Dogs shouldn’t be so shorthaired at their ripe age of three, and mine is already balding. He’s ugly and hasn’t been soft since his puppy-years, he bites my friends and family and cuddle us like he’s never, and he’s stupid. Mom tried to show him how to sit and go down and do all those fancy dog tricks, but he couldn’t– he wouldn’t. 

When I get home from school, I don’t pet him or take him on walks. I make my brother feed him because I don’t want his dog smell to infect my clothes (he gets clingy if you feed him). I close my door when I hear his long nails clicking down the hallway because no matter how many times we forbid him from our beds and couches, he returns as if he’s forgotten. 

I don’t know why I didn’t close my door this time, though. Maybe it was that C I got on my math test or my friends having another falling out. Although, I’m sure my parents screaming at each other in the kitchen played a part. I just watched his beagle body use his beagle nose to push open my door and tried to ignore his frantic dog eyes as he scanned my face, looking for something. 

He sits down on the floor with his tail wagging against the wood. And for a second all I see and all I hear is his stupid panting and the really really annoying sound of his tail smacking against the floor, and for a moment, I forget that my dad just called my mom a b*tch and my mom snapped back with a string of slurs. For a moment, it’s just my stupid ugly balding beagle and me. 

He jumps onto my bed and in that moment, I don’t dare to kick him off. In fact, as he cuddles up next to me, I make room for him on my cat-hair-only sheets and run my hands along his balding body, uncaring to his bald spots.

That night I let him sleep in my bed, and I do for the next weeks after. But oddly enough, I don’t regret the stench of dogs on my clothes and on my sheets. And on those rough days, I wondered how I had gone without my ugly balding beagle for so long.