I set him free, and he stayed

It’s hard not to talk about suffering when I feel like this chapter of my life should be called exactly that.

Suffering.

I have lost a lot recently. In April of 2025, I lost Jackson. My first dog of my adult life. My roommate. My best friend.

Jackson and Albert were both with me for thirteen years. And if I’m being fair, Jackson was always my favorite.

Not because I didn't love Albert. Of course I did.

But Jackson needed you in this sweet little way that made you feel important to him. He wanted to be close. He wanted you. There was something about him that made loving him incredibly easy.

Albert was different.

Albert always seemed just a little disappointed in me.

Maybe in life in general. I don't know.

He loved me, but he also seemed to blame me.

And for the large majority of their lives, that was sort of who they were.

Jackson was my sweet boy. My favorite. The one I looked at and already worried there would never be enough time with.

And Albert was Albert.

Then Jackson died.

And somehow, in the middle of one of the worst losses of my life, I got to meet a version of Albert that I had never met before.

And he was incredible.

I don't know if Albert changed or if I did. Maybe we both did.

Maybe without Jackson there, I finally noticed things about Albert that had always been there.

Or maybe Albert and I had lost someone we depended on, and he quietly decided he was going to become someone I could depend on.

I'll never know.

I just know that after Jackson died, Albert and I found each other in a completely different way.

And the timing of it feels almost impossible to me now.

Because only weeks later, my entire life fell apart.

And right before it did, something happened with Albert that I have thought about so many times since.

We were at a horse show sometime in May.

My mother had bought Albert a brand-new leather leash, and he had spent the entire day tied up while I worked.

And when I say the entire day, I mean it.

Albert sat there for hours. He watched me run around. He watched horses come and go. He watched people walk past him.

And he stayed there on that leash.

It wasn't until the end of the day, when the work was done and I was sitting around with nothing left to do, that Albert chewed himself out of it.

At the time, I mostly thought:

Are you fucking kidding me?

It was a brand-new leather leash.

But then he came over and stood next to me.

He didn't run anywhere.

He didn't go off exploring.

He just stood there.

And I swear he looked at me and said:

You can set me free. I'll be good.

Which seemed like a pretty bold statement from someone who had just destroyed the thing keeping him tied up.

I remember looking at him and thinking, How can you possibly say that? You just chewed yourself out of a leash.

But something about it stayed with me.

Because Albert could have done that at any point that day.

He could have chewed through that leash hours earlier while I was busy.

He could have made himself one more problem I needed to solve.

But he didn't.

He waited until I was done.

And when he finally freed himself, all he did was come sit beside me.

It felt strangely deliberate.

Almost like he wasn't trying to escape the leash at all.

He was trying to show me that he didn't need it.

That I didn't need to worry about him.

That he knew when I needed him to stay put.

That maybe, after thirteen years of me thinking Albert was the one I had to keep an eye on, he was telling me:

You don't have to worry about me anymore.

I can handle myself.

And something in his eyes told me to believe him.

So I did.

I started letting him be free.

Okay, sure, he would bark at people.

He was still Albert.

But he never proved me wrong.

And looking back now, I think somehow he knew what a hard time I was having.

Because from that moment forward, he never made my life harder.

And my life was about to get really fucking hard.

On May 31st, I lost the life I had spent twenty years building..

I lost a lot of what I thought I knew about my life and the people in it.

And suddenly, we had to start over.

We landed at Dunham, and suddenly Albert had all this space to roam.

I was walking around thinking we had lost everything.

Albert was walking around telling me we were rich.

I kept trying to explain to him:

Albert, we are homeless.

He didn't believe me.

Because as far as he was concerned, these were the best days of his life.

He had space. He had freedom. He had me. There were horses and people and things happening everywhere. He could wander around and come find me whenever he wanted.

What exactly did he think we were missing?

While I was looking around and seeing everything that had been taken from us, Albert was looking around like somehow we had won the lottery.

And maybe I should have listened to him more then, too.

Because he didn't care what we owned.

He didn't care that the place wasn't ours.

