I was a hesitant, introverted sixth-grader when I met Olli. He had stumpy legs, a similar timid nature and hair the color of a marshmallow roasted to perfection. Over time, we had learned to pull each other out of our seemingly dead-bolted shells, pushing each other to reach heights we never thought possible.
While I was teaching him how to trust other people and address his anxieties in social situations, he was teaching me how to accept my flaws and pay attention to all of the ways my internalized behavior affected others around me. Most of all, he was teaching me how to love so profoundly that it shaped what I valued, what I believed in and who I wanted in our circle.
Nine years later, even though I have two legs and he has four, he is still my best friend — I am proud of the dog he has become, and I know he is proud of the woman I have grown into. My relationship with my cockapoo has grown into something so rich, it prompted me to learn why the relationship between human and dog is one so many hold close to their hearts, lives and families.
Every ball toss, every bark and every leg lean somehow mesh to form one of the most cherished relationships known to man and dogkind. While the emotions of love and loyalty exchanged between humans and dogs are universal, each pairing can evolve into a very individualized, irreplaceable experience, in which a cherished dog leaves a lasting impression on the humans they know and love.
Along The Way
When Sydney Peters adopted Lola from the Dane County Humane Society months ago, she knew the young labrador retriever-border collie mix was hers the moment she snuggled up next to her upon their first meet and greet.
Lola, the young pup with soft, jet black hair and distinct white markings on her chest and ankles, and Sydney, the new 23-year-old dog mom, were now set to start their lives together.
Like Sydney and Lola, the ties connecting human and dog are often inexplicable, and they can span over years. While it is one of the many relationships humans share with animals, it is distinct in the ways both parties are interdependent, in which humans rely on their dogs as much as dogs rely on their owners.
“They tend to be someone who is willing to share their love and crave that emotional attachment with their pets,” Elizabeth Alvarez says of dog owners. “This isn’t just occasionally giving it food. It’s walks, it’s activity, it’s love.”
As a clinical instructor and primary care veterinarian at UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, Alvarez started to develop her understanding of dogs during her family’s experience with dog training throughout her childhood in Michigan.
“It’s fun as a veterinarian to see — especially as a primary care veterinarian — those relationships and how they change over time,” she says. “We’ll have a lot of young couples, especially students that maybe they just started dating or maybe they just got married and got a dog, and it’s like their little kid and their family. They just love it.”
Woven through this time are births, deaths, graduations, marriages, divorce, job gain and job loss, but the one thing that can change right alongside the humans themselves in these events is their four-legged companions, something Alvarez notices frequently in her clients.
She often sees young couples purchase or adopt a dog when they are just starting out. If the couple later has children, she witnesses the dog become part of their family, as it transitions from a few individuals to a solid, multiplied unit. Her work then allows her to watch all family members grow older as they strengthen their relationship with their dog over the years.
While Sydney is only a few months into the dog-mom role with Lola, she too grew up with dogs and is accustomed to the various life milestones to which they can adapt. Although this time, Sydney will be doing the raising and training primarily on her own, and every moment she shares with Lola will be as her sole guardian.
Growing up, Sydney had two great experiences with rescue dogs. First there was Lena, an all-around gentle family dog, then Ruby, an energetic pup who grew into a calm soul with age. When Sydney’s family’s beloved rescue dog, Lena, passed away during her junior year of college, she knew she would always continue to have dogs for companionship. As a big adoption advocate, it made perfect sense that she welcomed Lola into her life upon starting her professional life.
While the pair has only spent a short while together, Sydney and Lola have already started bonding over morning runs, trips to the dog park, hikes and couch cuddles, in which Lola likes to sleep on her mom’s hand or thigh.
In addition to adapting to structural changes in and outside of families, dogs provide unique emotional support, especially in unexpected times. The nurturing aspects of human-dog bonds are rooted in the idea that the majority of conversations between owner and dog are nonverbal.
How does an owner recognize when their dog is hurting? How does a dog come to sense pain and fear when something is wrong with their owners? How is it that the two parties can communicate without engaging in conversation? This is something researchers have been exploring for years, yet they are continually baffled by how complex the answers are, as they incorporate everything from body language to smell to the dog’s neurology.
An Unshakeable Understanding
The new mom to a 9-week-old lab named Nala, Jordan Doro sets down the dog crate of new toys and gadgets to think about what separates dogs from other pets. Jordan, who also lives with a cat, has noticed something that distinguishes dogs in particular from the other popular pet of choice.
