The World of Dogs

a relentlessness of survival and success. And I learned early that this works for some, that this for some will always be enough. For others would be more than enough and more than they had. I also learned that this was not what I needed. That there was a danger. Even when the choreography of life depends upon the denial of so much of the rest, of all that is

messy and undeniable, of all that is human. Success even becomes a wicked word when your own definition of it is different from that of the ones hoping for you to succeed. When it becomes clear that it's you who is different. That's Chloe Shaw, author of the luminous memoir, What Is a Dog? Chloe's story is tender and beautiful, and at its center is about the secrets we hold in our innermost selves, the ones that don't allow others

to know us and rob us of our voice. It's also about the saving graces all around us, if only we know where to look. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. I'm an only child. We ended up when I was about eighteen months old in Brooklyn Heights, New York,

due to my father's job as an architect. And you know, I grew up in this pretty dazzling historic section of New York City, a very tight knit community in many ways. The first house we moved into, you know, I barely remember. But the real big memory from that house is the death of our first dog. It's easy. Who was my parents first baby. I just remember her collapsing on the kitchen floor and then I never saw her again, and

you were held. I was probably four. The first house Chloe does remember well is on pure Pont Street, also in Brooklyn Heights. She and her parents moved into the three floor brownstone shortly after Easy has died. The house is in a massive state of renovation when they move in. Her father is an architect after all, but eventually the

work is finished and the house becomes a home. He would walk up the front stoop and come into the vestibule, and there was a big grandfather clock, a beautiful clock that has been in my family for many, many years. And you'd go up to the first floor, and that's where the living room and the dining room in the kitchen were. I feel like kitchens there where people collect.

So much happens there. So we spent a ton of time in this tiny, tiny kitchen, where my mom um had a catering business from for a bunch of years of my childhood. And then upstairs on the second floor were the bedrooms. We all had our spots in the house, probably being an only child, but also just all of

us being the people we are and were. It wasn't the kind of situation where we'd often be all hanging around together in the living room playing a board game or you know, unless there was a specific meal or an event or friends over. What were your three spots they were the kitchen usually for my mom. My dad was in his study, so that was also actually on the on the first floor, and I was in my bedroom with my dog Agatha. Agatha, when I was six,

was a puppy. E is funny. In my mind, I thought we had her for a few months at least, but I talked it over with my mom. I think it was just like a few days. It's amazing what childhood is sort of, you know what trauma and and and memory can do. So and Agatha was what kind of job washing? So she was a Scottish terrier and my dad had gotten her for me for Christmas and she had parvo, so before we even got her, she was gravely Oh and I actually just found this little

book that I wrote. It's just my scribble, and it says we got a dog and I liked her, but she died and I cried. Sorry, I mean to laugh. It's an entire no I know. When I found this, I thought, wait, I already wrote this book, because then it says before we took her to the vet she got very sick. I loved my dog, and I still cried. And their pictures of me through out with this little sad puppy, um who Yeah, it was never well and she died and that was a really I mean, like

I said, I remember Easy dying. I remember watching her collapse in our kitchen, Um, and the disappearance of her, I guess is what really stays with me. He was an Afghan hound and that's a big dog, and she was just gone. I'm sure my parents did say something about you know, I knew she had died, but I don't. I didn't know what death was then. You know, that was death. That was my first experience. And then after

as the one, your mom took her to the vet. Right, and another dog in your life and another being that you love vanishes, that's right. As a child, what was your relationship with your mother and with your father? Like it's hard to talk about just one of them at a time, which is kind of interesting to me as I'm realizing that it feels sort of like my only child, miss, where I kind of had one at a time. So whatever was happening, often it was just my dad and me,

or my mom and me. Um, even if it was like a conversation or you know, an event that was happening when we were a threeso amount in the world. It actually felt the strangest to me. Um, I think I think it felt confusing, because I think I always felt like I was a little bit like either on my mom's side of whatever was happening or on my dad's side. So to know me as myself was kind of scary in a way. About six months after Chloe loses her puppy Agatha to parvo, her family gets another dog.

