What My Partner Gives Me

I think as humans we think a lot about animals in a somewhat lesser sense. The conversations we have around animals tend to be all about the things that we do for them. We take them out for walks. We feed them. We shelter them. We teach them about the world. They exist in our spheres, but we give them pets, and we cuddle them, and we love them. 

But I think that's a very one sided look at any kind of relationship. I mean, it's not like animals are dolls without their own lives and wills and personalities. If you think of your animal companion as someone to enact your wants on without consideration of the things that they also bring to the table, in my opinion you're really missing out on so much of what actually makes animals special. 

So, I wanted to take some time today to talk a little bit not about what I do for my dog, but what my dog does for me. Because he really does do a lot for me, and it's important to take the time to appreciate that sometimes. 

Let's just jump through a couple of the obvious ones first. He certainly encourages me to stay in shape! He's the ultimate work out buddy. He's constantly asking if we can go out and get some fresh air. And, he's even happier if instead of just walking around, we can run around instead. He'll constantly be a reminder that I should stay in shape, and will give me endless reasons to actually put in that time and energy. When we're at the park, he wants me to chase him, and he wants to chase me, and he wants me to throw a frisbee a thousand times, and he loves to go swimming. He's an adventurer. When we go hiking, he'll sometimes have very loose commitment to staying on any kind of reasonable trail, meaning that a hike with him can sometimes be a stroll, and sometimes be climbing and running down hills, over trees, and through terrain that is much more of a workout than any kind of paved sidewalk ever could be. I feel like after he came into my life, I became so much more active, and that's because he's active, and he wants to share that with me, and I appreciate it so much. I'm someone that can get so wrapped up in life, and work, and everything, and he reminds me to take care of myself too. 

He also encourages me to be social! I like making friends, but so does he, and he's more than happy to go up to strangers and give them a little sniff if he thinks that means that he's going to get some positive attention from them. There have been so many times where we're walking and I'm lost in my head and he decides he wants to make friends with someone, and they stop to pet him, and then we start talking, and I get to have a little chat with someone that I never would have otherwise gotten to know. How cool is it that I've met so many people that would have been total strangers to me if not for the fact that he wanted to make a friend. And then, sometimes I'll see those people around again, sometimes with my partner and sometimes without, and we'll chat a little more, and that makes me really happy. He gives me a reason to actually engage with the people around me, and feel connected to my community, rather than just exist within it. 

I also think that the way that he engages with the world is just infectious, and that gets me as well. He's so curious, and so interested in things that I think I would totally ignore. I can't tell you how many times we've been walking around, and I've been on my phone, and I look up cause he's stopped, and he's sniffing at a beautiful bed of flowers, or we're on a really cool street that I've never been on, or he's looking at a wild animal that I totally would have missed had I been on my own. He loves to learn and explore the world at a pace and level of details that I would absolutely miss out on. He gives me a reason to take a breath and enjoy the little things, and as a huge workaholic, I can't tell you just how valuable that is to me. 

He makes me think about the world in more broad senses as well. Having a dog that's this important to me means that I'm also very tuned in on the things that are important to dogs in general. Standards of care, the fine line between teaching and training, the way that many dog foods are made extremely low quality. When I see someone with a dog on a walk jerking the leash around and not giving them any time to sniff things, I get really mad, but I feel like part of that anger is specifically as someone who loves a dog. I like that having him in my life really makes me think about big picture topics like pet ownership in general, and the way that society is viewed in general. You could argue that he's not necessarily giving that to me, or doing that for me, but I don't know if I would ever think about it without him in my life. Certainly not as much.

He's also my partner, in an extremely romantic sense. He gives me his time, and his energy, and his love. When I'm having a really hard day, he's always more than happy to give me a shoulder to cry on. When I'm bored, he's always willing to give me attention. When I just want to be with someone and feel seen, he's always there to see me. And even though our worlds are very different, I think he sees me in a way that nobody else can. There's the intimacy that he provides me, and that's fantastic as well, but what we do in the bedroom is just the surface of the things he gives to me outside of that. He makes me feel... Loved. He gives me the feeling that I'm always supported. That I'll always have a friend. Someone in my corner. He might not be a lot of help editing articles, but the way he makes me feel inside is the energy that keeps me writing for this magazine four years into it. He makes me happy. 

It's impossible to say who I would be had we not fallen in love. Maybe I'd be the same person, maybe I wouldn't. But I certainly feel like without him, my life would just be so grey. I can picture that person. Someone who only cares about their job. Someone who puts 100% of themselves into trying to make money and climb the social ladder and never caring about any of my own wants. But he makes me just so acutely aware of my soul. My self. What I want and who I am, not what's expected of me. He gives me my definition. The parts of myself that I'd be too scared to explore otherwise. He doesn't care whether I got a thumbs up from my boss on Slack because I put in an extre 8 hours of overtime this week, he just wants me home with him, and I want to be home with him. 

There's going to be a time in my life where I don't have him. Where I don't have a reason to go on long hikes, or make friends with strangers, or think about the world, or feel unconditional love like only he can give me. Where I don't have him to remind me to care about myself, because I know he cares about me. And when I think about that, there's a pit in my stomach that grows a little bit more with every year that we spend together. An inevitability that's on the horizon, closer every day. It makes me want to give up, and to just stop trying. But he won't let me. He gives me too much for me to take it for granted. I'm going to take everything he gives, and give him all my love in return. And I just hope that when he is gone, I can keep those things in my heart and live my life the way that he would want me to. The way that he wanted to. 

I'm so grateful for my partner, and for everything he does for me. And I hope that you can take the time to appreciate the animals in your lives too.



Article written by Tarro (May 2026)

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