My Partner and I Got a Dog and It Saved Our Relationship

From the moment I met William in 2012, he made it clear that he wasn’t the “commitment type”—he wasn’t interested in marriage, kids, or even getting so much as a goldfish together. For the first two years of our relationship that was perfectly fine with me. I was still in college and he was focused on his career so keeping things low key was ideal.

Eventually though, between our different jobs and hobbies, it felt like we were living two different lives. We loved each other but our future wasn’t clear and I feared that one day we would start to grow apart and split up if we didn’t have anything tying us together. And, I realized that I wanted more with this man I was falling madly in love with.

I decided the easiest way to test the commitment waters was to bring up the idea of getting a dog together though at the time we lived separately. At first, the answer was an automatic “no” and I began to get discouraged. I could see myself possibly marrying this person and he couldn’t even handle the idea of getting a dog together? How would our relationship last if we had such different life goals? Had I made a mistake agreeing to a no-strings-attached relationship in the first place?

But I wasn’t ready to give up on us and it’s a good thing I didn’t because it turns out that William had just needed some time to think about a dog. After a few months, he decided on his own that he was ready to commit—at least to being dog parents—and he had started looking for Chihuahua puppies in secret to surprise me. Then one day he called me out of the blue to tell me about some weeks-old chihuahua puppies at a shelter nearby. I was shocked but I couldn’t have been happier and we started our search for a pet.