They name her Agatha too. Agatha Too would be my beloved until I was eighteen years old. I mean, she was my whole childhood. Thing that I processed kind of in retrospect was that my mom I found out only in my thirties that she had had a miscarriage in our old apartment was Easy, so when we moved, you know, they lost their first baby easy and then their actual second baby. So this would have been a younger sibling

for you, a younger sibling exactly. I mean, I don't know how far along she was, but I know they were kind of trying to figure out there that at that point, their small little Brooklyn apartment and um, who would sleep were kind of thing. But as we all know, that grief was just carried along into the new house. I always think about that and how much I knew about that or didn't know, you know, and then to

have our puppy die so quickly, that's really interesting. So you're saying you were in your thirties before you ever knew that. I suppose miscarriages are often things that parents don't talk about. Do you feel like it was um somehow there in some way, shape or form, despite not being talked about the way I think probably most things that aren't talked about are yes, absolutely, And you know, my family does tend in that direction completely, you know, to just try to keep a stiff upper lip and

you know, carry on. So, you know, even the death of Agatha one was so striking to me because that was the little puppy who had par vot and it was the first time I remember seeing my mom cry, and one of the only times I feel like in my life I've seen her cry. She came around the corner to tell me that our puppy had died, and my reaction to her crying was to laugh, and I just I started laughing hysterically and like within a snap, started sobbing because I realized what the reality was, but

the emotion there was so uncomfortable to me. Um, you know, I think all those emotions that aren't shared are really are really difficult and mirror everywhere. I mean, they kind of just find places to sneak in Agatha two, let's just call her Agatha from here on In is a container for Chloe's secrets. Into this wee dog, Chloe pours her whole self. She shares with her everything, as she writes Squibbled inside the bright red cabin of her heart. I would always just find her. I mean, my room

was a really special place to me. It felt like a completely safe place that I made my own. But almost even more than that was Agatha. So wherever she was, I felt alive and I felt safe, and I felt just adored and adoring. So we would have little event just even in the house. You know, I would, I mean the way I still do. Honestly. I lie kind

of nose to nose with her. I would kind of breathe in her breath, and I just felt like I felt more known by her, which is kind of a strange thing to say, I guess, But she just was calm and quiet and funny and just accepted me. However I was I think, you know, in the bigger world I grew up in, I felt a little bit more like I was supposed to be the good girl all the time, and I was supposed to, you know, look

presentable and hold myself together. And of course I didn't always feel that way, but I don't remember feeling in a way that I couldn't do that, except when I would cry in front of Agatha. So she was my

little witness. My parents put on these incredible dinner parties and just beautiful surroundings, beautiful people, and I was kind of expected to show up and be present, and they've always been much more social um and out in the world in those beautiful ways, and where I've wanted to kind of prolonge with the piano with my dog quite happily.

So you know, I found my favorite people. I made it work, but it just was never I don't know, it never felt natural to me, and I think partly it was because I didn't feel seen or known in those spaces. I felt a bit more like I was performing. We'll be right back. This need to show up to perform leaves Chloe feeling anxious. She has recurring fears and an active imagination that tends to run away with itself. She retreats into her room more and more, but her

fears find her there too. My room was kind of my safe place, and I felt very known there, and I felt like when I would get into my bed at night, even when I did have this habit of seeing sharks went through my room. I guess I was always on my bed with me, so that made me feel Okay, I can't describe them any better than they are in my mind, but I saw these big sharks, and I was terrified of sharks, and they would come

through my room. I was scared of wolves coming into our Brooklyn apartment, and I guess I lived with this controlled response, like I wanted to control all of that as much as I could, um the same way I wanted to control the world around me. I mean, making someone upset or disappointed or like, whether it was a friend or my parents or whoever, there could be nothing worse.

So I was. I was also just a constant peacemaker, but at the great expense of I think who I felt like I really was often and I think in the world of dogs, you know, that's not that's not a known thing, so it felt more comfortable. Did you ever tell anyone at that time about the sharks and the wolves? My parents knew that I was scared. I was scared of the dark, so as long as I

was in my bed, I was okay. You know. I didn't know how to communicate it in a helpful way, um, and they didn't probably know how to hear it in a helpful way. I think they loved me. They were loving, but it was also just a very uncomfortable situation to have come up for them, you know, to know how to handle it, to be someone who's not okay. They are both very loving people, but I think they've sort of done the best job they could do with how

they were parented as well. You know, emotional honesty was not a huge theme in their households either. As Chloe continues to see sharks and wolves around her, she develops obsessive behaviors as a way to exert control over the otherwise uncontrollable world. She begins to bite her fingernails. She begins to walk differently, like a horse galloping. She begins to rip strands of hair from her head and tie them to door knobs of the places she and her

family visit a way of whispering. Chloe was here. Thinking back over that behavior, I almost see it as kind of letting the world know I was there, you know, because I often the most present feeling for me has been wanting to disappear, to want to just not be seen, even though that was probably what I most wanted, because that's what I wasn't feeling was really known or seen, you know, being visible. I was visible but not known. So one of the things you write is these feelings

