What a Rescue Dog Taught Me About Love

Let me tell you about my most faithful friend, Georgia May

Photos courtesy of the author.

March is here on the island of Puerto Rico; the sun hangs a little higher in the sky as trade-wind breezes stir the ocean swell. Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and with it, Georgia May’s birthday. She is seven now, with a soft tide of gray hairs encroaching her whiskers, but her pit bull eyes still shine with youth. A mixture of hope and sadness has defined her longing gaze ever since I brought her home six years ago. In that time, we’ve been on countless adventures, and each one has cemented the fact that Georgia is not a pet — she’s a companion.

Our life together has taken us further into the wild, on snow-covered hikes through the Green Mountains and morning walks among the beach dunes of Puerto Rico. Still, I think about that first Valentine’s Day with Georgia May — it changed my perspective on what it means to have a dog.

In New York, I’d wake up early and take Georgia May to a local soccer field, where she could get her morning exercise.

I was 25 years old when Georgia came into my life; she promptly dismantled whatever social clout I had going at the moment. Friends and family told me that my late twenties were going to be the days of milk and honey. And for the first…