Chloe Dalton’s “Raising Hare” Reshaped How I See My Pug

I was gifted Chloe Dalton’s “Raising Hare” by my Grandma’s best friend at the end of my junior year of high school. The cover immediately got my attention. A little bunny, how cute, I thought. My love and appreciation of our natural world has often been remarked as a trivial interest by peers or even my family members. So when I received this book I felt like I had finally been seen. A book about a woman raising a hare by herself in the countryside. But more so, it was a book about reshaping human understanding of our relationship with the natural world. I have often been misunderstood when it comes to my fascination with animals. I have come to understand that the more you respect and appreciate our environment the more you will seek to conserve it.  Chloe Dalton’s first memoir follows a personal anecdote of caring for a lost leveret in the English countryside. She explores how far humans will go to sequester their own loneliness by domesticating an animal meant for life outdoors. Dalton chooses to keep the hare, the hare, because it is not her life to define. She begins to do immense research on hares and their behaviors. Preparing the young leveret for a return to the wild, she replicates similar conditions in her home. Dalton refrains from ever petting the hare or interfering with its decisions. When the hare sits next to her, it is by choice not by conditioning. If the hare leaves, and when she does, Dalton never searches for her. Because, it was never hers to begin with and her grief would only hold the hare back. 

Dalton’s unconventional relationship with the hare reminded me of my own with my own relationship with my pug. I began to wonder whether I had conditioned him to conform to my habits or how much of his life he has spent looking up at me when I should have been at his level with him. A defining pillar to this memoir was Dalton’s interaction with grief. The hare, to Dalton, symbolizes the transience of earth’s natural environment, that the close observation of such an animal reveals the essence of life in itself. While raising the hare, Dalton left her porch door open. The hare would stay, but sometimes it would leave for hours or for days. The first time the hare left Dalton’s home, she grieved. But by the second or third time, she recognized the beauty in cherishing the time they had spent. Caring for an animal does not mean holding on because you are afraid of loss. Like our earth, which is beautiful, but transient, fleeting. As humans we must live compassionately, observe, appreciate, and ultimately be changed by the natural world around us. 

I couldn’t look at my pug the same after reading “Raising Hare”. I was struck with the realization that much of our relationship has been limited by my own fear of losing him. Sitting together, I watched the glow of my pug’s deep brown eyes like the flicker of candlelight. I observed the cream colored folds in his neck and his webbed paws which stretched out when he stood in sand. In the summertime we swim together when there are no waves, but this time we decided to observe his movements. I noticed his fascination with the leaves floating in the water. He would reach towards them and watch as he sank them with his paw. I then brought him leaves and allowed him to choose which shades of leaf he preferred. Then after, I let him roam for however long he wanted. I noticed after 35 minutes he came back to me and sat down, his signal for Mom, I’m ready now. While he played with his favorite stuffed unicorn, uni, I sat at his eye level, admiring and thinking intently. The creases in our couch cushions from his 1pm naps, the clicks his paws make on our wooden floor, and his thick white fur which saturates my clothing. My pug lingers all around.  

This fall was my first time ever leaving my pug. I sat on my floor saturated in tears. I had feared him leaving me, but now he must fear me leaving, I thought. Those first few weeks in my college dorm bed felt cold. I felt his absence. Walking to my dorm, down the stairs, outside, he wasn’t by my ankles. At night he wasn’t there laying on my chest and to my disappointment he wasn’t there in the morning either. There was an absence of white fur on my navy sweater, on the floor, there was no trail of where he had been. My comforter lies, without the indent of his body and the warmth of his soul. On every surface in my home, and every inch of my heart, my pug was everywhere but nowhere at all. I accept his absence because I carry our memories with me. My grief never limits my love for him. When I am homesick I picture his triangular chocolate brown ears which frame his round dark eyes, eyes that carry only love and compassion. And I am home.