My First Year with My Dog
My First Year with My Dog is an interview-style podcast that explores the profound transformation that happens when you bring a dog into your life, whether it’s your first dog or your tenth one. Through intimate conversations with dog-parents, we discover how that first year with a dog reshapes not just your daily routine, but who you are.
Through deeply personal stories, we explore how dogs challenge us to be more present, more patient, and more vulnerable. We hear about the quiet moments of connection, the breakthroughs after struggle, and the ways our relationships with our dogs ripple out into every other relationship we have. These conversations reveal how a dog's unconditional love nourishes us in ways we didn't know we needed—offering comfort, purpose, and a kind of belonging that transforms how we see ourselves and move through the world.
Ultimately, My First Year as a Dog Owner is about how the animals we welcome into our lives don't just change our routines—they change our hearts. It's a celebration of the blessing that comes with loving, and being loved by, a dog.
Executive Producer: Sophia
Hosts: Sophia, Samira Tazari, Shareen Anderson
Senior Producer: Samira Tazari
Creative Director: Shareen Anderson
Theme Music: Nana Simopoulos
My First Year with My Dog
Brian Berger with Christie Brinkley
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In this first episode of “My First Year With My Dog,” co-hosts Sophia and Samira interview Brian Berger, who shares his story of adopting a rescue dog with his wife, Amy, after years of wanting a dog. They initially sought a small dog but connected with a quiet blonde pit bull (later named Christie “Brinkley”) at a Brooklyn rescue. Brian describes bringing Brinkley home and early adjustments in a Brooklyn apartment, including crate training, consistent positive-reinforcement training, and milestones like learning stairs. He reflects on how Brinkley provided companionship, patience, emotional support during stressful finance work, strengthened relationships and community connections. A year after Brinkley’s death, Brian discusses grief, therapy, and complicated feelings about adopting again.
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Welcome to my first year with my dog, a podcast about the transformation that happens when you bring a dog into your life. I'm Sophia. And I'm Samira. Each episode, we speak with a dog parent who shares their own experience adjusting to life with their new best friend.
SPEAKER_00Sophia and I know what it's like to have a dog in our lives. And for this show, we sit down with guests to share the unforgettable, often emotional moments that come with that first year as a dog parent.
SPEAKER_05Our guest for this episode is Brian Berger. I know Brian through his wife Amy. And for as long as I've known these two, they've been huge dog lovers and have given me a lot of really helpful tips on how to raise my own dog, Otis Patrick. Last year, Amy and Brian lost their own beloved dog, Brinkley. Now that a year has passed, Brian opens up to talk to us about their journey with Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01Most of my life I had been begging my parents to get a dog, and for whatever reason, it wasn't in the cards for me, or it wasn't in the cards for them. You know, I I always asked, and they thought it was hilarious to give me stuffed animals as a sort of like a kind of a mock-up of being a pet owner. And I, you know, I won't take anything away from them, but I completely understand that it's a it's a huge responsibility, and maybe they just didn't want to have a dog in the house.
SPEAKER_05So what first gave you the idea of wanting a dog like when you were little?
SPEAKER_01I think just the idea of having an entity in the home which had uh capacity for love, something that we could pet, something that we could teach, something that we could grow with. And you know, it's just everybody cool had a dog, and I I wanted to be cool, and I was ostensibly nerdy. And whenever my friends had dogs, it was always like the best thing in the world to be able to go visit them and spend time with their dogs as well. So that was really where it started.
SPEAKER_05Take us to the point in your life where you decided that now you're ready for a dog in your life.
SPEAKER_01I had a a love, I have a lovely partner named Amy. And after we got married, you know, we'd been throwing around the idea of potentially either buying a dog or adopting a dog. So a couple of years after we got married, we started looking at the adoption websites. And in Brooklyn, it's like there are so many dogs, and it can be a little bit overwhelming. The the process in the beginning, it's like it's casting a rock into the ocean. You have no idea where it's gonna go. And it just feels like there are so many needy uh animals out there who would be incredible additions to your family. And, you know, where do you really start? And that's how we started. We started by looking at those websites.
SPEAKER_05And did you have a specific breed in mind?
