The book I was reading as I fell asleep last night was Pack of Two by the late Caroline Knapp. In it she describes the unique bond between human and canine.

And coincidentally, the canine most in my mind and heart right now was sitting at the top of the stairs, where he knows he shouldn’t be, when I woke up early this morning. I wanted to be angry at him, but I couldn’t. It’s because I had just read words like these:

Here I am with my dog. Me and my dog. The closeness feels like a private bridge, extending from human to animal …  The causeway is constructed of ritual and repetition and simple moments, of behaviors discovered and then executed exclusively between human and dog, and there is something exceptionally restorative about crossing it day after day.

The bridge I cross most often with Copper consists of throwing the little guy a day-glo orange tennis ball. He runs, jumps, leaps, catches it on the fly or sometimes trots into the bushes to retrieve it, and lopes gratefully back to drop the ball at my feet so we can repeat the ritual over and over again. For some reason, he does this best (actually only!) with me.

It is our “causeway,” our “private bridge.” And I’m grateful for it.