The Unmatched Feeling of a Dog Greeting You at the Door

I got home seventeen minutes later than usual today. I still hadn’t parked the car when I caught a glimpse of Ravi’s face in the window, front paws on the sill, eyes on the prize. I could see him leap from the window and dash to the door. He was wagging his tail so fast that it looked like he was about to take off.

When I opened the door, he smacked his nose into my palm. No jumps, No barks. He was just there. Waiting and certain. It had been one of my longest days. He acted like I had been gone for eight weeks.

I went into the kitchen to find my husband. He said, “He’s been at the window for the last twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes? Ravi is a wizard. He had somehow known I was coming before I had even turned on my street.

No one has ever been that purely glad to see me. Not my husband. Not my friends. Certainly not Juniper, who sits on the other side of the room and stares into the abyss. If I go away for even a few minutes, I will at best get a slow blink and maybe a tail flick.

Ravi makes me feel like I really am the highlight of his day. And maybe that’s true.

Today, Ravi was leaning on my leg and letting out a huge sigh when I arrived home, like he’d been holding his breath since my departure. The books say this is instinct, that wolves greet returning pack members the same way. I think there is definitely some truth to that, but something about this behavior never feels like instinct.

I’ve had days where I felt I went completely unnoticed, and my tasks were never responded to, and I went entire meetings where no one spoke to me. It made me wonder if I mean anything to anyone.

But Ravi doesn’t care about any of that.

When I walk in the door, it doesn’t matter how many emails I answered or how many items I checked off my to do list, I already did enough because I came home.

Certainly my husband is here to welcome me home too. He will make small talk and give me a hug if he thinks it’s needed. The difference with dogs is that there is no scorekeeping. With Ravi, the enthusiasm is total every single time, and that is not the case with people, even people you care about.

I understand that this won’t last forever. He is getting older now, and some days he doesn’t get to the door as quickly as he used to. Sometimes he hears the car and tries to get up, but his legs seem to take an eternity to get going and by the time he is up, I have already walked inside. I appreciate the effort, and I know the seasons where he can still do this are numbered.

I don’t rush past him anymore. I don’t just give him an awkward head pat and walk to the kitchen to start making dinner. I stop. I kneel down. I let him take as long as he needs because, yes, I really am here, and yes, I am really home.

“Hi buddy. I missed you too,” I say as I rest my hand on his shoulder.

And I mean every word of it. As much as he has been waiting for me, I have been waiting to come home to this. To a greeting that is genuine and uncomplicated and exactly what I needed even when I didn’t know it.