“I basically needed to learn how to be in a healthy, long-term, committed love relationship. I needed to learn what it felt like to love and be loved in adulthood, whether that mentorship came from a healthy romantic partner, or from a dog. Because I most certainly didn’t know how to auto-generate self-love.”
Roxie Rice, M.Ed, INHC (www.wellnesswahine.coach)
I got Nalu as my ESA (emotional support animal) for several reasons. If you haven’t seen my home page, he’s a 15-pound belge, smooth coated Brussels Griffon. I imported him from California to Hawai’i during the 2020 COVID Pandemic.
WHY I GOT AN ESA PRESCRIBED
First, I was having consistent panic attacks during the pandemic that began in 2016, but of course, they flared up during COVID when I was laid off and spending every lockdown home alone in a Honolulu studio apartment. Imagine spending literally every day in a box by yourself . LOL. That was the Covid pandemic for anyone living in studio apartment.
I remember telling my therapist at the time that I could die in that apartment alone, and no one would be the wiser because I was laid off, every group gathering was shut down, and I wasn’t expected to show up anywhere.
Second, I have an *extreme* phobia of cockroaches inside my dwelling or any enclosed spaces I can’t escape from, like the laundry room. And here in Hawai’i, everyone knows what the roach situation is like. We’re talking “I will tear apart my entire apartment like a drug raid to find a roach and kill it, or I won’t sleep in my own dwelling”, “if there’s a bomber in the laundry room, I’m not doing laundry anymore”, “I have called every friend within driving distance of my house for help if I can’t search and destroy on my own/can I call the cops to kill a roach?”, “panicking alone on my bed, trapped in my own room while a cockroach scuttles back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in front of my bedroom door” , next-level phobia. LOL. I can laugh at it when there are no roaches around, but it’s way too real in the moment even though I know it’s absurd intellectually.
Thirdly, I grew up in a dysfunctional family rife with emotional-relational f*ckery. And as a result, I had a pretty poor romantic relationship track record well into my 30s.
I will never doubt the love of my late father. But he struggled with PTSD from his own familial challenges growing up and probably from the military, leading to alcohol abuse and bouts of terrifying anger management issues while drinking.
My mother is a textbook narcissist. I stumbled upon this quiz in 2020 just after getting Nalu, thanks to the book “Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers”. My mother qualified for all but one statement. In that moment, it all clicked. It explained a lifetime of unusual emotionally cruel behavior (things like telling me to f*ck off to my face in front of company). The embarrassing behaviors (my mom becoming Jehovah’s Witness and denying all celebrations/gifts, when she signed me up for a pageant I never asked to be in, or being the mom who brought jello shots to people’s funerals). It explained an emotional coldness and disconnection that defined my upbringing (like eventually realizing it’s not normal for a mom to tell her kids not to say “I love you”, or to expect to hear it, rolling her eyes and walking away when I was in emotional distress, and worse).
I know that there are individuals out there who get abused in significant ways. I’m not going to write this and act like my upbringing was at Mommy Dearest, Jennette McCurdy, LaKiesha Allen, worst -on-the-spectrum levels. But regular mothers don’t do the kind of shit that my mom did. I have way too many absurd big T and little t trauma stories to tell about having this woman as my female parent.
Fast forward to my mid-30s, and I still had not succeeded in any truly love-based, long-term, and healthy romantic relationships. All my friends on the romantic continuum of normalcy were married and had not one, but several kids if they chose to have them. I still had never been in a single legit romantic relationship. Of the few fauxmances I had, none lasted longer than 1 year. A couple guys “dated” me until they grew tired of pretending to be what they were incapable of ever truly being. Or until they were scared away by the level of commitment that too much time suggested it would mean.
