I rescued my dog, Shelby, on Memorial Day weekend, 2019. I was celebrating my recovery from a stroke that had occurred the previous Memorial Day weekend and impacted my left side and my cognitive abilities. At that point I’d recovered physically: I had progressed from a wheelchair to a walker, to a cane, to being able to walk on my own. I was still working with a rehabilitative neuropsychologist on regaining my executive functioning, which was what had been most affected by the stroke. I was back to work part-time but would not return full-time until January 2020.

I was also celebrating the progress I’d made regarding my emotional well-being. Years prior, I’d told my brother I wanted a dog and he suggested, not unkindly, that it would be better to wait until I was sure I could stay out of the psychiatric hospital. In 2019, I’d been out of the hospital for five years — and showed no signs of needing to return. As I approach March 2024, it will be 10 solid years.

Shelby came to me from a kill shelter in Mississippi by way of a foster home in New Jersey. The day I brought her home, I agreed to meet the foster mom at a halfway point, which was the parking lot of a supermarket in New Jersey. I got........

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