I’ve had several surgeries on my foot in the past couple of months.

Each time I come home in bandages, hobbling or walking oddly,  and each time, Zinnia rests her head on my foot and sits with me.

She doesn’t move as long as I am in the chair.

I find this comforting yet surprising. I sometimes underestimate what the love and devotion of a dog can do or mean.

It was more of an intellectual knowledge than an intense personal feeling. It was a great lift to me.

As dogs often can be, Zinnia has been essential to my healing.

I follow my dictum – let dogs be dogs – and permit her to help me however she chooses.  I never push her or try to guide her.

She knows something is going on and will figure out what to do about it. She is a therapy dog and loves to help people in need.

Zinnia and I are very close, as are so many dogs and humans. She is certainly one of the living things closest to me.

She is not a child, wife, or human friend; dogs are something else.

I’ve come home several times in surgical boot with a heavily bandaged toe or left foot. This has been on and off for nearly three years.

In Spring, the operations became more serious and bloody, and I came home smelling of medicines, anti-biotic lotions, special bandages, and gauze.

Each carried its own smell, which dogs like Zinnia can pick up instantly and are cues and triggers for them. She would go instantly to work, paying attention to me and comforting me.

(Photo above, Zinnia lying on my foot.)

I was often in some pain and discomfort for up to weeks at a stretch. I was almost always healing.

Every time I came home from a surgery or procedure in bandages and with certain medicines on my foot, and the unique way I hobbled, she went to work, protecting my foot.

The medicine and bandages would alert Zinnia to the fact that something was different, and I was in some pain or some peril.

Every morning, my wife Maria, bless her, had to change my bandages and apply the medicines.

Once in a while, she’d get sick of it, but she never wavered. Neither did Zinnia.

Zinnia did not, of course,  know precisely what was happening to my foot. She’s a dog and does not have our vocabulary or knowledge of enough words to understand what was really going on.

But she did seem to grasp it was something that disturbed me and  cause me pain, and she needed and wanted to be close to me, part of a process she wanted to share.

During that period, she would stick to me like glue, following me into the bathroom and close behind me, going up the stairs.

As a trained and certified therapy dog, she understands pain and discomfort, if not the causes and sources.

She has a natural instinct for offering comfort. I’ve seen it over and over again in hospice, the Mansion assisted care facility where I volunteer, with the refugee children I try to help.

I never really needed it myself before now.

When I sat down or lay down to rest, Zinna would appear immediately, put her head on my bandaged foot and either sleep there or lie there with her eyes open.

It was powerful, endearing, and immensely comforting and healing for me. She never let me get out of her sight, not after surgeries.

Zinnia has been with me all the way here, close by and alert and loving.

She helped immensely with my healing. This morning, back in bandages from the latest surgery, with the same medicines – Zinnia watched Maria closely as she applied the applications and the medication.

Once again, shes began resting her head on my foot whenever I take the boot off. ( See photo.)

She does it when the boot is on, also.

She helped ease my loneliness and anxiety and my pain.

She never took her eyes off me,  except to walk in the woods with Maria and Fate or stray from my side.

She made it so much easier and the healing so much faster.

It made a real difference in my recovery and healing process.

I felt her acute love and concern, and it always made me smile and lifted my spirits. She has the gift of comfort.

She’s a beautiful dog, and I love her very much and am grateful to her.