There was one date during the pandemic who revealed some narcissistic tendencies. Lemme tell you, that was a brief but hot mess I am now grateful for. It turned on the light of awareness within myself for the role I now realize I played in these fauxmance shenanigans, which you can read about on my health coach page, http://www.wellnesswahine.coach. I won’t villainize men like it is always 100% the guy’s “fault”, because that simply is not true. But I want to paint a picture of what the dating reality was like for the majority of my life because I know it resonates with the current truth of many other women out there who can’t figure out why they are failing at romantic success. I was, as Steve Harvey would say, a “sport fish” for emotionally immature, non-committal males who just wanted to get laid and poorly try on “boyfriend-ish” from the discount store. I didn’t realize I was welcoming the attention of non-committal discount shoppers who would eventually “return” me! I had placed myself in the wrong damn “store”. And maybe you are, too. Again, click on over to http://www.wellnesswahine.coach if you want help in this area of your life. But I digress. Back to Nalu…
My friend Raquel had mentioned that she got prescribed an ESA for chronic neck pain, and because her therapist recommended it after hearing that she also had no committed romance into her 30s. This is how I got the idea to inquire about the possibility of an ESA for my own issues. When I did, my therapist was specific that I was not allowed to get a cat like Raquel–I specifically needed a dog based on my personal history. I remember the therapist saying “a cat will size you up, decide how they feel about you, and write you off emotionally if they don’t care for you”. Therefore, if I was to use this therapeutic approach, it must be a dog, she said.
WHY I RECOMMEND A DOG, NOT A CAT, IF YOU CAN COMMIT ON THAT LEVEL.
I didn’t really understand why it “had” to be a dog. Cats hunt roaches, too. They are way lower commitment and require much less engaged care than a dog. (oh hi, red flags of my own immature emotional development). I was legit prepared to get a dwarf cat or a curly-haired cat, call it good, and be on my way with a roach hunting animal who would meow loud enough for the strangers to hear in case a panic attack-turned heart attack actually killed me one day.
Now I understand that a dog will force you into a deeply committed, life-long, relationship rooted in love and unconditional admiration. My dog is a mirror to my behavior and my own emotional state. A dog’s unconditional love is a medicine. My dog has a 6th sense not only for bombers that have hidden themselves in my work tote bag (true story), but also for the emotional state of the other hoomans around us. Dogs provide social-emotional biofeedback that I’m not sure a cat can. On the owner’s end, you have to engage with a dog on an emotional level.
A dog doesn’t just strut around your house to be pet here and there, watered and fed daily. A dog must be taken outside, walked several times a day, talked to, pet, groomed regularly, taken to the vet annually, bathed at least monthly, and it must be trained well, especially if it is to be a service animal. A dog’s behavior can’t be ignored by you or the other humans around you; and you simply cannot neglect a dog. When the therapist said “a cat will write you off”, I think that can be bi-directional. You can meet a cat’s minimum needs and it’ll tolerate that shit, gladly. Open the door, and a cat will take care of its own needs, and then still come back to bum an extra cache of food off of the humans. A dog requires a bonded, interdependent, ongoing-engagement partnership, point blank period. And if you’re not ready for that, don’t get a dog.
I think my therapist had an instinct that I basically needed to learn how to be in a healthy, long-term, committed love relationship, and I needed to learn what it felt like to be loved in adulthood, whether that love came from a romantic partner, or a dog. Because I most certainly didn’t know how to auto-generate self-love at that point in my life. But better learned late, and with the help of a dog, than never.
But I also didn’t realize that an additional perk of having an ESA is that they can accompany you on romantic dates. On dates, your dog can act as safety, feedback, and filter for whether your dates are truly the best match for you. I don’t know if all dogs possess this ability, but mine most definitely does. (He will try to aggress towards men who are sketchy AF).
So what is it like to date with an ESA dog?
FIRSTLY, ALL THE NON-DOG DUDES ARE FILTERED OUT.
If they have a cat, they were automatically out. Nalu does not like cats. So that eliminated a good portion of the prospects, making it faster to separate the wheat from the chaff. If they were the kind of male who hates dogs, especially small, adorable ones, they were out. If they’re not a “dog person”, or couldn’t imagine a dog living in their house, they were eliminated. This will really help you if you struggle with making decisions. And a lot of people with trauma histories usually do.
NALU IS EXTREMELY SOCIO-EMOTIONALLY ATTUNED.