SPEAKER_01Initially, we didn't really have an idea about exactly what we were looking for. But when we saw, for whatever reason, we saw this chihuahua on uh one of the adoption websites, and we thought, oh, whatever, you know, we have an apartment. Maybe a small dog is better for for us and for the animal. You know, who knows? But like what do we know? We were idiots in that sense, and that we just didn't have any experience. And we thought, oh, look, it's a cute chihuahua. Why don't we go why don't we go meet the chihuahua? He looked cute and he looked small enough to fit in a bag if we wanted to take him in the subway. And sure enough, we went to the rescue and they're like, oh yeah, that dog's long gone. But he went on the first day.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So they send us into the kennel, the cages, and there are 50 dogs, all of them showcasing hard. You know, they're all barking, they're up on their hind legs, they're look at me, look, you know, look at me, look at me. And it is insanely overwhelming. Um, I don't know if you guys have ever had the experience in a shelter where literally every dog is like, oh my God, is it, you know, is this the day? They know what's going on. So we're walking through, and you know, it's a lot of pit bulls, a lot of mutts, and Amy is exceptionally overwhelmed. I mean, I'm overwhelmed too, but she is visibly overwhelmed. So she goes to the back corner to get herself together, and she finds a dog back there that is like it insanely ill. So she just melts down. And I'm back there, you know, just standing there, like I'm just looking around, trying to take it all in. And this blonde pit bull puts her paw up on the cage and just says, you know, hey, I'm you know, I'm here. Or that's what I heard. I I heard a voice, and she just looked at me, she wasn't barking. Yeah, she put her paw up on the cage door, and I was just like, oh no. I think I just fell in love with a pit bull. My wife digs herself out of the corner, she's like, We gotta get the fuck out of here, and we leave. And I'm like, I kind of connected with a pit bull, and she was like, Oh my god, really? We slept on it. We looked at her picture and she was like, Oh my god, look at those ears. We went back the next day, walked her. We weren't really sure. You know, she pulled us on the leash. Uh, we didn't know what we were doing. She was strong, she was like 55 pounds, she's a beast on the leash. And one of the other walkers that was there, one of the volunteers, was like, Let me take her around the block with you and show you how I do it. We were like, Okay, yeah, yeah, please. We have no idea what's going on. So we took another lap and that was it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It sounds like you had a very special connection at the start. What was that conversation like where you were trying to explain to your partner, oh, I am like convinced this is our dog, without her having had that experience with her.
SPEAKER_01I told her I was like, you know, there was a dog there that, you know, despite all of the chaos, there was a dog in there that was kind of living in that chaos and just sort of raised her hand. And she had the kindest eyes and the biggest ears. And I could see, I could like see her heart through all the stress and the tension that was in that space. And it was so loud, it was so insanely loud. And I felt so bad for her. And I think I just did my best to convey what I felt from who we would name Brinkley. Her name was Gurley at the time. And Amy said, All right, well, if you feel that strongly about it, she's like, I wasn't planning on adopting a pity, you know. And I was like, I wasn't either, not even close. So we went back and thank goodness, you know, we had a really good experience with Brinkley.
SPEAKER_00So you came in for a chihuahua and came out with a pet bull. What was it that made you finally say yes? Was it after that walk?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it was it was a no-brainer. I mean, she snuggled into us a little bit, and you know, something about also the way that she smelled. I don't know if that's a weird thing, but you get kind of obsessed with that dog smell. Generally speaking, as a person without kids or without a pet, whether you're aware of it or not, you're kind of selfish in in a way that like if you don't have any of these other things to concern yourself with, you know, really what are you giving? I felt so good to get her out of there. And I was so hopeful that we would be able to give her a home that was that would make her feel safe. And yeah, uh that that first day we brought her home, it was like it felt like everything in our world had changed and that we had done something good. And I had no doubts that we did the right thing. But there were lots of other doubts that came along with that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, what were some of these other doubts that you had?
SPEAKER_01To to realize that you've been selfish up to a point, and you realize there is this thing and this being, this entity, this living, breathing, loving entity in our home now. And the only way she's gonna stay alive is us. The next wave of emotions that I felt was borderline terror. Um, in the best possible way. I mean, it's also a great motivator.