I was trying not to feel. We're starting to take a toll. Yes, I think so often I was hiding, not wanting to be found or not thinking I should be found. But it does feel like there was a message that I was kind of born into, of not not actually being known for who I am specifically. But Chloe doesn't always know who she is specifically either. She grows increasingly confused about where and if she belongs. In addition to hiding her feelings, she starts to physically hide

herself too. Under the piano at her parents parties was Agatha at her side. She starts to dissociate, to just kind of float away, even when she has her first kiss, she's not exactly there. For Thomas a very nice kid, but I didn't want to kiss them, and so, you know, I agreed to because I thought that's what I should do. But yeah, I just went off and I found his dog in the other room and kind of just said, all right, I get this done and went off somewhere.

So I do think that it was it was mainly a feeling of not wanting to be where I was and to be who I was Whenever there was a big emotion, and it could be a really wonderful emotion or it could be a really terrifying emotion. Both were uncomfortable for me. I would kind of float off into some other world, you know that I had. It could be with my dog, and it could be walking like a horse, which it was also a little bit obsessive,

but it could be just really becoming a horse. A couple of years later, Chloe and her classmates are watching the Space Shuttle Challenger launch, and with so many others around the world, they witness its devastating explosion. This haunts Chloe. It's an awful thing to witness, proof that life is terrifying and tragedy is everywhere, and it's real, reaching far beyond the sharks and wolves in her bedroom. But even though so much of the world is grieving and scared,

Chloe still hesitates to feel her deep feelings. The world she's going up in doesn't seem to tolerate such a depth of emotion. I did feel deeply, and I found outlets for those feelings in certain ways, and then when I wasn't able to share them because they didn't feel accepted, I do feel like they bottled up, and you know, sometimes it would just they just happened, you know. The Challenger was a big one for me and my mom. She was it was almost like she didn't quite know

what to do. So she told me to write to Ronald Reagan and I did and I got a letter back from him, which was exciting, just to get a letter from the president. But she could have had these ways, and my parents had ways of orienting me a little bit. When I think they didn't quite know what to do, I think crying, you know, crying. It was a thing in my childhood where it was very distressing to my parents when I would cry, so I tried not to. I think, don't cry was kind of a refrain in

my house. How would they respond if if you started to cheer up about something, my mom would ask, you know, why are you crying? Don't cry? You know, that would be kind of a response, which she and I've talked about as as I've been an adult, and you know, she's always saying how she didn't want me to feel the pain. But I was also trying to say it. But that's real, and I think the refrain was similar in her house. It wasn't emotionally open, like crying is

fine or saying I love you, you know. I Mike er Biglia, who is one of my favorite comedians, He always talked about how his parents say I love you by saying take care, and I just think that's the funniest thing ever. You know, that's not the similar in my house. I know I'm loved, but it also means something to say certain words and also just be seen for who you are and for what your emotions are at any moment. Crying is a release, and if we're told not to cry, all that sadness has no place

to go. It's a little like keeping a secret. Keeping a secret doesn't mean it vanishes. It just means it gets stored somewhere not very comfortable, and one way or another it finds expression, usually in a distorted, toxic way. It's the same with Chloe's pent up tears. They just have to go somewhere else, somewhere hidden. I think the three of us, my parents, and I have spent multiple occasions all being terribly sad or stressed out, and the main work that's happening is to not cry. We'll be

back in a moment with more family secrets. When Chloe's in the eighth grade, she's walking home from school one afternoon and that feeling of wanting to disappear overtakes her. There's a group of boys trailing behind. Some are her friends, but she'd rather just keep moving, not say hello. But then one boy catches up to her and gropes her. This is horrifying enough, but the other boys in her group her friends, just stand there and laugh. They don't help her. A herd mentality kicks in and for a

few painfully long minutes, it's Chloe versus them. Chloe eventually gets herself out of the herd and heads home to safety. She does not tell her parents or even her closest friend. Just like the trying, I held it somewhere in my body, but I didn't feel it. I was already pretty scared of the kid who actually growed me, and I just kept a distance from him and the sad necessor the

tears or you know, any emotions. I kind of shoved it somewhere, and my parents didn't know about that until I wrote an essay about it, maybe seven years ago. Six years ago. It's an interesting sort of statement about communication with them. Definitely. Yeah. The following year, when Chloe is a freshman in high school, she meets Josh, who's a senior. They start dating and they stay together when he goes off to college at Princeton, which is not too far. They fall in love. He really sees Chloe

and knows Chloe something she's not used to. So I definitely allowed him access to myself. You know. I think we experienced so many first together, and I really really loved his mother and his father and his family in general. I think that household offered me a place of greater emotional support. And just you know, they would yell at each other, they would It was just really something I had not quite seen before because I thought you had

one argument, well, there goes that relationship. So was there this sense of almost break ability in the house that you grew up in, Like there was a need to be careful with each other, like somehow like the messiness of life, the flaws, the messy feelings were threatening or dangerous.

