I’m a dog owner. I’ve had other pets along the way but the bottom line for me is that my home isn’t a home if there’s no pet in it and I’m partial to dogs. I had to leave behind my beloved perrito with my parents when I went off to get post-secondary education. My mother told me he slept at the door of my room for months before finally accepting that I would not be there in the morning. That dog redefines loyalty.
As quickly as I got out of residence, I got the princess that reigns over my home. Later that year, I began hormone replacement therapy. I did not worry about my princess because she was there every day as my body morphed and it turns out she’s quite the fan of beards!

A year later I went to visit my parents. My parents braced me for how much older my perrito had gotten since I left, from virtually all of his fur becoming white to the reality that his legs and hips could no longer manage stairs. I worried he would not recognize me and my heart would be crushed. Pre-emptively to lessen the blow, I reminded myself that my voice had dropped and my testosterone fuelled BO bares no resemblance to the person that carried him home and trained him all those years ago.
If he was thrown off when he first saw/smelled me, he didn’t let on. I made a point to sing the little jingle I used to containing all his nicknames and he did his little dance. Come night time, I gave him a treat and headed up stairs to sleep. No one could believe it as he insisted despite obvious struggle to climb them to sleep by my bedside. That dog has always known how to make my heart melt. He was the constant presence of kindness amidst a household struggling with my sexuality.

Back in Toronto, my princess was the unconditional love, acceptance and joy as my social world collapsed around me. I lost many friends during the first two years of medical transition. But my dog wagged her tail every day when I came home defeated by the world’s cruelty. At the worse of my depression she ensured I left my condo a few times a day to walk her. She gave me constant reminders that I could make someone happy despite the angry chorus that I was ruining everything.
I know it’s cliché but I must brag a little. She is both cute and quite the charmer. People that would have otherwise never acknowledged my existence found themselves asking her owner if he knew how adorable she is. (He does!) They did not care about my gender; they were focusing on learning about her or congratulating me on raising a well behaved cutie. She gave me good reasons daily to face the world. Whenever I forgot the interactions she unwittingly facilitated showed me that other things matter more than gender to many people. That dog provided me with more support than most human beings in my life and I’ve never had to explain a thing, put words to it for her or wait while she got used to the changes. She can never screw up on pronouns or names.

Yes, a pet (or more) can be rays of sunshine during the more difficult period of transition. The best part is that love, treats and petting are all they ask in return for being the best friends in the world.