Meet the dogs

Imagine your heart had a song on repeat played on a calliope. Penny is the song. She is cartoonish and concerned and cries big tears when she’s sad. She was rescued from a puppy mill and had so many litters of puppies her hips are forever in peril. She spent her early years on earth malnourished, so now she has no teeth to call her own. Her fur is cloud-like and rivals the microns of the softest cashmere.

Sunlight incarnate. The popular girl in high school who everyone likes despite themselves. Winnie has never known suffering, and it shows. She came from a farm in Tennessee where she was held by small children until she came home to me. She gossips all the time about the neighbors and thinks they need her permission to open their car doors. Her paws are disproportionately small. She likes when you hold them.

Formed from moonlight and the delicate wings of the last honey bee. Rosemary is the divine spark that inspires sea creatures to evolve on dry land. She will change your life. She is always on her tippy toes when she’s upright. She was surrendered by a breeder in Indiana because her kneecaps are imperfect, but lo, everything about Rosemary is perfect. She has smelled every flower in our neighborhood. She hopes to smell every flower in the world.

If you look into Henry’s chatoyant, milky eyes, you will see your future, and you may not like it. He was found in a vacant house littered with syringes, and his fur was so matted he had to be shaved down to the pink meat. To this day, his paws drip with fear-sweat during a groom. Henry lives a kingly life and gets carried up and down the stairs. He looks over his shoulder for me when I fall behind on our walks. His heart and my heart are tethered.