My Puppy’s Unconditional Love Is Frightening

I’m not accustomed to being loved just for existing. Over the years I’ve built and reinforced the notion I’m only as lovable as my abilities are valuable. If a third party told me that about themselves I’d say a human life is valuable simply by virtue of its being. But I can’t seem to apply that to myself.

My previous dog (it feels weird typing that; I referred to him as my little brother) lived seven years. We’d become soulmates, as odd as that sounds. I love dogs like people love other people. When he died I was lost. I stopped attending classes, I stopped writing. For a week I lay in bed.

My parents saw my state and decided it was time to adopt a new puppy. Not as a replacement — nobody can ever replace Scooby — but because I can’t live without dogs. They’re pure and loyal and too good to exist. So we got a labrador. We thought caring for him wouldn’t be harder than it had been for Scooby. We were wrong. So very wrong.

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A Hurricane of Hyperactivity

I now realize Scooby had been of a unique temperament. He’d been naturally calm and serene, playful without being destructive. Kaju, on the other hand, has destroyed two pairs of headphones, bitten wood and cement off furniture and walls, and is seemingly always on the move.

Kaju does the naughty, as I call it, with relentless energy. I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t snap at him on a daily basis, and even for me it’s tempting. I can’t explain in words how unmanageable he is. His disobedience routinely borders on impertinence.

A Case of Love

But he loves us with the same passion. When he’s sleepy, if we’re close, he comes and lies down with his head on our feet. He licks my face all over every morning, he becomes sad whenever any of us leave the house, and his eyes are always bursting with love.

He’s overall an intense dog. If he misbehaves, he gives it his all. If he shows affection, he pours his heart out. In general he wears it on his sleeve.

A Special Soft Spot

That’s what mom says he has for me. I’m not a hundred percent sure, mostly because I believe I’m unlovable, but she maintains that nevertheless. And if I were being completely honest, I can see why. He does seem to love me a bit more than anybody else.

Apparently every morning he wakes up and lies around until I arise. Which is usually at noon. After that he comes to life. I’m the youngest in the house, which is why I can play with him with the most energy. We run around the and I squish him and squash him and give him a long workout.

Sometimes I’ll be in my room listening to music on full volume. He’s not allowed to enter because I have a PC and a laptop and a lot of wires constantly running electricity. He’s shown a disturbing affinity toward said wires. So I’ll be working alone, listening to music, singing along. Then mom will enter with Kaju and say he was crying outside my door.

Now, mom has a tendency to overstate. But I myself have heard it a couple times and it is a proper crying sound. It’s horrible and heartbreaking to listen to. At that point I’ll play with him and roughhouse and tire him out. This is apparently the case whenever I go out, too. He sits by the door, sullen and depressed, sometimes crying, until I return.

In the beginning he used to sleep with my dad. I was going through another patch of depression and mom had offered to sleep in my room. But dad was getting disgruntled because Kaju would wake up in the middle of the night and keep barking and clawing at him until he brought him to our room.

This was fixed overnight when Kaju came to sleep with us. No problems. The second night I couldn’t help myself and joined him on the floor. Since then I’ve slept alongside him every night. Whenever he’s alone with mom he’s a bit naughty but leaves her be for the most part. Whenever he’s alone with me he plays with me each and every moment and doesn’t let me out of his sight.

Things like that make mom say he loves me the most.

An Increased Weight of Responsibility

I love him too. And I love what we have. But I’ve never been almost singlehandedly responsible for the emotional wellbeing of another living being. It feels like a lot of responsibility. What if I hurt him without realizing it? What if I proved inadequate to keep him happy? What if one day he cried outside my door and I didn’t open it?

Thoughts like these are paralyzing. Scooby loved me the same way, but with him that became normal over time. Kaju is still only five months old. We haven’t had too much time together. I haven’t become used to our status quo. As a result I’m always afraid I’ll let him down.

I love the bespoke affections he shows me. I’m the only one he still bites (playfully), the only one he plays with as frenetically as he does. I love having him and I love how things are going between us. But I’m someone who’s used to being, well, used. And then discarded. I’m not used to being showered with love regardless of my conduct.

Sometimes it feels like he gives me so much love I don’t know what to do with it all. If that makes sense.

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Closing Thoughts

Again, I’m not saying his love is a burden, or that it’s a negative. I probably wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m saying I need time to adjust to it. To conquer the fear of hurting him. Of not being enough. That got deep in a hurry, eh?

If I have a point to make in all of this, it’s that with pets who’re hyperactive and sometimes too much to handle, it’s well worth remembering they love you with an intensity higher than said hyperactivity. Their neverending playfulness is simply their way of showing it. Just like no two people are the same, no two dogs are the same. Every dog has a unique personality.

Try to ride the storm instead of containing it.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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