I don’t know if his breeder does something special, or if this was unique to Nalu specifically. But he can read people like a motherf*cker. When we are walking down the street, if people seem sketchy AF he gets defensive. And if people are warm, and loving, and joyful, he also senses it and is attracted to emotionally-warm, emotionally-generous dog lovers. He will literally sit down with strangers on their beach blankets while he gets all the love and pets he craves– not even just tolerate being pet if they ask– he will full on cuddle right up, sit his cute ass right down, and throw it in “park” until the lovin’z are complete. Likewise, if I’m not relaxed, he doesn’t tolerate it well (unless he’s on the hunt for a roach), and he will be sure to let me know that I’m beginning to lose my cool by barking and pawing at me relentlessly until I get my anxiety in check.
That being said, I would try to go on some dates (I would often make a first or second date a compulsory dog walk). If Nalu tolerated the guy, we could proceed. If Nalu did not like them, he would whine and literally tug his leash in the opposite direction, wanting to leave. I can remember on one particular date, Nalu did not like the guy at all, and wanted to veto the walk entirely about five minutes in. It wasn’t the location, because we walked there a lot. He wasn’t tired, because this was his first major walk after being at home all day. He just did not like this dude. His resistance was so obvious it was embarrassing. But he was right. Because by the end of the date, me and the guy were practically arguing about differences of opinion, and this dude was pretty arrogant.
Nalu also revealed a date’s capacity to emotionally connect. I can recall another date who I thought was a dog person because his family had a dog. But when it came to my dog, the date really did not want Nalu trying to snuggle or cuddle with him. He wasn’t very kind or warm to Nalu. He was standoffish with him, actually; and made one too many comments about being the “alpha”. Needless to say, that guy wasn’t a keeper. Men worth keeping aren’t standoffish to small, adorable creatures. That’s a red flag. And if a 15 pound dog makes a grown ass man insecure about who’s the “alpha”, well…
WHEN YOU FIND A GOOD PARTNER, THEY WELCOME YOUR DOG INTO YOUR SHARED REALITY.
When you find a good romantic partner, the dog will like them. A lot. The partner will understand that your dog is an important part of your life (possibly the most important part of your life). A good partner will care about your dog, because they care about you, and they understand the dog came into your life before they did. At this point my partner has made it abundantly clear that if anything ever happens to me, he will take Nalu, without hesitation.
I was initially pretty nervous about having Nalu come over my partner’s house. I knew that integrating my dog into my romantic life would be the final “test”. I was nervous to impose a dog upon my partner’s pristine and fairly minimalist lifestyle. My boyfriend’s house is the kind of house that culls tidy behavior out of you because it is always in a default minimalist/neat/clean/ tidy state. It has a white shag rug. And well-maintained white carpet in the bedroom. The tops of surfaces are clear and curated with a minimal number of necessary items, and one plant. It’s the kind of house where you wipe spilled water off of the sink after washing your face, because the water splashes look out of place, and the towel for sink drying is right there next to the sink beckoning for you to use it.
I never insisted that we “try” having Nalu come over his house. I just waited patiently. As I did with every milestone in our relationship. So when my boyfriend was the one to invite Nalu to come over sooner than I expected, I was ecstatic. Nalu now basically lives part-time at my boyfriend’s house.
YOUR DOG WILL AFFIRM A PARTNER’S POSITIVE INTANGIBLE QUALITIES
Dating the right person with your dog will reveal the human partner’s amazing intangible qualities. My boyfriend is thoughtful, caring man; and a confident, calm leader. My boyfriend has limits/ boundaries (Nalu is not allowed to eat blueberries on the white shag carpet, and the couch gets covered with a yoga towel whenever Nalu is over). My boyfriend is nurturing, gentle, fun/funny, and does not hesitate to man up as needed. Like the time he carried Nalu down from the top of the Kuliou’ou ridge trail stairs on his back when it got hella hot. Or watching Nalu when my dad passed away. My boyfriend has zero weird hang-ups around who is the dominant “alpha” in our little pack.
Most importantly, Nalu adores my boyfriend. A lot. Whenever my bf comes over, you would think Nalu just won the dog lottery he is beside himself with glee. Anyone who has a Brussels Griffon knows that these dogs have a default grumpy face– Nalu smiles like a clown any time my boyfriend comes through the door.
My dog and my bf have bonded on a deep level. I’m so grateful that I used my dog as a coach and a second opinion for healthy love and dating. If you are a “later in life” single woman, consider if an ESA dog could be right for you. Or if you have a dog, bring them on dates ◡̈
puppy & paradise 