Of all the things I could write about, given the ongoing demise of the American experiment, the only topic that feels worth the candle is Guinness. (This is not to scant the Marvelous María Beatriz, who is always and everywhere front and center.) Raging, being in high dudgeon, terrified, back to raging feels futile at the moment, like a one-armed wallpaper hanger in a hurricane.

Guinness, on the other hand, sweet 8-month-old cinnamon-colored mini-poodle Guinness – holding him while we secure all the doors at night or having my hand on his belly as he sits beside me in my Zoom meetings or his clever face as he susses out a noise or a smell or a movement: nothing better. Guileless and calculating at the same time, assertive but afraid to descend the basement stairs, an insistent barker for his food yet a coiled quiet warmth at night in the bed.

His presence in our lives brings presence to our lives, unlike so much happening around us, which seems bent on draining life of any purpose or beauty. He had had a rough beginning in life, coming to us dehydrated, hypoglycemic, exhausted from his puppy mill in Indiana. We weren't sure, after the first day we brought him home, whether he was going to make it – we spent part of that day in the emergency room of the vet hospital wrangling with the on-call vet about his chances of making it.

We brought him home – we were not going to tender him to the untender mercies of that hospital. He wasn't eating, didn't seem interested in it, so we tried this and that until we hit on something suggested by a video we'd seen on getting feral cats to socialize: Gerber's baby food. For the cats, it was the chicken dinner, but for Guinness, he loved the applesauce. So we fed him applesauce laced with a few drops of Karo syrup for calories, and from there he gradually drew himself up to his regular puppy food. We almost wept when we brought him to our vet for a checkup and vaccinations when he weighed in at five pounds, up a pound and half from the first visit. (He's now around 11 pounds, which will probably be his top weight given his mini size.)

From that rocky start he has been nothing but spectacular for us. He seems to love everything about being alive, especially if we're walking him down the sidewalk and he has the chance to greet everyone – and there is no one who does want to be friends with him, to be spirits-lifted by his eager face, his supple body, his openness to all who pay him the gift of attention.

We're different species, of course, and have no access to each other's minds. But we can read each other pretty well, at least as far as basic needs go, and we've synched our living accommodations fairly smoothly – he knows where to go to relieve himself in the middle of the night, which he does with great accuracy, and hops back onto the bed when he's done; we've got the feeding patterns down along with the walk patterns; we have a morning rhythm for walk, feeding and playing, an evening rhythm where he waits while we eat at the dining room table and then joins us when we watch some episode of something. We take him in the car wherever we can, and we've set a crate up in the back seat for his comfort and safety. We do leave him alone at times, usually for no more than a couple of hours, and he seems to have accommodated himself to that, to not feeling abandoned: he doesn't rip anything up or knock anything down and sedately gnaws on his bully stick. (We have a camera set up in the room so that we can check in on him.)

It is work taking care of him (more work, that is, than the cats) because he is dependent completely on us. Once we've accepted that duty, there's no shirking it. As the fox says to the little prince, "You become responsible forever for what you've tamed." The fact that not everyone practices  this – as our animal shelters demonstrate – does not make it untrue.

There are challenges ahead, such as travel. I fret a lot even leaving him for a couple of hours – I have a hard time imagining I can trust anyone to care for him for a longer period away. There is also figuring out how to travel with him – finding the pet-friendly venues and events. But these are all operational challenges – solvable. I just need to get myself into a position of accepting that I could, for a time, be separated from him without the universe collapsing.

After our 14-year-old cat, Cordelia, died, I was not convinced I wanted a dog. In fact, I was looking forward to having just the two cats, Seamus and Fiona, and the quietness that came with that. And at first this was going to be María Beatriz's dog since she was the one strongly advocating for it – I would take care of it but in a sort of cursory, perfunctory way.

But that is not how it worked out.

Just being with him – just trying to understand another being's needs and points of view and serve them well – just his willingness to tolerate us, or at least me – like the fox said, it makes us unique to each other, important to each other, tied to each other. Enriches the hours, it does, this tie to Guinness.

At least I have that during these days of shock, awe, deceit, buffoonery, grifting and cruelty.