Ottilie Hainsworth,
Myriad Editions
Anyone who has ever shared their life and home with animals – dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, horses and many more – will already be aware of the enormous impact our furry friends can have on our lives, especially our emotional well-being, and how they become truly part of our families. And this is what Ottilie articulates here so beautifully and warmly that if had a tail I would be wagging it.
Gina is, perhaps, not the most likely hound for someone to adopt. In a world where there are so many animals in rescue shelters, desperate for homes, the cutest are usually the first to be adopted for their “furever home”. Gina is a dog who looks more like a fox, and in her picture Ottelie describes her as “half-blind, mangy. Your skin was black with dirt.” Yes, the cutest dogs and cats get rehomed more easily, but, thank goodness there are also many animal lovers who find critturs like Gina irresistible, in a way that’s hard to explain, they just feel the desire to give them a chance for a home, attention and love. And the thing about giving that love? You get it back. And then some.
Ottelie’s home already includes husband, young children and several cats, and it is into this mix that Gina arrives. Ottelie has a little case of the jitters – she wants a dog, she chooses Gina, but she also worries if she has made the right decision, if she knows what she’s doing. I think that’s familiar to everyone who has adopted an animal, I know I experienced it several times with different cats; the joy of bringing them home mixed with worry that we may not get along, or that I’m not the right person to look after them, the thought that I had taken on responsibility for the welfare of these creatures for their entire lives. It’s a pretty natural reaction, and if anything I think it’s a healthy one – it means the person is thinking about matters fully, the possible negatives and not just blindly thinking oh this will all be wonderful.
Things feel a bit odd at first – humans and dog and cats are not used to each other, and for poor Gina it is all new, and much sniffing around must be undertaken. There’s that slow process as they all get to know each other, the humans in the family to understand Gina’s moods and expressions (and, please, don’t tell me animals don’t really have expressions, that we imagine it all, because anyone who has lived for years with them knows they do, we can see them, and they can pick up on ours too). And Gina starts to become more comfortable, more relaxed, realising this is her home, she’s safe and loved here, she has a place in the pack – obviously the cats are higher up the scale, but then the cats are sure they are higher up the scale than the humans too, usually, and she realises the children are indeed children, “cubs” of her new pack, and she is loving and protective of them.
There’s a huge amount here that anyone who loves animals will empathise with enormously and recognise. The new reality for both human and animal as they first start to share a life together, then the growing comfort with one another, as they get to know each other, a comfort that turns into more than love, into a bond that goes deep into your soul and leaves you always better for it. There are delights – meeting new people when out walking Gina, Gina herself making new doggy friends in the park, playing with the kids.
Naturally it isn’t all happiness though, and again anyone who has lived with animals knows there are the worries – injuries, illness, and the sad, inescapable fact that most animals have a far shorter lifespan than we do. We know when we take them into our lives and into our hearts we will face hurting those hearts somewhere down the line, there’s no avoiding it, no avoiding the pain, the loss, the grief. And yet it’s still worth it, because they bring such light into our lives, warmth, love, lift us even on the darkest days. And astonishingly they continue to do that even after they’re gone – yes, there is pain, but mostly there’s a warm place left inside us that they touched that stays with us forever, it’s a truly remarkable gift.
Ottilie brings this out with very simple but highly effective cartooning – this is more illustration than actual comics, an image per page with text – and her style works perfectly for the subject matter, deftly catching the emotions in expressions, the body language of both humans and animal; where a more detailed, heavier style would simply not carry the emotion so well as it does here. This is a very warm, honest and touching book, and anyone who loves animals will recognise much here, the moments that make you laugh, the moments that make you mad, the moments where you just want to melt into a warm, fuzzy ball of happiness.
This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet Blog