What Suki taught me about healing
A story about my malnourished foster dog and the return of her undercoat
When we brought Suki home, she was a timid and emaciated little thing.
At only six months old, she’d been through the wars. Raised outdoors in a hoarding situation, she was forced to scrounge for scraps to survive. So severely was she malnourished that her wiry black fur had started falling out, itchy scabs blooming in the bald spots. She seemed disproportionately long, her delicate puppy ribs and hips jutting out at unnatural angles.
Suki was only supposed to be a foster dog, but I’m sure you know where this story goes. She was just too sweet, too lovable, too in need of a good home—and we were happy to give her one.
Over the following year, we fed her abundantly.
We fed her kibble and table scraps and peanut-buttered lick mats.
We fed her pumpkin biscuits and sheep horns and chicken-flavoured dental sticks.
And we fed her wary heart with love: chin scratches and belly rubs and early morning cuddles.
As she began to feel at home in her new pack, she became braver and—even more wonderful to behold—she grew sillier. She entertained us with her ungainly play bows and afternoon zoomies. She drove her big brother crazy with her relentless, earnest attempts to wrestle with him.
Where once Suki had been afraid of men, she slowly felt safe around my husband, and one day, her trust in him extended to the trust of other men she met in this great, wild world.
“Your love for her has healed her,” I told my husband, who didn’t cry at my unsolicited wisdom but looked like he wanted to.
But it was true. Both our love had healed her. She was fluffier and plumper. And she was happy.
This winter, something funny happened. Suki began growing golden brown tufts of fur, which were not always visible but peeked from behind her ears in the sunlight.
“Did Suki always have these brown patches?” I asked, first of myself and then of my husband.
We weren’t sure, not until they grew in number.
And on an unseasonably cold LA day, it hit me: this new golden fur was her undercoat. She hadn’t had one last winter—she’d been too sick.
My sweet girl had once been so unwell—so unloved—that a whole colour had been stripped from her.
The colour was here now, though, in cotton-soft delicate regrowth. Its arrival made me think of our own capacity for resilience.
How many colours will be stripped from us in our lifetimes? What shades must we relinquish to loss or grief or illness?
I do believe, dear friend, that our colours can return. Suki is proof of that. I am proof of that.
We can weather the storm, wait for next winter, and grow our undercoat in new, unexpected colours.
Even when we can’t see it, we harbour colours we’ve yet to see. And I wait with hope—what shade will my new colours be?
Thanks so much for reading! Please hit the heart button if you made it all the way to the end; it really helps me out :)
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I’ll be back next week. Until then, thank you for reading, and take good care of yourself :)
Emma
xx
What beautiful writing and what a lovely pup! Suki seems like a precious family member.
There's something so precious about the zoomies, especially so with everything they have must have had to transcend to get back to that happy place.
How does she do with other dogs?
Aw, hi Suki! 👋 This is such a sweet story.