SPEAKER_05Um I was nodding when you were talking about the initial terror, but it's also you were saying, yeah, in the in the good way, because it's also a motivating type of terror. And my experience has been the same. I feel like it's really motivated me to learn and also be reflective about how I approach things and be more aware of like situations where I am projecting my own thoughts and beliefs onto Otis.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I mean, and I say this in the past times because Brinkley, we lost Brinkley a year ago, but she was always happy doing what we were doing. So I'm reluctant to grade myself on whether or not I did a perfect job of always doing exactly what she wanted to do because she was so, she was so down, you know, she was just down to do what we were doing as long as we were there. She really didn't care that much.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, she loved going to the park. And if she was like, yo, I want to go for a walk, that was usually her big thing. Like she would either lay down by the door or, you know, kind of like be like, hey, you know, what are you doing over there? We need to, something's about to happen. You need to get out with me, get outside, like now. So yeah, tuning into that, you know, like their language um and their mode of communication. There was definitely a bit more of a learning curve there for me than there was for Amy. Amy really picked up on a lot of that stuff. And she's like, dude, we need to get her out right now. I'm like, you talking about? And sure enough, she'd always be right. She's right about everything.
SPEAKER_00I just want to say that. Can you describe Brinkley physically for us? Are there any sort of spots or physical traits to give us a visual picture of her?
SPEAKER_01I mean, her name, her full name was Christy Brinkley. We named her after the very famous model because she was blonde and beautiful. She had big ears, like ears like uh like a Bassinji or a corgi. And we, you know, we did the DNA thing, and every time we did it, it came back different. So really who the heck knows? It was all over the place. But she, yeah, she had big ears, she was blonde, she had kind of short legs and kind of a long torso. So the DNA came back saying that she had a little bit of dochin in her, which is really weird. So imagine uh an American Staffordshire face, corgi ears, almost like a dochin, like long-ish body and kind of short legs. And she had her tail. She had a tail like a Bacinji. So she was just kind of like a furball tank kind of dochin, but like, I mean, she was a mutt. And she did have a spot on her on the scruff of her neck. She had one of those weird things from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Like the people with the real pointy heads, she had one of those people from Hooville as a white mark right on the scruff of her neck. Really, really strange. It stood out like a sore thumb. She had white socks and she had that white mark on the back of her neck. So yeah. Very, very interesting looking doggo, very nondescript, very beautiful, very nice to pet.
SPEAKER_00What were some of the things that you experienced in the very beginning adjusting with Wrinkly in your space, in your home?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, you have a the equivalent of a wild animal. You have no idea what really what you're getting with a rescue. I mean, if you're lucky, they they have a backstory and they can give you an idea of whether or not they've been through some sort of trauma, or if they're scared of X, Y, or Z. We didn't really have any of that uh until a little bit later. I mean, all we knew is that she came from Oklahoma. We knew that she had been abandoned. And it wasn't because the owners didn't want her, it was because they were all arrested. So she and her puppies all came here. I think she might have been actually brought to a kill shelter, and a third-party rescuer named Lori found Brinkley and her puppies and brought her to Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Brooklyn. So all the puppies got adopted. Brinkley did not. Mommy was left behind. So we don't necessarily think that she had a bad life per se, or that she was misbehaved or abused or anything. She just had bad luck, you know, she had shit luck. She was warm, she was caring, like she guarded a little bit, and we've we worked with that, you know, that wasn't a big deal. We were we were really worried that she was a ticking time bomb because we had no idea. And it turned out she was none of those things at all. And she ended up just being the biggest snuggle bug in the history of mankind and was generally speaking a little bit more standoffish with other dogs. She wasn't sure about other dogs, but she loved people. And we found all of that out pretty quickly in the beginning. How easy it was for her to just walk up to somebody in our building and say hello. Even in the just the first day she met a bunch of people on the way back and was just so stoked to not be going back to the shelter.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So you you were in a a Brooklyn apartment, you said a little under a thousand square feet. What were the kind of practical things that you had to do to then welcome her into your lives?
SPEAKER_01I think we had a bed for her in every room. So we had her crate like in the living room, and we crate trained her, and that was that was heartbreaking doing that part. But she got used to it, she got good with it. And when she was finally like awesome with it, it's you don't need the crate anymore. So I'm gonna give you a piece of bacon to go in the crate. And then she's like, shit, I don't want bacon ever again. This is what it's gonna leave me. But getting your dog into the crate and then leaving is like they're looking at you like, are you kidding me, dude? That's that's what we're doing. So yeah, I mean, yeah, the first thing Brinkley did in our apartment was jump up on the couch and we were like, All right, we're gonna have to train her out of that. And we did. But that was the other thing, is she was so easy to train. Like she was super food motivated, and so that part was pretty straightforward.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Was it overwhelming at all? What was your assessment in that moment? You're like, wow, we're in way over our heads here.
