It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I didn’t want to take Sasha back to the shelter. When she sat down on the river trail and gazed at me with her brown-sugar eyes, I understood that she didn’t want to go back either. We had a bond, but I couldn’t seriously keep this dog, could I?

“What do you think, girl?” I asked. “Are you my dog?”

Sasha and I had known each other for all of twenty minutes. We were taking a half-hour walk together from the Humane Society and back. I started volunteering with the dogs a few months before because I was living in a rental that didn’t permit pets. I expected every dog to steal my heart, and I figured I would want to take them all home. But it turns out that dogs are like other people’s children: I am happy they exist, and I want them to have loving homes, but I’m relieved that most of them are not mine.

Sasha was different, though. She was incredibly gentle, and she softened my resolve. She also displayed a submissive side, as if she’d been mistreated earlier in life. She needed a mellow home and someone to cuddle her more than she needed forty acres and a pack of playmates.

Now, I finally lived in a house that allowed pets. There were no logistical hurdles blocking me from adopting Sasha.

I walked her back to the Humane Society. “You’re home now, girl,” I said. I handed her leash to one of the kennel techs and left her there.

I drove home and reasoned with myself. My life was in no shape to care for another creature. Thirty years into life, I was finally taking care of myself. I was living on my own, had found an exceptional therapist, and landed a full-time job pursuing my passion. This was my time, and I wasn’t going to give it up to another creature.

Or that’s what I told myself. Obviously, I couldn’t really let go of the thought of adopting Sasha because she came up first thing at my session that week. I offered my therapist all my logical explanations for not adopting Sasha. Then I expressed the emotions that are always percolating under our logical explanations.

“I’m also afraid I’m just putting off the hard work of owning a dog,” I said finally. “I’m doing all this great work with myself, finding out who I am, and taking care of myself. If I get a dog, aren’t I giving myself an excuse not to focus on me?”

I anticipated my therapist would do what therapists do — invite me to talk about what I’d just expressed, walk me deeper into the emotions, circle me around the underlying issues like a squirrel around a nut until finally I cracked into the truth.

Instead, she asked me one simple question: “What does your heart say?”

Her brevity startled me. “Say about what?” I asked.

“Do you want a dog?” she said. “What does your heart say to that?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I want a dog.” And I meant it. My heart space had swelled when I presented it with that simple yes-or-no question, and I could only trust the response that made me feel free.

“There you go,” she said. “You can trust your heart on these things.”

I really could trust my heart, couldn’t I? I had just felt it, physically, in my body. Her simple statement sounded like something I’d read on a hundred tea-bag tags. Those little sayings always sound nice, but they don’t usually land. But this one — “You can trust your heart” — had an experiential component. I felt in my own chest what it was to trust my heart.

It was open and easy. There was no other way to live. I could listen to my heart. And my heart said I should go back to the shelter and see if Sasha was there.

That weekend, I made a beeline for Sasha’s kennel. She was gone. Maybe she’d just moved. I asked one of the kennel techs about her. “She went home this week,” he said.

My heart sighed. Dogs come into our lives for reasons. Sometimes, they come in to teach us about ourselves throughout a lifetime. Sometimes, they teach us valuable lessons on a thirty-minute walk. Sasha had come into my life for a reason, and then she found her home.

I walked a few dogs that day, and none of them spoke to my heart. I knew what it felt like to have my heart hum, though. I knew I didn’t need to seek out a dog. My heart would tell me when I found the right one.

I tested that theory about a month later. I walked a dog named Wally. He was another chill dog, very gentle on the leash and comfortable with me. When I returned him to the shelter, I told the tech that Wally had done great on his walk.

“Wally did great?” the tech repeated.

“Oh, yeah. He was awesome,” I said.

“Wally,” he said. “Wally did great?”

“Totally.” The tech’s response baffled me, until I saw Wally in his kennel before I left. The shelter had clipped a sheet over his door to block his view because he was barking at everyone who walked by. He was throwing himself against the sides, miserable in his space. This was a different dog than the one I had just walked.

“Bye, sweet guy,” I said. “Good luck finding your home soon.”

And that was the end of that. Or so I thought. But Wally kept wiggling his way into my head that week. I’d find myself thinking about him while I was hiking to work and making dinner. He’d done well with me — me! — when he had not done well with anyone else in three weeks at the shelter.

I’d seen for myself how much living in a kennel stressed him. I’d also seen how relaxed he was while walking with me.

About mid-week, I finally heard my heart pounding against my ribs. It declared, in its outdoor voice, “Go walk that dog again.”

I could trust my heart. Absolutely. The trick, though, was to actually listen to it. It had been sending me this message all week. My mind kept getting in the way, questioning my heart’s decision-making abilities. But my heart knew what my mind could not comprehend. My heart knew love when it found it.

This time, when I returned to the shelter, my dog was still there. I took Wally for another walk, just to try out our connection one more time.

Then I walked him back to the Humane Society. “You’re home now, bud,” I said. I handed his leash to one of the kennel techs and added, “Wally’s coming home with me today.”

— Zach Hively —