It may well be that Zinnia is another angel come to me with a message.

I guess I wouldn’t really know. Or perhaps she came to be a spirit dog and walk with me through life.

The great dogs in my experience have entered my life, become what I needed then to be, and woven themselves into the core of my existence. I call them Lifetime Dogs because they stand out and mark the passages of time. They usually take me to a new place.

Rose was such a dog, so was Red,  and so, I think, might Zinnia be. This photograph is of Zinnia, who I let out of her crate and into my study. I put a dog bed behind my writing chair, and left her to nose around the study, gnawing on my desk chair leg and sniffing the corners.

She is a very busy puppy, restless and curious, she is rarely still for long if she’s awake.

Then I got lost in a piece I was writing (on Remington the dog) and the room was very quiet, the way I need it to be to work. When I finished the piece, I remembered Zinnia, a nine-week-old puppy who has been with us for six days.

She has gone to sleep right behind me, in the spot where Red always slept. I’ve been a full-time writer for nearly 40 years and I can tell you that I wrote every single word of my writing career – books, blog posts, stories, essays, proposals – with a dog sleeping right behind me.

Since Red died, I had no dog to sit in my study, and the room felt empty. Bud came in sometimes, but he likes his spot on the sofa and in the winter, is glued to the wood stoves. This was a sweet moment, a special moment, a bonding moment.

When I turned around, I saw that Zinnia was my dog, sleeping behind me by choice, as if she knew that was where she was supposed to be. This busy, active puppy was still, just like an angel, starting her walk with me, a bonding time that I could feel in my heart and bones.

It was a wonderful moment, my heart lifted up and the world seem warm and right and full of hope. My dog has come and she is here.