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. I think we were both up for it, honestly. And I think it was really fortunate, or you know, maybe we made our own luck here, is that one of our good friends is a is an excellent dog trainer, dog boy NYC, our buddy Rob. He's dashingly handsome and he's just he smells like a man, and the dog smells that too. He's despicably good looking, and it's kind of annoying in that regard because he doesn't need to have a dog with him to meet anybody. He's married. But in any event, aside from his handsomeness, he's very, very talented and he is 100% an incredible animal communicator, and he commanded Brinkley's attention and respect almost instantly. And he gave us so many great tools, you know, positive reinforcement, punishment training is nonsense, you know, all that stuff. They want to know how to please you. Honestly, I'm I'm pretty easily overwhelmed by like the littlest things. And for whatever reason, the the prospect of training Brinkley was not that overwhelming, knowing that we had such a good network of people to help us with that.
SPEAKER_00What did working with a trainer teach you about Brinkley, but also about yourself? What did you learn?
SPEAKER_01Oh, he was training us. Uh he's talking to us 99% of the time. He's like, you need to be consistent. You need to, you guys both need to be on the same page. If you're giving her conflicting signals, she's not going to know what you're doing. You know, if and when we came across something that we were challenged by, thankfully, I, you know, I had him on speed dial. Like in the first year, she couldn't get down the steps. Like she'd never seen steps before. She was living in a ranch in Oklahoma because they have tornadoes. You know, that two-story buildings in Oklahoma are stupid. So she was on a one-story, probably a one-story double wide or whatever. So she got to our building and she's like, steps. She's like, I'm not doing that. She's like, I'm taking the elevator like a diva that I am. Um, so one of our biggest challenges was getting her up and down the steps. And that's when you learn treats have value. Certain treats are higher value. And the day she got down the steps, we had a freaking party.
SPEAKER_00Was there a major milestone moment for you in that first year?
SPEAKER_01That was probably the first, the first one that we were like, okay, we we actually figured this out. We figured we figured her out. She trusted us enough to go up and down slippery marble steps. You don't want, you know, sometimes they get nervous or they forget. And you know, it didn't happen a lot, but when accidents happen, you just have to deal with that the right way. And yeah, I mean, she was always good on the leash and great with people. She never bit anybody. I mean, it's like we we fell into gold. Like we got insanely lucky with her. And I feel like we celebrated that all the time.
SPEAKER_00Aw. Well, then when did it feel like this was your dog? Was there a moment that it felt real once you brought her home?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I've always kind of suffered from imposter syndrome and in all sorts of walks in my life, whether it's education or my job or whatever. So I probably suffered a little bit from that with the dog or with Brinkley. And she was wonderful, but until like the days were like maybe the first day that she really like bugged out when I came home from work, I was like, she knows who I am. Like she knows that I'm her dad and she knows that Amy is her mom. And you know, that's one of those things that you don't really realize that you're missing until you see a dog greet you, like wagging their butt so hard that they almost like fall over. Yeah and then jumping into like giving you like their version of a hug, like that, kind of like when they pop a wheelie and they put their arms around your waist. I mean, that's like the best feeling in the world. So I think that's probably the mark for us. Yeah, that that's one of those feelings that you're just like, wow, I I understand now why people do this.
SPEAKER_00What did having Brinkley teach you about maybe things like patience, love, compassion?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Uh I mean love is the easy answer. You you don't realize that there's this whole other pocket of your heart that is locked until if if if you are a dog person, right? You don't know that there is this just mass of potential for you to just unleash really on this. Yes.
SPEAKER_05You you felt that physically, like I did.
SPEAKER_01I did. That was overwhelming too.
SPEAKER_05Um how did that feel? Like literally your heart just opened.
