughtful blog reader sent me $80 to get them cigarettes once in a while, I’m two-thirds of the way through.

After bounding over to the three, Fate heads up the ramp and into the office, where I hear the squeals of greeting and laughter long before I get there.

These three are always talking, always laughing. And sometimes, watching TV in the Great Room (yes, the Army Of Good bought it.)

I think Fate’s destiny and her impact on our lives are yet to be revealed, and perhaps not by me. I have a conflict of interest, I feel that I failed her in some way. We’re patching together a new outcome.

She is young, and as I see at the Mansion (above she’s greeting Brandi), Fate just might be finding her purpose. She loves people in a way I’ve rarely seen in any dog.

I have always gotten powerful messages from some of my dogs. They arrive at key junctures in my life, guide me through them, and leave. And when they do, there is always another dog to step up and be by my side.

They are so important to me. Yet they are not all equal.

Some seemed to have come to me with a clear message, others just come to me.  Some changed my life, others enriched it.

Bud reminded me of the wonder of rescue, but he won’t, I think, alter the trajectory of my life.

So far, Fate hasn’t either, but we’ll see. I always have to remember to be clear about what I write, and what it means. Sometimes, it’s just tricky.

And I am much enjoying the startling discovery that I will soon have two therapy dogs, not just one. Twice as much joy, twice as much happiness.