I'm a single, 54-year-old writer and minor league dog-walker.  I've made a gazillion wonderful acquaintances on the streets of Brooklyn Heights because of Daisy and my very small involvement in the care of other dogs, but I don't have friends.  The exception to this state of existence are Guy and Hannah, who I met through their Lab when Daisy was a baby.  I introduced myself to Guy in the dog run and the next thing I knew I had a roll of paper towels in my hand to blot up Daisy's pee from their carpet while Hannah mashed potatoes for dinner. They take care of Daisy when I go out of town or when I sprain my ankle.  We spend holidays with them.  I take care of Milly, their Lab, when they go away.  Guy "belongs" to Daisy and Milly to Hannah, and when we're all together I can get rid of Daisy by saying, "Go see Guy!" and she skips over so he can take her muzzle between his hands, pull her face up and kiss her on the nose. 

I love to see Daisy being loved. She deserves it.  She's the one who is in bed with me when I'm crippled with depression.  She won't leave my side if I break into tears.  She makes me leave the house and talk to people.  It is a supreme compliment to us both and a great gift that I can take her with me for occasions at Guy and Hannah's.

Outside of my family, I rarely lose my temper with someone I know, but I can have an out-of-body experience of rage when someone messes with Daisy or any other of my dogs.  It amuses me that the best way to make Daisy shut up when she hears strange footsteps or voices in the hall is by praising her.  She's doing her job, she thinks, by protecting me.  But we all know that I am her and my other dogs' voices and barrier against the hostile world they walk out into each time they need to relieve themselves.

My first Ocytocin Moment with Daisy occured after I'd had her for four bloody and argumentative weeks.  Daisy was not a Nice Puppy.  Actually, she was a really mean puppy, especially fond of attacking my octogenarian mother's parchment-skin legs.  (I had to spray Mom down with Bitter Apple to deter the fiend.) 

My mother, who bred Labs when I was a kid, had picked Daisy out and she adored her but even she, who had trained so many brilliant hunters, was mystified by this ferral thing who argued back, had temper tantrums so severe I had to shove her in her crate, and could not be looked in the eye without all hell breaking loose.

I probably shouldn't have taken Daisy to the potluck.  I left her when my hostess took me aside to show me her new guest house.  Two minutes later, Daisy had been expelled by another guest from the house and had flitted off in no one knew what direction.  A ten-week-old puppy, 200 miles of forested shoreline fierce with brown and black bears, coyotes and mountain lions, a twisting two-lane highway, and two minutes on her own.  I was terrified.

Luckily, she was busy chewing rocks and I was able to leash her and storm home in tears at what this man had done.  He wasn't our host and he wasn't part of my family and I never spoke to him again.

I settled into an Adirondack chair in our yard and sobbed.  Daisy the Devil Dog sat down on my feet.  I stopped crying for a moment and waited for her to begin feasting on my shoelaces.  She just sat.  My sobbing wound slowly down and she didn't stir.

This morning, I'm hung over from the same kind of crying jag.  We took salad to Hannah and Guy's last night for a barbecue and night of fireflies.  There were two other couples there, one who I didn't know.  They tried to tease Daisy over to them and laughed themselves drunk when she kept blowing the citronella candle out with her tail.

I knew the other couple but had forgotten that Steven was not a great fan of Daisy's begging for cheese and love.  My heart sank when he pushed her away.  I called her back to me the second time he did it.  I bribed her with pita bread to forestall the third through the -- what? fourth? time she smiled her way over to him.  When he lifted his leg and pushed her away with his foot, I walked upstairs and leashed Daisy.  "This has nothing to do with you at all," I told Guy.  "But we're going home."

In the cool of the air conditioning, with solace pouring in from Facebook, I dried my tears.  Daisy didn't leave my side until the last episode of House was over at 1 a.m.

Each one of those nudges, pushes and shoves was a nudge, push or shove on my chest.  When I felt the soles of his lawyerly Bally loafer on my breastbone I was crushed.

People like to talk about dogs' unconditional love for humans.  I disagree.  Their love is highly conditional.  It's the conditions that are unique because they involve one of four things: food, elimination, play and love. 

It is humans who have to find something like unconditional love and it is dogs who tease it out of us.  

Daisy is still a difficult dog, although she is enthusiastic, loving and extremely social when she's with people she knows.  Unlike children, dogs don't change much after a certain point, one of a thousand ways in which they should not be compared. But that aspect of trained immutability is part of what dog-lovers love.  It is entirely ego-driven, entirely quid pro quo.  I'll do my job but don't tell me what to have for lunch; I won't cheat on my husband but I get to fantasize about it. 

Dogs are what we secretly are or wish we could be.  We understand our dogs and we identify with them.  I lovelovelovelove you: now prove it by rubbing my belly for two hours.  Our reward is the hormone suffusion born of such intimate entitlement and desire, the companionship of sentience that only cares about food, elimination, play and love. Push a dog's love away and our hearts are pushed away.  It's no wonder I felt his shoe on my chest.

A dog is a good companion for a damaged person for the very reason that the drama of love, heart, want and self is played out in a dog's social interactions, the perfect Rorshack test for the emotional battle some of us have just to get to the post box.

Indifference my dog, indifference me.  Love my dog and I may give you permission to love me.

And in this, Daisy is infinitely superior to me. I want to hurt Steven. Badly. But she would only be thrilled to see Steven today.  She may come to dislike or fear Steven but all the psychic wounds are mine.