SPEAKER_01It felt I felt it in like it almost felt like euphoria. That's the best thing I can compare it to. Like almost when you get the tingles from something, like when you get the chills from music or a movie or art or you know, something like that. That kind of explosion of emotion, that's how it felt for me. Like when it when it really happened. So, really, love was the easy answer. Patience, I am not patient. I have never been patient with anything except this dog. So I mean, obviously, there were times where you react and you realize you've reacted incorrectly and you try to correct that. But patience 100% was something that you you need to recognize and you need to be in that headspace. They're trying to please you. If you're not gonna be patient with them, who are you ever gonna be patient with? So, yeah, 100% patience was something I was forced to work on with her. And it probably helped with patients in other areas of my life, but it was most easily seen when I was working with her.
SPEAKER_05Can you remember a specific example of that?
SPEAKER_01Probably accidents, you know, any of the accidents in the house. You know, you hear stories about, oh, I can't leave my shoes around, or I can't leave a sock on the floor, or what, you know, whatever it might be. They'll find it and destroy it. She never did any of that stuff. She left everything alone. And one day we came home and one of our plants looked like a Wolverine had dug it out and chewed it up and spit it out all over the carpet. And I looked at her and I was like, What are you what what like what were you thinking? And she's looking at me like, What do you mean? What was I thinking? She's like, I never do this. So in that moment, I realized that my my first impression about her knowing that she did something wrong was insanely stupid and that I needed to look at it from her perspective. And while I still haven't figured out why she did that, I'm sure. In her head, there was probably a reason. I I don't know. And she never did it again. So I don't know if that was me being impatient or being awesome at training her not to do it, but that's probably the closest thing I could think of to me being impatient with her.
SPEAKER_00What were some of the hardest moments of the crate training? Because it seemed like that was a big hurdle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, uh the emotional toll on us, uh everybody really. I mean, once she was in there, she was like, she looked resigned, and you know, she clearly wasn't excited to be in there. And you don't ever want to feel like you broke something or somebody down to the point of, you know, like this is where I have to be. And we really tried to make it seem like it wasn't a punishment space, but that it was just like her safe space. She loved chicken, she loved like dried duck eyeballs or something, you know, whatever, like the most disgusting thing you can think of. She loved it. So, you know, the high priority. Retreats became the ones that we gave to her to get in the crate, and you know, it felt shitty doing it. And once we got past that, and she was she proved to us that she was capable of not always being in there, that was it. She didn't have to go in there anymore. And she was like, Wait, I just learned how to do this. Now you're closing it up. So yeah. The emotional part of that wasn't my favorite.
SPEAKER_05So, what were some of the best moments? I wonder if you could remember specific moments where she did something or you had an experience together that you just felt like, wow, this you know, euphoria that you were describing.
SPEAKER_01Forgive me if this may or may not be within the first year. A lot of the years come together.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it doesn't have to be in the first year.
SPEAKER_01Okay, thank you. I don't want to break the rules. Uh so yeah, it when we took her hiking for the first time, I mean, this was a city dog. Like she was Brooklyn, you know, like hard, pit bull, like she knew not to eat the chicken bones on the sidewalk.
SPEAKER_00Uh very important.
SPEAKER_01Extremely important. Chicken bones are terrible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, we got some really good Caribbean food in the neighborhood. So there were some chicken bones in the neighborhood. She knew not to eat them. So, yeah, the first time we took her hiking, she just decided, like, all right, this is this is where I'm supposed to be. I'm gonna lead you guys on this trail walk. And we're like, how does she know where she is going? I mean, she was following the trail, following the trail markers. We had no idea we were where we were going. And she had like all this pep in her step, and she'd turn around and smile at us and make sure that we were keeping up because she was hauling ass. And and Amy's looking at me, she's like, I can't believe that this is happening right now. Like, we've never done this before. She's leading the trail. We don't know if it was just instinct or like maybe we were doing the wrong thing by not taking her into nature enough. But that was one of those moments that, like, I thought my heart was gonna just burst right out of my chest. It was so cool to see her like recognize this potential in this open green space that she had never experienced, at least with us. We keep we always kept her on leash and she got very good at walking on the leash. But this was like the one situation where she would drag us because she was like, I cannot wait to see what is around the next turn. I can't wait to see what's up that ridiculously steep pile of rocks that you guys are gonna have to figure out how to follow me up. So yeah, hiking in the Catskulls was really, really beautiful and like really special to be a part of.
SPEAKER_00I wonder if you can talk about a moment in that first year where he provided you comfort, maybe when you were going through like a tough emotional time.
