I suppose there are two kinds of people: those who allow their dogs on furniture and those who do not. But it makes no difference which kind we wanted to be. New Dog — so named for her striking resemblance to Old Dog — makes the rules around here. Don’t bark, we tell her when the mail comes. She barks. Don’t chase the squirrels, we say, and she’s off the deck before the words are out. Don’t get on the sofa isn’t a phrase that anybody who lives here would even know how to use. New Dog ambles through the house, chooses a spot, curls herself into a dinner-plate-size circle, heaves a giant dog sigh, and that’s that. She lands where she lands. Our whole house is a dog bed.

There is a proper dog bed. It lives in the kitchen, in a corner we can’t figure out how to use. The bed was the subject of some debate around here. Her old one fell apart, and the replacement that my wife chose seemed, at first, to be hilariously large. This thing will swallow her, I said. She’ll never use it. In trotted New Dog. She climbed right up, laid her chin gently on the giant bolster that describes the bed’s perimeter, and promptly fell asleep.

She hangs out there when we’re cooking, which is plenty. She sits on the giant sectional in the den with us when we watch TV. She loves the corner of the red sofa in front of the fireplace and has a chair that’s mainly hers in the front of the house, one that affords her a view of the porch and street, and from which she can bark at the mail carrier, at anything with wheels, at people walking by, at the neighborhood cats. She sleeps in the hallway, or on a sofa, or in her bed, or in ours. She wakes each boy in turn each morning. She lies in front of the door when we’re gone. She presides over the household.

I did not understand, I don’t think, that I could ever truly love another dog. Old Dog saved my life several times over, carried me through heartbreaks both invented and actual, watched me try to become something resembling a grown-up. Old Dog was a rescue. New Dog is, too. When we met, she walked right up to me, put her forehead on mine, and I swear she said to me: I will shed all over your house. You will live in a hail of white fur. I will bark at everything. Early on, I will run away. But I will come back. Those boys need me, even the one who’s still afraid. Especially him. And you need me, too. I’m not a ghost. I’m not Old Dog. I’m some other beast entirely, and even though I get to be everywhere, I’m going to need a decent bed.

I knew. I knew right away. She’s an old soul. She traveled from a very long way to get here. She’s somewhere between 6 and 10 years old — it says so on her paperwork at the vet. It’s good that the giant dog bed is made of memory foam. I wouldn’t say that she’s slowing down; it’s just that her mostly white face is possibly getting a little whiter. It’s good that she’s taken us in, that she lets us live with her. We’ve got many years left if we’re lucky. She’s got evenings upon evenings to doze in her bed — wherever, on any given night, that turns out to be.