Love at First Lick: Author Kristy Woodson Finds Puppy Love
Writer Kristy Woodson Harvey is the author of nearly a baker’s dozen novels, as well as a long-time friend of Parade. She’s the co-creator and co-host of the web show and podcast Friends & Fiction, alongside best-selling authors Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Karmel and Patti Callahan Henry. F&F has often been featured by Parade. Harvey’s latest novel A Happier Life ($28.99; Gallery Books) is out June 25.
Here Harvey shares her story of being un-thrilled by the idea of a dog in her home…until she looked into the little puppy’s eyes. And she makes a confession!
The following is by writer Kristy Woodson Harvey.
When a person sends a group text to her oldest friends with a picture of herself holding a puppy, she would expect charming, cheerful, enthusiastic replies. Instead, when I sent said photo, I was met with: It’s the apocalypse, rapidly followed by, Hell has officially frozen over.
So, no, I never wanted a dog, a fact that my oldest friends knew well. But I wasn’t aware I had been quite as adamant about it as that.
Let me just say right up front, I wasn’t opposed to dogs as a species. I didn’t want any harm to come to them. I sobbed appropriately at ASPCA commercials and sent donations to my local animal shelter.
I just didn’t want dog fur on my white couches. Or dog-smell seeped into my curtains. I didn’t want to clean up dog accidents or take time away from my writing for vet visits and grooming appointments. And with our travel schedule? Who was going to coordinate what to do with the dog?
Related: Author Kate DiCamillo on the Book That Changed Her Life and Other Favorites
As the mother of a son with puppy fever—and a husband who grew up with a Labrador Retriever perpetually by his side—believe me, I was used to the dog requests. I was used to saying no. To being the voice of reason.
So why, when my husband came home on a particular night with a picture of a particular puppy that needed a home, I even entertained the thought, I cannot say. But he was so tiny, and his eyes were so sweet. I found myself, after years of no’s, relenting.
Courtesy of Kristy Woodson Harvey
Relenting with a litany of rules, of course: The puppy would sleep in the kitchen. I would not be responsible for vet visits or cleaning up accidents. I would not feed this dog, and I most certainly would not train it. This would be their dog. My son would be responsible for vacuuming dog hair every single day. My husband would be responsible for middle-of-the-night potty training. I would tolerate this animal, but I would not accommodate it.
Amid tears and snuggles, the family dropped off the puppy the very next day. The mom handed me five pounds of fur with the sweetest face I’d ever seen. I tried to pass him off to my son quickly. I tried to avoid what happened next. But that warm little furball snuggled up to my face and kissed me. And, well, what can I say?
It was love at first lick.
Eight years earlier, when he was two, my son abruptly stopped pedaling his tricycle on the Beaufort, NC sidewalk, looked up at me, and said, “Mommy, I want a dog named Salt.”
It took eight years, but he finally got his heart’s desire.
Salt’s crate was set up in the kitchen but, somehow, it made it into our bathroom. It was still my husband’s responsibility to take him out in the middle of the night. But I supervised. Salt was just so small. He needed a mom to encourage him.
Courtesy of Kristy Woodson Harvey
That first full day, Salt rode in my lap while I took my son to school—and picked him up. At home, alone together, Salt was only comfortable and quiet while in my lap. So, I wrote, he napped. Over the next few days, I started teaching him basic commands and how to walk on a leash. He was silly and snuggly and totally fearless.
This charming combination of Golden Retriever goofiness and huge Basset Hound paws, Poodle smarts, and a long, skinny body of unknown origin underneath all that fur, day after day, little by little, did the impossible: Salt made a dog lover out of me, the person who swore she would never, ever, ever have a dog.
And, yes, I clean up after him. And feed him. And walk him. I’ve cried over his bad haircuts and stayed up with him all night when he was sick and found dog sitters who will keep him at our house, so he doesn’t have to be inconvenienced when we are out of town—if he can’t come along, that is. During holidays, he gets the first present and his own plate.
Courtesy of Kristy Woodson Harvey
In return, nothing and no one has ever loved me more. Whether I’m returning from the grocery store or a month of book tour, he acts like my homecoming is the single greatest moment of his life. If I am sick, he squelches his exuberant puppy energy and never leaves my side. I love him. But everyone does.
You see, Salt is a bit of a local celebrity. He loves to walk in downtown Beaufort, where we live, and is visibly shocked and appalled when he passes a person who does not want to pet him, who does not comment on his cuteness, his posture, his good boy-ness, his general I own this place attitude.
Related: 15 Books You Must Read if You're Obsessed With Taylor Swift's New Album
And so it seems fitting that, this summer, I am paying homage to the puppy who made a dog lover out of me by writing a version of him into my eleventh novel, A Happier Life. No names have been changed to protect the guilty, no behaviors altered. Squirrel chasing and refusal to “drop it” and insatiable people jumping even when steak is offered are all woven into the pages. Sorry, Salt. No one likes a one-dimensional character.
Speaking of, people often ask if I base my characters on real people, and I always say no. But I am confessing it here first: I do base characters on real dogs. And so, this newest book isn’t only a love letter to a town, a house, and a family. It is a love letter to the puppy who made me say yes.
It wasn’t the apocalypse, hell didn’t freeze over and the world didn’t end. Not at all. In fact, in so many ways, the day we got Salt, something entirely new began. So much so that we might just get a Pepper, too.
A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey ($28.99; Gallery Books) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