SPEAKER_01Like, I think everybody has one of those moments, honestly. Uh and I feel like if maybe if you don't, you your connection might not be strong enough. And but I and I realize not all dogs are like this, but yeah, I mean, if you're having an off day, they smell it, right? Is that one of the things like dogs can smell emotions or something like that? But yeah, I mean, I I think it's fair to say I was not happy with my career and not happy working 12, 15 hour days in finance, which I do still. And she would very regularly give me that emotional support uh the instant I walked in the door. So her version of that, I mean, she wasn't she wasn't the snuggliest dog in terms of like hopping into your lap. But for me, she like when I wasn't in a good spot, she would, she actually would climb into my lap and she would put her her front paws almost around my back and just kind of rest her head on my on my chest. So while I can't think of necessarily a specific moment, there were a lot of moments where I came home from work extremely disillusioned and extremely sad and angry. And she was always really, really good about helping me kind of come down from that crappy energy.
SPEAKER_00I mean, would you describe your job as like high stress?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I could talk this, this could be uh its own whole other podcast is me talking about how much my job sucks ass. And it's not it's not necessarily because the people I work with are bad people. It's just it is a very stressful environment. Things move really, really fast. At a certain point in my career, I was managing risk on $70 billion. And uh I have you know, I have clinical anxiety already. So that level of pressure after you know doing it for so long builds and it gets to a point where it's it starts to bubble out and it's not great. So yeah, I was I was working a lot of hours, it was a stressful environment, and finance isn't really a tangible thing. I wish I loved it. I I just don't, and I love things that are tangible, and I chose this thing that is I'm good at, and you know, at the end of the day, you're looking at a lot of numbers or a lot of pages of a contract, and you know, I love problem solving, and I'm good at problem solving, and I love human beings and I love animals, and thank goodness for wrinkled bear taking, you know, taking one for the team when I gave them a hot mess on most nights.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, they really are just natural born therapists, you know.
SPEAKER_01They really are.
SPEAKER_05So I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about your wife Amy and how that experience, you know, raising Brinkley together has impacted your relationship. And what did you learn about her through that experience?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, she's she's an amazing person, uh a wonderful partner, beautiful inside and out. And with an animal around, with a with a fur baby running around, it was almost like her potential just got unlocked. It was like a level up for her, for me, for us. Uh, and when you have something that important to both of you, it really does strengthen your bond. And, you know, the the inside jokes that you have with your partner about, you know, the number of nicknames you come up with. I mean, brinkle bear, snuggle bear, bear bear, what like it just goes on and on and on and on. That was not in the brochure. It'll tell you that you're gonna be walking around talking to your dog in public in front of other people and not your partner talking to the dog. So, from that perspective, I think our bond definitely got a lot stronger. Having to coordinate our efforts in training was something that I didn't really think about that much, but it made me a better communicator. But yeah, I mean, all in all, I think our relationship was was strengthened on so many different levels. And selfishly, back to me being selfish, it takes a little bit of the pressure off me to be the only outlet for her stress. So Brinkley unknowingly was both of our lightning rods when the other person may or may not have been able to, you know, to handle it. And we're all human, you know, we're all nobody's perfect, and everybody has a limit. So I am sure I've taken Amy to her limit with my nonsense more than once, and having Brinkley around for that was just outstanding. You know, she picked up the little bit of slack when Amy was like, yo, dude, you need to not talk about this with me right now. So that's where Brinkley came in.
SPEAKER_00So, how did your relationships with friends, family, you know, besides your partner, how did those relationships change once you brought Brinkley into your life?
SPEAKER_01I mean, a lot of them wanted to hang out a lot more. They were like, oh, you know, I get to see you guys, but I'm I'm definitely psyched on seeing the dog too. Definitely psyched to see Brinkley. My parents, they visited more. My mom, who is terrified of dogs, always has been. Like she had dogs growing up, and I think, oh man, I'm I I think this is what they describe as a breakthrough in therapy. My mom basically was terrorized by dogs growing up. So maybe that's why she didn't want to have one. And when she met Brinkley, she was like, Oh my god, she's the sweetest, she's the best dog in the world. Like, and Brinkley loved my mom.
