The Smaller Dog...A Sequel

Not all strength is quiet

Some dogs walk away. Some don’t.

Zee was the bigger dog. It was in her nature. That was why I loved her so much, and why it broke me so much to lose her.

So let’s talk about the smaller dog.

Literally and figuratively, Diana is the smaller dog. Seventy pounds is not a small dog, really, but every other German Shepherd we owned has been larger.

And Diana cannot walk away. From a disagreement, from a fight, from a threat, from another dog, for her own fucking good. She will not do it. Ariel bites her face at least a few times a week. Do you think she runs and hides? Of course not. She charges at her, trying to knock her down off her three legs, which of course makes Ariel go after her even more.

Diana is piss and fire and will die trying. And as much as I loved Zee for not being that way, I love Diana for exactly that reason. Nothing will get her down. You will never take the fight out of her. Until you knock her unconscious, she will use every iota of her energy to get what she wants—or doesn’t want.

Diana usually succeeds, too, with cuts on her face, scabs on her ears, sometimes a random wound we find on her neck later, but she doesn’t fuss about it. She is doing what she wants, no matter what anyone says.

I’m not sure what Zee and Diana would have thought of each other, but somehow I think they would have figured it out. It was like Zee knew what the universe had in store for her, and she accepted it wholeheartedly. Diana is still trying to figure out if she even likes it here, and is fighting to make things the way she wants them to be. Both are actually quite noble.

Zee never needed to prove anything. She already knew who she was. Diana is still fighting for that certainty, and maybe I am too. Zee taught me how to be the bigger dog. Diana is teaching me something else

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