Im Not Single, I Have a Dog
Dogs in Our World Series
Beware of Dog: How Media Portrays the Aggressive Canine (Melissa Crawley, 2021)
Im Not Single, I Have a Dog: Dating Tales from the Bark Side (Susan Hartzler, 2021)
Dogs in Health Care: Pioneering Animal-Human Partnerships (Jill Lenk Schilp, 2019)
General Custer, Libbie Custer and Their Dogs: A Passion for Hounds, from the Civil War to Little Bighorn (Brian Patrick Duggan, 2019)
Dogs Best Friend: Will Judy, Founder of National Dog Week and Dog World Publisher (Lisa Begin-Kruysman, 2014)
Man Writes Dog: Canine Themes in Literature, Law and Folklore (William Farina, 2014)
Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West ( Brian Patrick Duggan, 2009)
Im Not Single, I Have a Dog
Dating Tales from the Bark Side
Susan Hartzler
Dogs in Our World
Series Editor Brian Patrick Duggan
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-8448-2
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-4303-8
Library of Congress and British Library cataloguing data are available
Library of Congress Control Number 2021006583
2021 Susan Hartzler. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover photograph (Shutterstock / Aleksey Boyko)
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To the memory of Berry Berenson Perkins
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the sister of my soul, Kim Ostrovsky, for loving me unconditionally and encouraging me to finish this book. I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Catherine Overturf since the first grade, who read every single version of the manuscript throughout the many years it took me to write. Thanks also to McFarland and Brian Patrick Duggan for taking a chance on me.
This book would not have been completed without the sage advice of writing coach extraordinaire Mandy Jackson-Beverly as well as the many teachers Ive worked with along the way, including Toni Lopopolo, Rita Wilson and every member of their writing groups, especially Marsha Mauhardt, Toni Guy and Lisa Angle. Michael OShea, Maura Kruse Noonan and my buddy Leslie Westbrook have been instrumental in my success as a writer. Thanks also to tech girl supreme Penny Fitzgerald and her mom Kay Fitzgerald-Luthi for their prayers and technical support. I am also profoundly grateful to my grade school guardian angel, Steven Montner, M.D., and my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Ring, who suggested I become a writer when I grew up.
My heartfelt appreciation goes to Gene Johnson, Flavia Potenza, Susan Franzblav and Emilie Hamashi Rayman for believing in me and to my dear friends Maria Miereanu and Brenda Piccirillo for always being there, no matter what. Im blessed to have amazing friends in my life like Susanne Hayek, sisters Dianna and Catherine Bari, Darcy Brinker and Lance Lombardo who listened, read and offered constructive criticism. In the dog world, my deepest thanks go to Marilyn Bennett, Kirsten Cole, and Pam Marks for showing me the many ways to bond with dogs. And I cant forget to thank Michelle Zahn from LePaws for representing me and my current pack.
I want to acknowledge the members of the Dog Writers Association of America whose work continues to inspire me and Therapy Dogs International for allowing me and my dogs to practice our life purpose. The children we have met over the years are my daily inspiration.
Special thanks to my goddaughters, Natasha Testa and Lindsay Overturf, both true blessings in my life. And last but not least, I am beyond grateful to Siesta, Blondie, Baldwin, and all my extraordinary dog children for sharing their lives with me.
Table of Contents
Preface
Ive always been a good judge of characterat least when it comes to friends and dogs. Romantic relationships havent turned out so well. At age sixty, Ive learned to accept, even love, my single status, provided I have my good friends and a dog or two by my side. But thats not always been the case.
Back in the 1980s, I found it tough to be a never-married woman approaching her thirties. Well-meaning people would ask time after time why I hadnt settled down and started a family. They still do.
Self-help books imply that being single is synonymous with being a neurotic harpy with impossibly high standards. Reading these best sellers made me feel more desperate. Even worse were all the celebrations I attended for my friendsfrom bachelorette parties and weddings to baby showersalways as the token wallflower. My own family didnt help, either. Mom and Dad treated me like an incompetent child way into my adulthood. The worst part? I behaved like one.
Newsweek magazine didnt help my anxiety when they published the article Too Late for Prince Charming? According to the magazine, single women over forty were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than get married. That thought made me, along with other single women across the country, extremely uncomfortable.
Time and time again, I found myself attracted to the quintessential bad boy, a good-looking guy with charisma oozing from his pores, ready and willing to allow a woman to take care of him financially and emotionally. Can you spell codependent ?
Im not alone in my attraction to bad boys. Research shows men who have vain and somewhat, well, psychopathic tendencies usually get more dates than the average guy. Whats up with that?
Think about it. Bad boys are often ridiculously good-looking. Their egos wont let them look anything other than their best. A naive girl like me had to learn that a bad boys good looks and charming ways could quickly wear out. They just cant seem to maintain that mesmerizing first impression. But theyre never dull, and in my naivety, I preferred them that way. I liked feeling captivated by my man.
Plus, bad boys know how to have a good time. Sure, theyre selfish, rule-breakers, and rebellious, but those negative qualities are what I found attractive. If you do, too, dont delude yourself, as I did, into thinking a sexy bad boy will become a devoted partner and loving father. No way.
Heres the worst part: I found that men who depended on me emotionally, physically, and financially made me feel needed. At first, feeling so needed fortified my self-esteem and eased the abandonment anxiety Id suffered since childhood. I hadnt figured out yet that my compulsive giving and fixing behaviors went hand in hand with my disappointing and disastrous romantic relationships.
I now know that my giver/fix-it pattern stemmed from being raised in a home where vital and important emotional needs were never acknowledged or adequately responded to by the adults in my life. Caregiving became my way to compensate for that deficit.
Dont get me wrong. All parents fail in some sense. As Mitch Albom so eloquently wrote in his New York Times best seller The Five People You Meet in Heaven : All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Ive never heard of a school or college for parents. Mom and Dad did their best and loved me in their way as much as they knew how. But they raised a confused little kidme.