How do you become a person who owns three dogs?

15 x 10 x 9 in

stoneware paperclay, underglazes, glazes

2024

private collection

How do you become a person who owns 3 dogs?

If you are like me, it starts with just one.

One you chose, on purpose.

You decided on one.

Years go by and after a while a thought pops into your head:

Maybe your dog needs a friend.

Or circumstances change.

Kids come along

and your dog is your dog

and the kids want their own dog

Which will also become your dog

(If you are a grown-up and realize: all pets are your responsibility)

Then your dog

The one you chose

Gets old, or too sick

and you are back to one dog.

And things feel emptier. Sadder

One day you see your one dog (because there is always one dog)

Playing alone in the yard with a ball

And you think:

My dog needs a friend.

And so it goes

But there is always only two

Sometimes there’s one again, but soon there are two

Because two feels right.

Two is the right number.

Until, one day you are driving

In the middle of a forest

You catch a glimpse of a dog running along side the road

As you drive by.

In an instant you think:

What can be done?

Should you stop and see this lost soul

who has been out on the road far too long

matted and very, very thin?

You pull over

Open the door

And become the kind of person who owns three dogs.