SPEAKER_04Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01And it made it easier for us to go out to Long Island, too, knowing that we had Brinkley to kind of shield us from parental energy, which is sometimes more than you might want. But yeah, our uh our relationships with friends and the people in our building, we didn't know a lot of people in our building before we got the dog. And within like a week, we had met like a dozen people that we'd never even seen before. And they're like, Oh my gosh, you who are you have you guys been in the building long? I'm like, Yeah, I've been here for 14 years. And they're like, Oh, I've never seen ever seen you. And I'm like, Yeah, I guess I've never seen you too. So, yeah, I mean, the all the people in our building who love dogs and maybe were looking for an excuse to introduce themselves to us because apparently I I can be intimidating. Uh apparently. And that me with a dog is more approachable than me without a dog. So we made a lot of great friends in the building, those with dogs and those without. So Brinkley acted as a conduit to all sorts of new friendships, even outside the building, people that we didn't really know. And I wouldn't say we were friends with them, but we were like dog walking acquaintances. I think that's kind of uh an interesting dynamic when you run into the same dog and the same owners, and you realize you know the dog's name and you don't know the owner's name. That's fun. It's like, oh, Kermit, and your dog person. All right. That's always fun.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's absolutely true. You know, I never really thought about that, but that's so true. I'm guilty of that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, you know what? Make it even more awkward and be like, hey, I know your dog's name. I don't know your name. What's your name? I'm Sophia. Hey. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So so Brinkley was your therapist, your social facilitator, relationship facilitator. Uh what else? What other role does she play?
SPEAKER_01I mean, comedic relief, definitely. I mean, every owner and every dog have their things, right? Like, I love things that are I I love to laugh. I think that's one of my biggest stress releases. And having a dog that was a clown and who kind of came off uh our energy or fed off of our energy was really awesome to see. Like, she, I've never I don't know if I've ever seen a dog do this, but she every night would use a blanket sort of as like her comfort mechanism. She would put a blanket in her teeth and chew on it and hug it. And it got to the point where we would just have to roll her up like a little burrito. And she would come out of the bedroom with her blanket, drop it, look at us, and and would be like, hey, what are you two idiots doing? It's bedtime. Let's get a move on, get in here, wrap me up, stop being jackasses, and make this happen for me, uh, or I'm gonna have a situation with you. And you could just see it in her face. She's wagging her tail, she's looking at you, big ears are up, and she's just like, I'm not having this. You guys need to get off the couch and take care of this right now. And those, you know, those types of moments where you those are real connection moments, I think.
SPEAKER_00Was it immediately that she was asking to do that? What was your first impression of her desire to be wrapped like a burrito?
SPEAKER_01It it seemed like maybe she suffered a little bit of separation anxiety during the days when we weren't there. And Amy brought this blanket out of nowhere and she just took it, put it in her mouth, hugged it, and was like as you know, snug as a bug in a rug, was super content. And then from there, just like everything with your dog relationships, it just evolved. And for the duration of her life, she went through a lot of blankets. And she let us know when they were not up to snuff. It's like, I only take blankets from land's end. Or you better get that one from that fancy boutique shop in the you know, in the Hamptons or whatever, and I'm gonna destroy it in two weeks. But yeah.
SPEAKER_04Very, very stylish dog, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, stylish mommy too. She's like, Oh, we can't get her that. We need to get her something nice. I'm like, oh, this is great. We're spending more money on the dog than we spend on everything else. But you get kind of used to doing that too, don't you?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So I know it's it must be really hard to now be, you know, without her. And it's just about a year since you lost her.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was it was actually exactly a year the day that we had our pre-meeting.
SPEAKER_05So wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that part sticks. But like everything else, you get you get used to living with it, and you try not to think about that stuff when you're having the good times. And you probably shouldn't. And you know, when it comes, it's it's absolutely soul crushing and terrible, but every moment of it that led up to that is 100% worth it. Like everybody's lives are better because of it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So when you are without that kind of counterbalancing healing energy in your life, how do you compensate for that?
SPEAKER_01Therapy. Uh exercise. A lot of exercise.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Trying to stay busy. And I'm not kidding, therapy. Having having real outlets. I mean, therapy with dogs is also great. Like having your dog with you during therapy sessions is really lovely. My therapist actually had a dog in his office during our sessions, which was really lovely. But yeah, I mean, still, again, Sophia, this is a work in progress. We're we're as we go.
