First, he hears my footsteps. 

He waits for me at the bottom of the stairs every morning. When I come down, he doesn’t give way. He fills the space between me and the day. So I stop. He puts his paws up on my waist. I bend down and hold him close for a minute — his head against my chest, his breath slow and even. Then he’s ready. Me too. That’s how we begin.

I found him the way you sometimes find things you weren’t looking for. My previous golden, Simba — an incredible dog — had just died at sixteen. I wrote a tribute, and his breeder saw it and sent a message. “I have a dog for you.”

When I asked the breeder to describe him, she said, “he’s very devoted.” And added, breederly, “he makes beautiful puppies.” His name was Stoney. When I asked why, she said, “Because he’s so easy-going, it seems like he’s stoned.”

A few days later, with a pang of hesitance, I got in Big Red and headed to the farm in Connecticut. The last time I made this trip I was in the Volvo with Molly, Brett and Larsen, off to meet our first family dog.

Coach was five years old and had spent most of his life outdoors, as their stud dog. At five, apparently, your prime stud days are coming to an end. They had a new dog arriving. So it goes. I spent a few minutes with him in his pen. Before I even opened the half door, he’d put his paws on it to greet me. He was clearly a different dog from Simba— 70 lbs, 30 pounds lighter than Simba, with a temperament that seemed both lively and a little insecure. But he couldn’t have been happier to see me. Any expectations I had of him being like Simba dissolved in his joyful expression when I walked into his pen.

He spent the first few days pacing along the back garden wall, trying to peer over it. Perhaps he was looking for the breeder’s grandson — the little boy he had become devoted to. Maybe he was searching for the mother of his puppies as well. He had a whole life before me, with its own attachments and losses, and he carried it in the only way he knew — quietly, without bitterness, until his new life became the only one. I’ll never know exactly what he was searching for. But eventually, he found his way inside.

He has never growled at another dog. Never been anything but sweet — though he does have a weakness for the girls. He’s afraid of stairs. Slippery wood floors make him freeze — his paws searching for something solid. Somehow, I understand the feeling. He just waits until the fear passes or I reach back for him. Everywhere else, he moves like water. Such a graceful animal.

On sunny days, he pulls toward the door before I’ve finished my coffee. On walks, he could go ten miles. He has never retrieved a thing in his life — seems to think that’s somebody else’s job. But put him on a scent, and he’s gone, nose down, following something only he can read. I think he brings me along more than the other way around. And when he’s ready to come in, he doesn’t bark. He just stands on the porch and waits until I notice him.

He presses himself into fresh snow and feels the cool on his back — surrendering to it, the way you do when something feels just right, and you stop needing to know why. He catches a rabbit now and then but mostly doesn’t bother. He eats well — scraps from the butcher, sweet potatoes, rice — and I think he’s grateful.

When I leave and come back, I see him waiting through the window. If I’ve been gone for a few days, he can be sheepish when I walk in — almost as if he’s apologizing for my own absence.

He doesn’t know many commands — he just knows how to stay.

He doesn’t live outside of himself because he doesn’t know how. He’s not able to think too much. We spend so much of our lives doing exactly that — thinking ourselves away from the moment, away from the people in front of us, away from the bottom of the stairs. This is his gift.

He coaches me.

— Pete

P.S. If you have a dog story you’d like to share, please do. I read every reply.

Notes arrive on Sundays and some Wednesdays

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If these shorter notes resonate, The Practice is where I go deeper — longer essays on the same terrain. → here 

About me, and Practice Notes → here 
About Integrative Coaching → here 
About my book, The Why of Sports → here