Definitely in my house, my parents when they had to have some intense conversation or if emotions ran high, they would usually close themselves behind the door or you know, and I understand as the parents, there are times and that's appropriate, but there were also just things that involved me and in Josh's family, when you would be there, what was the contrast? What was that like? They overwhelmed me? To be honest, um, at first, I mean they were.

They were only nice to me, but they were overwhelming. All their emotions seemed on the surface, so if someone was in a bad mood or if someone was really excited, it all was right there, whereas you know, with my family, it was just a much more guarded situation where you could just feel that, or at least I could, and it felt terrible, you know, to not know how everyone was feeling in the room, and even if it was something that you weren't feeling. Can't we talk about that?

I think I felt so much inside that couldn't be seen, and I feel like Dasha's family both saw it um but also just made a space for all of that to be acceptable. Finally, with Josh's family, Chloe is surrounded by people who aren't afraid to own their feelings. Just when Chloe thinks she might be able to sustain this, to own her feelings, Josh's mom becomes sick with cancer and Agatha is also sick. Chloe starts to dissociate again,

and she does what she's done before. She floats outside herself, numb, unfeeling. It really felt like that time in my life that I couldn't show up. I mean, I think, you know, Josh and I had this lovely, beautiful relationship and between our families as well, But when it came to something as real as his mother, you know, potentially dying, I didn't face it the way I wished I had. I kind of left college and abandoned everything behind and broke

up with him. Yes, yes, that's right. It's like the way you describe your parents leaving the first department in Brooklyn, you know where all that all that hard stuff happened, your mother's miscarriage and easy dying, and just this feeling of wanting to get away from all that loss, and all of the feeling that would went along with all that loss for the possibility of loss. Yeah, Josh's mom ultimately does die, so does Agatha. Loss upon loss, sharks,

and wolves. Chloe weathers these storms, stabilized by her life at Williams College. She finds important mentors and begins to reinvent and discover herself there. She graduates and moves back to New York City. For the first time in her life. She is dogless. She does, however, have two cats, good company, but not quite the same. The sensation of floating stays with her throughout her twenties. She tries to write to

build a life. Her parents are still living in Brooklyn, so they meet up occasionally, but often Chloe doesn't want to. They feel disappointed, she feels guilty, and this dance goes on for some years. She has a boyfriend and a breakup. She floats, But when Chloe is thirty two, her friend Sid convinces her to meet a guy named Matt. Matt has a dog, a dog named Booker. There was really him an instant love I think for all three of us.

He was standing by a big boulder near a trail in Brantford, Connecticut, and Sid drove me and her dog j J out to meet them, and we went for this beautiful hike through the woods and we just kept looking over said at each other and all talking the whole time. And Booker, a fairly large dog, was a big leaner, so he would he would just press his body up against your legs. Matt set up the time you're part of the pack, and uh, we started emailing, and I think it was two weeks later we started

going back and forth from Brooklyn to Connecticut. We I don't think spent a weekend apart for like a year and a half. And then I moved in with them, and Booker became an incredibly important dog to you. He really did. Yeah, yeah, I mean it really was, apart from what an exceptional dog he was. And I it's it's interesting to think of him kind of based on his death, but I have to say it really was. I feel like taking care of him all those years as his kind of you know, home dog parents, and

then really planning his whole death. I think I put almost every loss I've ever felt into that. Um, you know, I think I was finally ready to be so present. I mean, my I lost my really beloved grandfather who I called Seaweed before that, but I it was too hard for me to even I went to his memorial service, but it was actually quite hard for me to even go visit him in the last year of his life.

He just had all these symptoms and was getting a little paranoid, and it really, I don't know, I couldn't. My mom would go religiously, which I really respect, but it was it was too hard for me. And I think Booker kind of broke something open in me that allowed me to just finally feel all those things and actually not care who thought, what about whatever where I

was feeling. And we sobbed and sobbed, you know, and buried him and he's in our backyard and it really was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, brutal but beautiful. By the time of Booker's brutal, beautiful burial, Matt and Chloe have started their own family. They have a son, a daughter, and another dog, Safari. So as heartbreaking as Booker's death is Chloe is far from alone. The heartbreak is shared and collective, as is the healing.