He didn't care that I was terrified or that I had absolutely no idea how I was going to put our lives back together.

He just knew we were together.

So, to Albert, we were rich.

And eventually, somehow, we bought this farm.

Albert knew the difference immediately.

He knew this one was ours.

And he walked around this place like a fucking king.

Like perhaps he had personally negotiated the purchase.

Every inch of it belonged to him.

The barns. The fields. The driveway. The machines. Everyone who came through the gate.

All of it.

He had followed me when we had nowhere to go, lived like a king when we owned absolutely nothing, and then got to see us build something that was actually ours.

And I am so grateful for that.

I'm grateful he got to see it.

I'm grateful he got to know that we made it.

Because he was there when we had nothing.

And somehow, even then, he thought we had everything.

Of course, once we got here, Albert also apparently appointed himself head of security.

It did not matter whether you were a stranger, a client, an employee, Stephen, or me.

If you came onto the property, Albert felt it was his responsibility to notify the entire farm of your arrival.

Even if he had known you for years.

Even if you lived here.

Apparently no one was above suspicion.

I used to look at him and ask:

Why do you act like such a thug?

And Albert, wearing the gold chain I bought him and whatever hoodie I had put him in that day, would look back at me like:

It's because you dress me like a thug.

Fair.

He had a point.

Albert wasn't perfect.

He was ridiculous.

He was opinionated.

He barked too much.

He stood exactly where I needed to drive.

He had spent a good portion of his life seeming mildly disappointed in both me and the world around him.

He was Albert.

But when it actually mattered, he never made my life harder.

And when it really mattered, he never left.

Life has changed so much since we bought this farm.

There are a lot of nights now when everyone goes home and Stephen is away at a horse show, and I am here by myself.

Except I was never really by myself.

Because Albert was here.

If I was driving the machines, he would be there in my blind spot—always—working alongside me as though whatever ridiculous project I had decided needed to be finished was also somehow his responsibility.

If I was up late working, he stayed up late too.

He would sit patiently beside me, waiting for me to finally stop.

This farm can feel very big when you are the only person on it.

But somehow, with Albert here, it never did.

I was never alone because he was here with me.

He watched me break down countless times.

He saw some of the worst versions of me.

Exhausted. Angry. Scared. Lost. Completely fucking broken.

And he loved me just the same.

He knew both versions of me.

He knew the person I was before May 31st, when I still thought I knew exactly what my life was going to look like.

And he knew the person who had to figure out how to build another one.

He came with me.

When everything else changed, he didn't.

And I think that is part of why losing him has broken my heart in a way I wasn't prepared for.

Because Albert wasn't just part of the life I lost.

He became part of the life I built after it.

Then, on August 9th of this year, I lost Zuzu.

She had been retired for more than a decade, but she was my girl.

She was the only horse who met me when I was finally brave enough to jump some of the biggest classes I had ever jumped.

She had a baby for me when she was twenty years old. And long after her riding career was over, she remained one of my good friends.

It didn't matter how many hours I spent with her—or didn't spend with her.

When I was sad, I could go to Zuzu.

And she was always there for me.

She didn't need an explanation.

She didn't need anything from me.

She just let me be sad beside her.

There is a lot about animals that people could learn a thing or two from.

On September 9th, I lost Albert.

And it was the worst day of my life.

After everything that has happened, that feels almost impossible to say.

But it was.

The immense loss I feel without him doesn't compare to any loss I've felt this year. And I've been trying to understand why.

Maybe it's because he was there for all of it.

Maybe it's because after losing Jackson, and my old life, and my home, and eventually Zuzu, Albert was the constant.

Maybe it's because this new life is so different.

There are nights now when I walk into the house and no one else is here.

And now, for the first time, I understand just how alone I can feel.

Because he isn't here.

For thirteen years, I worried there would never be enough time with Jackson.

What I didn't know was that there wouldn't be enough time with Albert either.

No amount of time would ever be enough. 

And somehow, the year and a half when I finally really got to know him wasn't nearly enough.

Maybe that's part of what hurts so badly.

I spent most of his life thinking I knew exactly who Albert was.