SPEAKER_04Right. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the promise of adopting another dog is also, I feel like, kind of a false healing mechanism, but having that hope is also really nice. So I think the more traditional modalities of of dealing with stress are just amped up a little bit in the absence of the of the fur baby. But soon enough, I have a feeling it's I have a feeling it's gonna happen soon.
SPEAKER_00Now that you're considering bringing another uh fur baby into your life, what what is that bringing up for you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's a c it's definitely complicated emotions. I don't think I'll feel guilty per se, although I've certainly been in situations where I've heard people felt guilty or they they moved so fast to get a new dog after the loss of their f of their of their pet that it may or may not have been an unhealthy choice. And I think we really both wanted to be sure that we weren't doing it out of necessity for ourselves, if that makes sense. In in the sense that like we had just suffered this loss, and we don't want to we don't think it would be fair to the fur baby that we brought into our home if we had expectations that wouldn't be fair to you know to them. So I think being sure that we're not going to be projecting, as Sophia said earlier, projecting something onto the dog that wouldn't be right. It's kind of hard to put this into words, but I think that that sums up how we feel about it from a almost like fairness perspective. But in terms of what it feels like to want another dog in our in our home, it's it's it feels great, you know. Like knowing that it's getting closer is really, really wonderful. I mean, it's the only like smidgen of good thing that is, you know, and it's not good, but you know, not having to worry about this one thing for a little bit of time is probably the only solace that we've had, is that we can focus on each other, we can focus on doing things that we haven't had an opportunity to do. But we're was that actually worth it? And these are the kind of questions that we've been asking ourselves. Uh, or at least that's what I've been, I won't speak on Amy's behalf because I think she would have gotten a dog six months ago if she could have, but I asked her to pump the brakes. But for me, these are the questions that I ask myself. Like, am I ready to open my heart again? Am I ready to take care of something again? Am I ready to be responsible in that regard and give up the few things that were supposedly great in Brinkley's absence?
SPEAKER_00So when did you realize that you would eventually want to get another dog?
SPEAKER_01When we say goodbye, I think both of us maybe naturally just sort of thought to there is a light at the end of this axe terribly dark tunnel. And, you know, as it goes with any type of loss, you know, it's a s it's a scar. It's always going to be there. But you learn to live with it, and there is a life beyond that. And we knew that there would be more animals in our life, you know, whatever shape that might take. And now I think really the question is how many dogs are we actually going to adopt? Because I think it might be more than one.
SPEAKER_05I'm wondering, and then and if it's too difficult, you don't have to answer. Um, but I'm curious, you know, if you could have one more day with Brinkley, what would you do with her?
SPEAKER_01If I knew it was just one day, it would be a food marathon. I'd be giving her steak, I'd be giving her cheeseburgers, I'd be giving her pizza, and for the grand finale, I'd give her the biggest piece of chocolate in the world. Because give her her heroin, you know? Give give Mama Bear the biggest slab of heroin that she can have. Because every dog, you know, they would love chocolate. They would love it. And if we're gonna, if we're gonna walk down this dark path, it's gonna be a day of food and hugging and and running around. And and this would also be me assuming that she was healthy enough to do all this stuff. Because in the end, she was a, you know, she was a hot mess, which is why we had to make that decision. But if we could have this one magical day where she is the spry puppy that we had when we first adopted her, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of stuff in the yard. It's a lot of food that she definitely shouldn't be eating because she got chubby. Um, we fed her way too much. And somebody was like, How much are you feeding her? And we're like, I guess we're doing that part wrong, but she seems totally fine with it. So yeah, time in the yard, running around, a lot of food, a lot of hugs, a lot of kisses. If I had that opportunity, I guarantee you the end of that day, I'd be a hot mess too. So I'd I don't think I would ever want to actually do that. But under the under the circumstances where maybe my emotions get put in a bucket and I don't have to deal with them, that would that's how I would roll with it.
SPEAKER_00This is my first year with my dog, an original Sophia Media production created by Sophia. This episode was produced by senior producer Samira Tazari with creative direction by Shireen Anderson and co-hosted by Sophia and Samira. Thanks for listening. Check out our website at SophiaMedia.co slash my first year for more episodes and other shows in the My First Year series, and for social links where you can join our online community.