Let’s face it; I need a dog. I’ve always had a dog in my life, and when I sit in my sometimes chilly office in the winter, and it gets dark by late afternoon, I especially need a dog. Writing is a solitary business, dogs get that and have always been by my side.

Lenore, our excellent breeder, saw a photo of Zinnia sitting alongside me in my office, and she messaged me: “oh, how great is that? She’s bonded.” I guess she has. It crept up on me.

She dozed under my feet this morning, and tonight, Maria took this photo of her sitting quietly underneath my desk while I clacked away at the computer. I didn’t even know she was there.

I didn’t see this bonding coming, Zinnia is just nine weeks old and we haven’t had all that much time together.

Tonight, she’s snoring right behind me as I write this. It’s become a thing. She likes being in my office; she seems to love hanging out why I write. We just are at ease with one another in a particular way.

I was thinking of bonding moments I remember with my dogs. With Rose, it was when I took her out to work with sheep on a Pennsylvania sheep farm. The minute she saw the sheep, she looked at me and was my dog.

I bonded with Izzy when I went to rescue him from a farm where a famous author had abandoned him. Izzy had been running circles in a field for so long he’d made a deep ditch along the fence. When I caught him and got him into the car, we bonded, I could feel it.

Frieda and I bonded when I gave her beef jerky and took her for walks in the woods and explained that we both needed to work things out for Maria’s sake.

Red and I bonded when I took him out to see the sheep at the first Bedlam Farm.

Zinnia and I bonded the other day when she first came into my study and just acted as if she had come home. Perhaps she has.

I’ve always had a dog lying alongside me when I wrote, and I confess it’s been a little lonely in here since Red died, he never really left my side. Words were not necessary.

I feel that way about Zinnia. I don’t talk much to my dogs apart from training; it feels like I don’t need words.

I don’t think Zinnia will always be by my side, nor do I need that. I hope she spends a lot of time by the side of a lot of different people.

She likes to keep an eye on the world, and I want her to feel free. But it seems we have bonded, and Lenore is right, that is great.

“Never break that bond,” wrote Lenore, Zinnia’s breeder, “dogs are more loyal and honest than any human.”

I’m not sure about that.

I admit that apart from Maria, I have yet to meet a human as honest and loyal as a dog.

I think Maria is as honest and loyal as any human,  but she is not as deferential as a dog, and I sometimes annoy her. That kind of love is even better than a dog for me for many apparent reasons.

Maybe one day I will meet another human who is as honest as a dog. I won’t hold my breath, and in the meantime, I’m glad to have found my dog once more, or maybe my dog found me.

My life with dogs is rich and full of joy.