And then, at the moment when my life needed him most, he showed me there was so much more of him left for me to know.

I got to meet this incredible version of my dog.

And then I had to say goodbye to him.

When I think about Albert, Zuzu, and Jackson, I think about what I could have done differently.

Not because I think I failed them.

But when you lose an animal you loved that much, your mind has a cruel way of finding every ordinary moment you didn't know was important.

I wish I had stayed longer.

I wish I had stopped working more often.

I wish I had known that some completely ordinary Tuesday would someday become a day I would give anything to have back.

I think about what more I could have done to do right by them.

One more walk.

One more night letting Albert sit beside me while I worked.

One more time walking into Zuzu's stall when I was sad.

One more ordinary day with Jackson.

That's where my mind goes with them.

And maybe that's part of why I have found myself wanting to spend more time with animals and less time with humans lately.

There is something incredibly uncomplicated about the way animals love you.

Not easy.

God knows Albert wasn't always easy.

But honest.

Albert never pretended to be anything other than exactly who he was.

If he was annoyed with you, you knew.

If he didn't like something, you knew.

If he thought someone was suspicious—which apparently included every person who entered our property—you definitely knew.

And when he loved you, you knew that too.

There was no agenda behind it.

No score being kept.

No wondering what he really meant.

He just showed up.

For thirteen years, in all the completely ordinary ways that I didn't understand were extraordinary until they were gone, he showed up.

And during the hardest year of my life, when almost everything around me felt uncertain, Albert became remarkably simple.

He was there.

Maybe that's what I miss most.

Not some enormous thing he did for me.

Just his presence.

The sound of him moving around the house.

Seeing him standing somewhere he absolutely should not have been while I was trying to move equipment.

Hearing him bark because apparently Stephen, who lived here, had once again entered the property without Albert's authorization.

Looking down while I worked and knowing he was somewhere nearby.

I didn't have to wonder where I stood with Albert.

I didn't have to earn his loyalty every morning.

I didn't have to explain why I was sad.

I didn't have to be okay for him.

He just stayed.

And now that he's gone, I keep thinking about all the times I was busy while he was simply there.

All those moments that didn't seem important enough to notice.

They are the ones I want back.

I would take Jackson back.

I would take Zuzu back.

And God, I would take Albert back.

Not for some extraordinary day.

I don't need one more milestone with him.

I don't need one more perfect memory.

I want a shitty Tuesday.

I want to be exhausted and working too late and irritated because Albert is standing exactly where I need to drive.

I want him barking at someone he's known for six years.

I want him looking at me like I'm embarrassing him while wearing the hoodie I put on him.

I want one more day that doesn't feel important yet.

Because now I know those were the important ones.

And maybe that's why I keep coming back to that stupid leather leash.

Because Albert could have chewed himself free at any point that day.

But he waited.

He waited while I worked.

He waited while I was busy.

He waited until I didn't need him to be one more thing I had to think about.

And then he chewed himself free and came to stand beside me.

I didn't understand how much that moment would eventually mean to me.

I didn't know that within weeks my entire life would change.

I didn't know we would end up at Dunham, where I would insist we were homeless and Albert would insist we were rich.

I didn't know we would find our way here.

I didn't know he would walk around our farm like a king.

I didn't know there would be nights when Stephen was gone and everyone had gone home and Albert would be the only reason I wasn't alone.

I didn't know how much I was going to need him.

Maybe he didn't either.

But that day, in his own strange way, he showed me something.

He didn't need me to hold onto him for him to stay.

He could take care of himself.

He could be trusted with his freedom.

And when I gave it to him, he didn't use it to go farther away from me.

He used it to stay closer.

Maybe that's what animals understand that we sometimes don't.

Love isn't proven by how tightly you can hold onto something.

Sometimes it's proven by what happens when you don't.

For the rest of his life, Albert was free.

And for the rest of his life, he chose to be beside me.

I spent a long time  thinking Albert was the dog I had to keep an eye on.

It turns out he was keeping an eye on me.

I set him free.

And he stayed.

God, I just wish he could have stayed longer.