She wasn't particularly smart even for a dog. She wasn't even courageous, cowering and whining when the slightest wind blew. But I loved her. It's strange to say that I loved a dog, but she loved me first, and without reason or condition. Receiving a love of that sort doesn't happen to many of us very often.
Most human beings are afraid to give it.
Dogs just don't have the same things piled on that people do. Every night of her life, Chewy went on a walk around the same four or five subdivisions, and every night, she would respond with the same boundless enthusiasm to the click of her leash. At the same street corner, she would growl playfully, and snatch that leash in her mouth. For ten years. From the start, Chewy was a handful.