If you listened all the way to the end of our latest episode, “To All the Dogs We’ve Loved” you heard a pair of snorting, grunty dogs being fed. That was Bacon and Mac, the pair of Boston terriers that this show is dedicated to.
I first pitched a show about the human-dog connection in 2019, shortly after my wife and I lost Bacon following his fight with canine cancer. We were absolutely shattered. But the reason I wanted to do this show wasn't because we were mourning — it was actually because Mac was mourning.
Mac had been with us as long as my wife and I had been living together, and from the moment we brought her home, she wanted to be around other dogs. When we'd go on a walk and see another dog approaching, she used to lay down in the middle of the sidewalk and quietly wag her tail, insistent that a meet and greet was required. Given how social she was, we knew bringing a second dog into the family would be good for her, so two years later, we adopted a second Boston terrier, a red and white snorty goofball named Bacon.
Mac wasn't happy about having to share bed space, but once they got to playing and wrestling around the next morning, she came around on him. The two bonded fast. Walking side-by-side in the mornings, sitting in the sun of a pair of adjacent windows overlooking our street in the afternoons, and cuddling up next to each other near the heating vent on cold nights, when a human was too busy to keep them company (how rude).
So, as sad as we were to say goodbye to Bacon, Mac just simply didn't know what to do with herself. We weren't sure what to do for her until we got some great advice — give her new experiences. It was good advice for all of us actually. We adopted an older blind Boston, Mr. Bones. We fostered a rescue mutt from Tennessee (spoiler: our first rescue, Waffle, stayed in the family. My wife had filled out the adoption paperwork in advance). We got into hiking and afternoon adventures near home, with Mac as our constant companion.
It was in these new experiences that we experienced what grief counselors describe as a shift from feelings of absence to fondness of memory. At first, we all could only focus on the holes in our daily routine that Bacon left — no one was scuttling into the kitchen to catch fallen ice cubes, or flinging into the corner of the couch for TV time. But new experiences filled the gaps. And in some cases, would prompt a happy memory of those lost. Waffle and Mac wrestling recalls that first Bacon-Mac wrestling match back in Chicago. Bacon would probably hate a cool autumn hike (he was thoroughly a couch dog) but man, would he have loved the temperature.
Two years later, in January of 2021, we lost Mac too. She had been slowing down and cancer snuck up on her before we could do anything to help. Mac was my shadow, the one who checked on me when I was up too late, the one who would gently paw me awake when she needed to go out in the middle of the night. She snoozed daily in a dog bed under my desk during the pandemic. Again, we were absolutely shattered.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) we had some practice with grief, and we found ways to cope. But still I found myself wondering. Mac had done so much work for us — she looked after us for the entirety of our early adulthood. She helped us through sadness and stress and pain, especially in her last years, when she had to absorb the daily stress of a global pandemic. Helping us even through her own feelings of loss and sadness. Had she gotten the life she deserved in return?
So I started asking fellow dog lovers (including the lovely team behind our show) about the emotional work that dogs do, how we should receive and honor it, and what we can do to do right by the dogs in our lives. The result was this show.
If you've ever loved a dog — and especially if you've lost one — I hope you hear comfort in the insights and stories of these incredible people and the dogs in their lives. We can never truly know what's happening in a dog's mind, but we can follow their lead by being present, kind, and unconditionally loving.
Also, if they poke your hand with their nose, you have to pet them. Those are the rules; I don't make them.
— Mark