About a week into quarantine, my husband and I were sitting on the couch when he turned his computer screen to show me an article he was reading. There was a picture of a cute dog, and a headline that suggested walking a dog was the best way to stay sane in these decidedly insane times. I rolled my eyes and took to Instagram to ridicule him for trying to use a global-health crisis to further his long-standing campaign to bring a pet into our lives. Three days later, we brought home a four-month-old puppy. His name is Barry.

While that might seem impulsive, my husband has been angling for a dog for roughly eight years—almost the entire time we’ve been together. He regularly sends me pictures of happy-looking dogs, volunteers to walk his family dogs even in the middle of Chicago winters, and has jumped at every opportunity to dogsit, an attempt to not only hang out with a four-legged companion, but also slowly convince me of how wonderful it would be to welcome a furry pal into our home. I, in turn, have given him lots of reasons for why a dog hasn’t made sense for us: We work a lot, we travel a lot (for business and pleasure), we like going out with our friends for dinner and drinks. In short, I valued the freedom and flexibility we enjoyed as a childless couple in a big city, and I worried that a dog would rob us of that lifestyle before I was ready.

The fact that dogs will be dogs has continually helped my case. Every instance of a puppy visitor peeing on our brand-new bedroom rug, eating the bread I just baked after snatching it off the counter, or ripping apart a piece of Tupperware in an attempt to get at the leftovers inside felt like a point in my favor. A dog was just too much trouble. Then the coronavirus handily dismantled our lives…

My experience so far suggests that there’s probably something to that idea. While housebreaking was hard, and it certainly isn’t ideal when Barry decides to bark for more attention while I attempt to have a series of Zoom meetings, our puppy is making us unreasonably happy. During a lengthy period of sadness and uncertainty, it has been cathartic to laugh at the random things Barry has decided to be afraid of—black plastic bags, parked bicycles, large trucks, the back alley, and stacks of cardboard boxes, to name just a few. And our walks provide a sense of purpose and structure. Having a new puppy has also helped us forge stronger connections with our friends and family—giving us all something to DM, call, FaceTime, and text about other than illness and angst.Barry has given us the invaluable gifts of levity and joy during this extraordinarily miserable crisis. I’m not really sure how we’ll repay him, but we’ve got lots of time, right here at home, to figure it out.

~ Gillian B. White, from “I Got a Pandemic Puppy, and You Can Too” (The Atlantic · April 11, 2020)

Photo Source: (via Newthom)