Special delivery: a valentine to Zoe the dog

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My darling Zoe, who turns 15 this week, is very much the object of my love and attention, valentine-wise and otherwise. She is my best girl in a family where there is no shortage of contenders for floral bouquets and boxes of chocolates.

But this year, Cupid is arcing a tender arrow Zoe’s way. Up until age 14, she seemed to be the perpetual puppy, zooming up the stairs after her stuffed frog like a heat-seeking missile. A Coton de Tulear, she is a fluffy mound of white hair who, as mayor of our block, stands on the sill in the front window and monitors her territory. Pity the innocent lab or terrier that wanders anywhere near our property. Zoe will bark them out of the neighborhood.

This past year, though, she has settled into her dotage. She doesn’t hear quite as well, so she sometimes misses a poodle yapping along our property, or the sound of the mail carrier dropping letters into the box. She sleeps most of the day and, like many old folks, has started to walk around at night.

I wonder what sends her on her midnight patrols — some discomfort in the bones, a bad dream, an urgent need to go. We sometimes find the evidence in a hallway or a pad we put down in the kitchen.

During the day, she eats and sleeps and happily walks the neighborhood. She plays the same games with me over and over, yet each time brand new. “Where’s your toy?” I ask. She dives for her frog and brings it just close enough for me to reach out and miss. Then she comes a bit closer. Finally I get the frog and toss it down the hall, and off she goes. Only recently, when I asked, “Where’s your toy?” she looked at me with a confused kind of expectation, as if she knew I was asking a question but couldn’t quite make it out.

There are other signs. I walk into a room and find her standing, facing the corner, quite still. Does she suddenly forget where she is? When I walk over and touch her back, she startles, and then she’s there again, my Zoe. It’s not unlike the times I charge up the steps and into a room, only to forget why I went upstairs at all.

And yes, I am attuned to the many ways in which a beloved dog’s telescoped life is a metaphor for all we humans experience as we age.

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