A friend of mine was upset recently by an honest but serious mistake she had made, she was wracked with guilt, she felt she was an awful person.

She called her best friend for comfort, and her friend told her that the stars were not in alignment, that was the problem, she shouldn’t really worry about it.

I thought this advice odd and strange – and to me, useless.

We all are human, we all make mistakes.

Sometimes it is no more complicated than that, and when I make a mistake, which is often, I am learning to tell myself to remember that mistakes are just a part of life, no bigger or more mysterious than that.

The stars don’t really have a thing to do with the countless errors I have made in my lengthening life. I would never put that onto them. I don’t need any celestial help to make mistakes, I’m good at it.

I don’t want to make big mistakes with Zinnia, not if I can help it. I am responsible for her, not the stars. In my mind, the biggest mistake people make with dogs is that they won’t let them just be dogs. I will work hard not to do that to Zinnia.

If I fail, it will be my mistake, not hers.

In 14 days, Maria and I will drive to Connecticut to pick up Zinnia at Stonewall Farm Labradors. I’ll give Lenore Severni $2,000 (on top of an earlier $500) deposit, making Zinnia the most expensive dog I’ve ever owned.

(Ironically, Bud, a rescue dog, was the second most expensive, he cost just about as much in fees and health care costs.) People who think rescue dogs are cheap or free have not gotten one recently.

I am using this time to prepare our home for Zinnia – crates, safe things to chew, plans for training, acclimation, good food, socialization, her interaction with Fate and Bud. Good therapy dogs take a lot of training and patience. So do all good dogs, now that I mention it.

As part of this, I think a lot about what I wish for her, as I do for all my dogs. Essentially, I want the same thing. I want to let them be dogs.

I am not a social warrior but if I have fought for anything in my years of writing about dogs, it’s to let them be dogs and not project our boundless human neuroses and complexities and aspirations onto them.

My dogs don’t have language, they can sense my emotions,  they aren’t psychics,  they can’t read my mind, they don’t get jealous, think like us, understand death, or wish for a different life.

I don’t plan to meet Zinnia in heaven, and if we did, I would hope she all my other dogs would run the other way and live another life.

My dogs can’t cure cancer or act as my spiritual counselors or get angry when I touch another dog.

Whenever I drift towards emotionalizing my dogs, I read Jack London’s Call Of The Wild. It brings me back to reality. This book is no Rainbow Bridge, it tells the story of a very real dog leading a very real dog’s life.

In other words, I don’t want to put any of my shit onto Zinnia or into her head.  That is the true enemy of real training. It is a neuroses machine for dogs. That is perhaps my greatest challenge when it comes to giving a dog the life it deserves.

The role of the dog in family life has changed radically in the past half-century. Dogs are no longer in the background, they have moved to the center of our emotions, our bedrooms, our family lives, and feelings.

Increasingly, we emotionalize and anthropomorphize these wonderful creatures, we want them to know 1,000 words, and spot death before the doctors and nurses, and be our guides, best friends, spiritual counselors, and empaths.

I’m doing well with Bud, a feisty Boston Terrier, by letting him be the dog that he is, tearing through the pasture in search of mice, moles, chipmunks, and anything that movies. I’ve given up getting him to stop eating poop.

I don’t like the idea of him harming other creatures, and I know there is some risk for giving him free rein to explore our farm. Some people were horrified when I said I wanted Bud to be a farm dog, one woman wrote Maria begging her to stop me.

But I’ll take my chances.  He is a farm dog, and loving every minute of it.

I’d rather his life be cut short than for him to not have the life of a dog. I got sheep for every one of my border collies so that they could live their lives, naturally and freely.

My idea for Zinnia is that her work and purpose be a therapy dog. If I read her properly, and train her thoughtfully, she will love this work and grow into it naturally.

Labs love to work with people and are bred for that.

I also know she will eat gross things, chew my socks at some point and want to talk in the woods with me, Maria and Fate. I want to respect her dogness, and not project other things onto her.

I don’t need for her to be the smartest dog, I don’t believe she is consciously choosing to cheer up the elderly, I don’t care if she can sense death before the hospice nurses, and I don’t wish to see her as a supernatural or spiritual angel.

Red, who was an extraordinary dog, was also just a dog. I always thought of him as a spirit dog, but I always treated him like a dog, and never wanted him to be anything else.

He was remarkably effective in his therapy work and people told me all the time how much he wanted to lift the spirits of people. Deep down, I always knew that wasn’t the whole truth.

Red was a smart dog, and eager to please. Once he figured out what the work was we were doing, he was happy to do it.  He was also just as happy to sit with the sheep and sit by my feet when I wrote. He was a dog, not a grief counselor or a shrink.

Like Bud, Red also loved to eat chicken shit and coyote droppings and ride around with me and lie by the fire. Dogs are simple, not complex. I don’t want them to be like us, I wouldn’t wish that on any animal.

The secret of our relationship was that I never asked him to be anything more than what he was. I hope I will remember this and adhere to it with Zinnia. I don’t really care if the stars are in alignment or not, I hope we will enter into a loving partnership and decide together – she can show me –  just what it means to be a dog in my curious but wonderful little world.