“My dog—a fifty pound wiggle machine of a rescued pit bull named Gracie—is the thing that keeps me from losing it when I run into rough patches where the words stop flowing or the open document starts to look like a mess of hieroglyphs. There is something amazing about being responsible for the care of an animal that gives back nothing but love without any kind of ask in return. Gracie helps me manage my day: early walk before I even turn on the computer, mid-day walk around the time I am starting to wonder if I even know how to construct a cogent sentence, early evening walk when the words are all starting to blur and I know it’s time to save whatever I am working on and go be a part of the world. Sometimes when things get really hairy and I can’t articulate anything at all, I like to get down on the floor with her and put my head on her ribs to listen to her heart and feel her breathing. It’s an auto-reset for me.”
—Sean H. Doyle, author of This Must Be the Place (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2015)