Even as a parent and having to deal. You know, it actually gave me, given my background, it gave me some pretty tremendous anxiety two shepherd my own kids through big emotions, because I feel like another big challenge I came up against was when I had not one kid, but two kids and had to mother siblings and all their real, very very surface emotions, and it was more than I could manage. At times, I just thought, this is when you don't ever talk to each other again.

But that wasn't true. They would, you know, they could be mad at each other, but just like friends that I had as a kid who had siblings, they just kind of learned from each other too. But I had to kind of shepherd them through this loss, this tremendous loss um. And my daughter was only two and my son was five, and they had completely different responses. Ray who's too. She she kind of said how sad it was, but she didn't know how to, you know, she wasn't

gonna cry necessarily about that. But this giant dog, I mean, he was huge and he occupied a lot of her life was gone. So we painted rocks and took them down to his grave, and Jackson, my son, who was five, you know, he just kind of he said, oh, I'm fine, you know, I'm not sad, And then that night just had a huge, huge melt down and finally let me hug him till he sobbed and sobbed, and it was so relieving to me. It was so relieving to me

to have him be able to do that well. And he was able to do that because you made the space for it. Yeah, And I think that's what it felt like for me too. After Booker's death, Chloe is in therapy and finds that now, unlike her child's self, she cannot stop crying. Her floodgates have opened, and her secretive way of processing the world, her silence, is no

longer possible. She writes, I was still in the process of breaking down, of breaking systems down, systems that had formed me, Systems I had relied on since before I knew the word system. Systems that might have helped in childhood, but we're failing me as an adult. So when I was a child and I relied on dogs so heavily, I think that was my coping mechanism for a lot of difficult situations, just being under the piano with Agatha.

When I met Booker, you know, honestly just lying with him, walking him, getting to know him, and then wanting this other dogs safari in our life. But as I I got I had been married to Matt and then had my kids, I was also starting to realize, even though there are parts of me that probably will always be a little bit more solitary, and maybe that's just my nature.

I also, like I used the phrase being the dog a lot in the book, being the dog started to become something that felt avoid in my family life, my own family life, so with my kids and my husband. So I think that's where it just suddenly felt like in therapy talking about it, processing all of my childhood and then coming to this place where I could actually

make limitations. You know, I could say no, I could say what I felt and it would be okay, whether I was with a dog or a human, or it would just become a conversation you know that had to be worked out, whether with my husband or my kids. I just could let go a little bit more of that constant need to perfect something, or just be so reliable to control everything, you know. I feel like I was able to start being able to be the human but still loved docs. Chloe also finds therapy in being

physically active. She enrolls in a class called Tough that's t u f F Girl Fitness, Tough Girl Fitness. She feels at home the instant she walks through the doors. This class is fun and well tough, but that's not all. It's the antidote to floating away. To use the words strong to describe myself in any way I wouldn't have felt appropriate before I started going there. And yes, I became more physically strong, but I have to say it led into a greater understanding and appreciation for just choices

I've made. And you know, like we all of us getting through our childhoods, it can be a lot to then become a full grown person, you know, whether that's someone who sort of follows the path that you were, the way you were raised, or if you choose something completely different. And I think I've always felt a little different, not just a little, I think a lot different. And I think that place allowed me to lift a really heavy kettle bell and scream and sweat and have people

cheer for me. I mean, I I've never done that before, and it really did kind of lend such a huge helping hand to the to the rest of my growth. I have to say, just emotionally, yeah, I love that. Yeah, to be seen, to be seen, and you know, I just I just had this image of you lifting a kettle ball and screaming, and you know, imagining anything like that remotely happening in the in the home of your childhood. Oh, I'd never screamed. I'd never screamed before. This wonderful woman

who goes there. She's a photographer, and she did these photography sessions where she would photograph whatever you wanted, you know, at the gym, and I was like, yeah, I'm doing that. And so during ours we were talking and I was starting to talk about my family and my emotional history and all that, and she she just looked right at me, like after five minutes and said, have you ever screamed before? And I said no, I would never scream And she said,

do you want to? And so she took this picture of me screaming at the top of my lungs and she said, I'll do it with you, and so she took a picture as she screamed at the top of her lungs, and we both started sobbing. It was really really beautiful. Yeah. Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Molly Zachor is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd like to share, please leave us a voicemail

and your story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also find me on Instagram at Danny writer. And if you'd like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Read Adeo app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.