05/15/2026
I need to be honest about something because I think I’m quietly falling apart a little bit, and I know some of you in the giant breed world may understand this in a way other people can’t.
I think I’m grieving the loss of my place in my own pack.
Not because anybody has done anything wrong.
Not because my dogs don’t love me.
Not because Hooligan is a bad puppy.
But because I feel like I disappeared for a few weeks and everything changed without me.
I had one week with Hooligan before my hip surgery.
One week to bond with this giant, hilarious, chaotic little wolfhound puppy before suddenly becoming trapped upstairs recovering — isolated, hurting, exhausted, and completely removed from daily life while Justin became the center of Hooligan’s world.
Food.
Outside.
Playtime.
Training.
Adventure.
Bedtime.
Everything.
By the time I could finally come downstairs again, the bond lines had already started forming.
Now I’m trying every day to reconnect with this puppy while my body feels like it’s betraying me at every turn.
I go outside with him when I can.
I sit with him.
Love on him.
Talk to him.
But I am unstable. Exhausted. In pain. Afraid of falling.
Meanwhile Hooligan is a growing Irish Wolfhound puppy with clown feet, unlimited energy, and absolutely no body awareness.
He grabs my cane.
Attacks the walker.
Clobberpaws directly into my surgical leg.
Wants into my lap and accidentally claws the incision.
He wants me to RUN.
To wrestle.
To chase him across the yard and tumble around like wolfhound people do.
And I can’t.
That’s the part crushing me.
Because I can see him still trying to connect with me anyway.
He sits in front of me constantly.
Looks at me.
Paws at me.
Climbs toward me.
Stares at me like he’s trying to understand why I stopped going with him.
I honestly think he knows something is wrong with me. Dogs always know. He may not understand surgery, but he understands that I move differently now, smell differently, tire differently.
But eventually every interaction ends the same way:
me hurting,
me overwhelmed,
or me afraid I’m going to fall.
So eventually he wanders back to Justin.
And every time that happens, it feels like
another tiny piece of me breaks off.
Because while I was upstairs healing, life kept moving anyway.
Now Justin has two wolfhounds who orient toward him first.
Meanwhile Copper — the dog who always looked for me first — is gone.
And I don’t think I realized until recently how much of my identity was wrapped up in being someone’s person.
Copper always looked for me first.
Shamrock always looked for me first.
That kind of bond changes you. It becomes part of your identity without you realizing it.
You stop questioning where you belong because you can feel it every single day in the way they search for you, lean into you, choose you instinctively.
Now suddenly I feel untethered in my own home.
Last night broke me more than I want to admit.
I was hurting physically.
Hurting emotionally.
I needed comfort badly.
And Clover — my sweet girl who truly does love me deeply — kept going from window to window looking for Justin.
Logically, I know what that means.
I know she loves him.
I know dogs can deeply love more than one person.
But grief is not logical.
So all I could feel in that moment was:
Copper is gone.
Clover is searching for Justin.
Hooligan lights up for Justin.
And I am sitting here feeling invisible.
I think that’s the part I’ve been too ashamed to say out loud.
I feel replaceable.
And before anybody misunderstands this, I need to say something important:
I am not angry at Justin.
Part of what hurts so badly is that I willingly stepped back with Clover because I wanted Justin to experience that once-in-a-lifetime wolfhound bond for himself someday.
And it worked.
Clover adores him.
She chose him.
They have that connection.
I wanted that for him more than anything.
But I don’t think I realized how devastating it would feel to look around one day and realize he now has two wolfhounds wrapped around his heart while I’m grieving mine.
Because this isn’t just about bonding time.
It’s about losing the version of puppyhood I thought I was going to have with Hooligan at the exact moment he’s becoming himself.
People who haven’t had a heart dog may not fully understand this part, but when you’ve had a Copper or a Shamrock — dogs who knew you in that deep, instinctive, unquestioned way — losing them doesn’t just leave silence behind.
It leaves disorientation.
You don’t just miss the dog.
You miss the version of yourself that existed inside that bond.
And recovery strips away distraction. I don’t have normal routines or the ability to throw myself into life the way I usually would, so every attachment shift feels sharper and heavier than it normally might.
Maybe the hardest part is this:
Hooligan hasn’t actually rejected me.
He still comes to me.
Still watches me.
Still tries.
But right now the things he needs most are the exact things my body physically cannot give him:
energy,
movement,
chaos,
play.
So I’m grieving something that isn’t fully gone while also being terrified that by the time I’m fully myself again, the window will have quietly closed without me.
I know this probably isn’t the end of our bond. Wolfhounds mature slowly, emotionally and mentally. People in this breed know that some of the deepest bonds are built quietly over years, not just during puppyhood.
I hope that’s true.
But right now I am grieving Copper while trying to heal physically, mourning the puppyhood experience I thought I was going to have with Hooligan, and trying to figure out who I even am inside this new pack dynamic.
People talk about post-surgical depression, but nobody really talks about what happens when physical recovery collides with grief, identity, attachment, and pack structure all at once.
I miss Copper.
I miss myself.
And I miss the version of this story I thought I was going to get.