“I can tell that my dog knows more of me than the cat knows of their owner,” she says, cradling Nala in her arms like a swaddled newborn.
When an owner and their dog truly know each other and are able to understand the other in ways many cannot, it highlights the connectivity that make the human-dog bond so personal.
I still remember hobbling home from track practice when I was 17, having injured up my hip, when I plopped down on the couch and called my dad. Unexpectedly, Olli crept over, sat directly beneath me on the ground and stared at me, remaining hunched next to me until my dad’s car pulled in the driveway. After a visit to the doctor, I found out I had fractured my hip. It was then that I realized Olli knew I was hurt before I did.
Alvarez recalls a client telling her that their dog stuck by their side while battling chemo. “There was one in particular where that dog was by her side throughout being ill and recovering and being healthy again.”
While it is commonly said that a dog changes its owner throughout the time they share together, it is just as important to recognize how owners change their dogs as well. A mutual growing process begins the moment that bond is formed and only builds as both the owners and dogs age, at which point the owners take special concern in their dog’s well-being.
“There are people that feel like they’re just pets … but that’s rare. It seems like the vast majority have some sort of underlying story,” Alvarez says while looking around the empty patient room where countless dogs have bustled in and out of before. She notes that some owners even refer to their dogs as their “furry kids” and explains how they come into the office right away if something is wrong.
For Alvarez, seeing that emotional connection between dog and owner is one of the reasons she loves her job, because it means she can keep the dogs healthy and fix them, should sickness develop.
“I think it’s surprising,” Alvarez adds. “A lot of people will say after they’ve lost a pet, how different their home feels. It just doesn’t feel like home anymore, once that dog is no longer with them. So you might not even be realizing it day-to-day, but how much of an impact pets have.”
Unexpected Entertainment
Building a life together is no easy feat for dog owners, but it includes a series of tail wags, bathroom accidents, house destruction and ever-present mischief. Take away the four legs and fur, and dog owners are essentially left with a toddler on their hands including the recognizable baby voice.
“She’s really terrible at hiding her bones,” Sydney says as Lola locks eye contact with her mom, fully aware that she is being talked about.
“If she doesn’t want to finish it she will … jump up next to you and put it in the couch cushions and try to cover it up, but like three-fourths of it will just be sticking out like this,” making a hand gesture resembling a vertical lawn ornament.
“If she is on a bed … she will launch herself from it,” Sydney continues. “Pouncing. With no goal to land on her feet, but more of the goal to just fly through the air.”
Accidentally falling or tripping, running into the glass door and getting stuck in the backyard fence are rather common occurrences among the canine community. Food incidents are also common occurrences, as most human-dog relationships wouldn’t be whole without a list of war stories involving wrongful food consumption.
“Every Easter the five of us kids would go through, and my parents made out an elaborate Easter egg hunt,” Alvarez begins laughing. “So of course our beloved springer spaniel, Lookee, had smelled out and found the large basket of candy way before all of us … so [an] ER visit to the vet was our Easter morning visit instead of enjoying all of the chocolate.”
More often than not, inedible items also end up in dogs’ mouths, as UW-Madison student Beatrix Tobey knows from raising her 4-month-old border collie, Lainey. Her coat is soft and youthful, colored like an Oreo, and her bark still has its training wheels on, but it’s clear that Lainey is extremely smart for as young as she is.
“She likes to move around shoes,” Tobey says, holding Lainey’s attention with a treat and training clicker. “She’ll take all the slippers in the house and put them in one room, and then move them all into another room, and she’ll do the same thing with sneakers.”
I, too, have lost several pairs of shoes to the wrath of my dog, among other replaceable items, but I would throw all of them into the fire again if it meant I could redo the past nine years. It is a treat to love a dog like Olli, but it is even more of a treat to love dogs at all — and for them to return that love without being asked.
Jenna Wirkus
“Gemini vegetarian.” Yes, actually like Elle Woods. Jenna hails from The Good Land of Milwaukee, which only fuels her passion for understanding and addressing the socioeconomic barriers that are still very prevalent. If she’s not listening to Dolly Parton or crafting ways to shatter glass ceilings, you’ll find Jenna deeply promoting animal welfare and environmental protection. What is her ideal future, you ask? Two things: running a large adoption ranch for pets in need or working in communications for an organization that advocates for the same causes she does.