“You won’t believe what I did,” said my wife, Linda, sporting a sheepish grin upon her return from the ladies’ social at the church. Given the event’s locale, I doubted her offense to have been particularly grievous, and I bade her to ‘fess up.
“Our friend Lisa brought along her new dog, a young Shih Tzu named Mia,” she said. “Mia was so cute that I told Lisa to bring her over any time, and we’d be glad to dog-sit.”
Mia proved to be cute, friendly, and playful. Her bond with Cody, our rescue Shih Tzu of 
Mia’s own age, was intense. They held paws, like furry sweethearts, and they play-wrestled as if it were an unruly night at the WWE.
Over time, the frequency of Mia’s visits increased. We came to regard them, not as dog-sitting gigs, but as welcome stopovers by a canine friend. Two years after we met Mia, we adopted a troubled Lhasa Apso rescue named Snow Panda. Cody and Mia moved at once to bring Snow into their circle, and they played 
key roles in easing the angst of her traumatic background.
Lisa’s work responsibilities were growing, as was the travel they entailed. For Mia, that meant more time spent with us, which well-suited all under our roof.
After Cody and Snow underwent simultaneous surgeries, “Nurse Mia” refused to leave their sides. She nuzzled them, lay beside them, and watched over them like a canine hawk, until both were well.
***
Linda and I were heading out for a beach vacation with Cody and Snow. Lisa would be home soon, and had asked that we leave Mia inside her house as we left town. The cagey Shih Tzu, though, ascertained at once that this car jaunt was disturbingly different. Cody and Snow were ensconced in backseat cages. And the car, for whatever reason, was packed to the gills.
As we carried Mia up Lisa’s driveway and deposited her inside the house, she wailed at a 
volume level we’d not realized she could reach. Her beseeching gaze shifted from Linda, to me, and back to Linda. We closed Lisa’s front door, and, through its mostly shut blinds, we could see Mia leaping frantically, as she howled a final plea that we take her along.
The tempo of Cody’s and Snow’s beach play was subdued throughout the trip. The episode brought home to us, as never before, how close-knit the three dogs had become.
***
“I have good news, and not-so-good news,” Lisa told us. “I’m getting a rather important promotion. But I’ll have to move from here in Tennessee up to Kentucky.” She asked if Mia could stay with us nearly full-time during the coming months, while Lisa supervised the construction of her new house. We readily agreed.
“And… and, after moving, I’ll try to get back here as often as I can. And I’ll always bring Mia to visit with you guys and her buddies.” We humans glanced at the three fur balls asleep on the sofa, each mercifully oblivious to the coming changes.
***
The toys, treats, and dog food were packed neatly in Mia’s carry-bag. Lisa hoisted it over her shoulder, and toted a wide-eyed Mia out to her car. Lisa had suggested, now that her house and the move were complete, that we transition the dogs to their new reality through a series of ever-longer Kentucky stays by Mia. Today’s departure would begin that process, with a ten-day trip.
We three humans were intently concerned about the upcoming passage from almost-all-the-time togetherness to almost-all-the-time separation. Might the result be three broken little hearts? We’d monitor the three dogs’ demeanors during Mia’s Kentucky sojourn. And we’d be especially observant when her Tennessee homecoming occurred, and the three pals came together once more.
***
Homecoming day had arrived. Snow Panda stood peering through the front storm door. Linda and Cody were out walking in the neighborhood.
A car pulled into the driveway, one of its doors opened, and two human hands set Mia’s paws onto the pavement. In seconds, she realized where she was, and she commenced jumping into the air on all fours.
Linda and Cody, at that moment, headed up the driveway on the return from their walk. Mia sprinted down the driveway toward her pal, while Cody did his utmost to pull Linda’s leash-bearing arm from its socket. The two met in a frenzy of yipping, barking, nuzzling, wrestling, and happy-dancing.
We ushered them toward and through the storm door, where Snow had seemed ready to break the glass in order to reach her friends. They tussled. They reveled. They danced. They barked, and they yipped, and they sang. The homecoming taught us—not what we humans had wanted to know, but what we needed to know.
***
The three dogs, we knew, dearly loved the humans in their lives. But the homecoming had 
confirmed that their love for each other, and their desire to be together, transcended their love of us. Painful though it might be, we humans would have to acknowledge and respond to that reality.
As much as Linda and I loved Mia, our preferred number of full-time dogs had been two. Snow was well into her senior years, and Cody and Mia were entering theirs. Vet visits, health and mobility issues, and complications in traveling would multiply—even with just two dogs, much less three. We’d need to sacrifice our preference. And so we did.
Lisa had desired that Mia be a key part of her everyday life. She’d need to make the wrenching and selfless sacrifice of that companionship. And so she did.
And it all worked out. “The Triplets,” as their groomer called them, lived and loved and thrived with each other in the years which followed. The homecoming had shown us that the three weren’t merely dog pals.
They were soulmates.