11/16/2025
The Dogs We Unmade by Anneka Svenska
Once, I was built for something.
The old centuries still breathe inside my ribs.
I am a Malinois — a body tuned to flight and flame.
Shaped to leap, to guard, to search, to save.
Now I am told, “be easy,” lie still on a sofa that feels like a cage.
My muscles hum for orders that never come.
I am an Akita Inu.
My ancestors stood between their people and the bear;
courage ran hot as iron in their veins.
Now I am asked to be soft, compliant, small—
and punished when my inheritance answers back.
I am a Beagle.
I once sang the world’s map with my nose,
a bell that rang for life itself.
Now a silent shock tightens my throat,
and I am called with fingers that never learned my music.
I am a Yorkshire Terrier.
Down in the dark I was lightning—
a whistle of paws through rat-run stone.
Now I am glass on a cushion, legs unused,
lifted like an ornament, set down like a worry.
I am a Labrador Retriever.
Joy was a cold pond and a clean splash—
a bird carried home, soft-mouthed, radiant.
Now I grow heavy by the radiator,
a babysitter with a broken compass.
I am a Jack Russell.
I was bred to square my chest to fear,
to face down the hole that bit back.
Now my spark is called “naughty,”
and they file me into the shape of a quiet room.
I am a Siberian Husky.
I knew the long white hush and the drum of snow,
a horizon that kept its promises.
Now the world is four walls and a sour lawn.
I dig to bury the ache in my bones.
I am a Border Collie.
Made to waltz with a shepherd, to pour order out of chaos,
to work until the stars came out in my eyes.
Now, for want of sheep, I gather bicycles and children—
and am scolded for being faithful to the blueprint in my blood.
I am all of these.
I am a dog of the 21st century—
pretty, packaged, compliant on paper—
and also a someone, hammered and honed by purpose.
Eight or ten hours alone is not comfort.
It is a clock with no hands.
I bark, I dig, I shred, I break—
or I sink, go silent, thin into a shadow.
This is not mischief. This is despair.
You give me a soft bed and a full bowl—
and wonder why I look away.
It’s because the road I was forged to run
doesn’t fit inside your living room.
If you love me—if my blue eyes or sleek coat called to you—
but your life cannot hold the work my breed still begs for,
do not buy me. Do not adopt me.
If you want my look but not my fire,
if you think love alone can rewrite a lineage,
do not buy me. Do not adopt me.
Yes, I am modern.
But my pulse still drums with fighter, hunter, puller, protector, guide.
History moves in my marrow.
Please, choose with the weight of that in your hands.
And if you must leave me, think of two instead of one—
so the hours won’t gnaw so deep.
Your workday is my winter.
I am a dog of now,
and every dog that stood before me.
I ask only for the life I was meant to live.
— Anneka Svenska
