She didn’t choose me. She chose dad. I’m just the one who feeds her.
I had been talking about getting a French Bulldog for what dad would describe as
an unreasonable amount of time. Long enough that one day he just said find the
money in savings, I found a breeder, we’re going this weekend because I cannot
hear about this anymore. It wasn’t just about hearing about it. It was seeing the daily
Frenchie posts on his social media feeds as well as GIFs. He was done. It was
time.
I was spectacularly hungover from our Christmas party the night before. The dog
will still be there tomorrow I said. Dad, correctly, identified that if we didn’t go that
day I would change my mind seventeen more times before we ever actually went.
He knows my brain. We went.
We sat on a couch at the breeder waiting for the reveal like we were on some kind
of very low budget home improvement show. Three puppies ran in. One of them,
the runt, made a beeline directly for dad’s feet and refused to leave. Dad picked her
up. That was it. He was done. We were taking that one home.
She was the runt. She did not stay the runt.
She grew into the name Chubbs over time in the way that some names just become
inevitable. I had a binder for her. Vet records, health insurance paperwork, the
whole thing. She had better health insurance than we did for a period of time until
it doubled and then doubled again and I did the math on what we’d actually spent
versus what we’d claimed and decided if she ate another bologna string we’d just
pay out of pocket like adults.
She’ll be ten this October. I think. I’m going with ten.
Chubbs is a princess. Not in the cute way people mean when they say that about
dogs. In the way where she has identified exactly what hands are for and she will
bark at you until you use yours correctly. Not territorial barking. Not protective
barking. Summoning barking. Get over here and pet me barking. She knows what
she wants and she has opinions about the timeline.
She is my shadow. Everywhere I go she goes. I sit down, she’s in my lap. I get up,
she follows. I go to the bathroom, she’s outside the door filing a formal complaint
about the closed door situation.
The shadow thing would be charming except that I wear a lot of black and Chubbs
sheds like it’s her full time job. I sit down in clean leggings. I stand up in a fur suit.
This happens every single day. I have accepted it. The leggings are sacrificed. This
is just my life now.
Here is what I need you to understand about Chubbs before I tell you the story.
She is small. She is round. She has the energy of a dog who has deeply considered
exercise and declined. She is not, by any reasonable measure, a guard dog.
She is also, without question, my protector. Not because she would win a fight. But
because she would absolutely show up to one.
I know this because of the night with the chain.
I was nine months pregnant. We did two walks a day, every day, same
neighborhood, same route. This was our second walk of the day, sometime before
nine because this is Arizona and the sun has opinions about leaving.
Same walk we’d done a hundred times. Except this time there was a dog across the
street. Big dog. No owner in sight. Leash around its neck attached to a metal chain
dragging on the ground. Just. Dragging. Across the asphalt.
The dog started woofing. Not barking.
Woofing.
Big dog sounds. The kind that come from somewhere in the chest and arrive as a physical event.
I picked up Chubbs.
Nine months pregnant. Picked up my French Bulldog who was already well into
her Chubbs era. Did not think about whether I should be lifting that much weight.
Just picked her up and started walking. Slow. Deliberate. Did not turn around. Did
not make eye contact. Just walked.
And behind me I could hear that chain dragging across the street.
I want you to understand that I could not see the dog. I could only hear the chain.
And the chain was following us. Slowly. But following.
I was thinking please don’t kill us please don’t kill us please don’t kill us on a loop
for what felt like the entire length of the neighborhood but was probably forty five
seconds.
I turned the corner. Looked out the corner of my eye. The dog was walking back to
wherever it came from. Chain dragging behind it. Leaving.
We were fine.
Three things I learned that night.
One. Always have your phone. I was nine months pregnant walking alone at night
with no phone. What was the plan if I went into labor. Hobble home carrying
Chubbs with my water broken? This was not a well considered situation.
Two. Chubbs did not bark. Did not wiggle. Did not try to get down and investigate.
She just let me carry her and stayed still the whole time like she understood the
assignment.
Three. She is my shadow not because I am the most interesting person in any given
room. She is my shadow because she decided I am hers to protect. Even if
protecting me means being carried by a panicking pregnant woman while a chain
drags behind us in the dark.
She’s a princess. She’s demanding. She sheds on everything I own. She barks at me
when I stop petting her. She has never once in her life been at her target weight.
She’s also the one who stayed calm when I couldn’t.
She’s Chubbs. She chose dad and ended up mine anyway.
Not bad for a Tuesday.