Executive Editor Matt Sutherland Interviews Anne Abel, Author of Mattie, Milo, and Me

In her deeply personal memoir, Mattie, Milo, and Me, Anne Abel explores the importance of loving another being—two-legged or four—and how that experience paves the way for us to truly understand and appreciate ourselves.

Foreword’s Executive Editor Matt Sutherland caught up with Anne to talk about the book, parenting, expressing individuality, her battles with depression, her next book, and so much more.

Early in the book, you make it very clear that you fought, placated, pressured, and generally put off your son’s spirited campaign for a family dog. You had no interest. None. So, there is a very clear before-and-after point in your life: the BD and AD Anne Abel. Thinking back, why do you think you were so adamantly against dogs, in light of the fact that you now know that they bring you such joy? What changed in you?

I was determined to be a different kind of parent than the parents I had. In childhood I did not feel liked, loved or welcomed by my parents. My mother was harsh, dismissive, and sarcastic with me. My father forbade me to speak at the dinner table and told me he had no interest in what I had to say. “I don’t want to talk to you,” he would say to me on the rare occasions that I tried to speak to him. My mother and father each attempted to eliminate any individuality that I had. They wanted to shape me in a certain direction that suited their needs but had nothing to do with my interests or inclinations. I was determined to give my children unconditional love and to show interest in what my children had to say and to encourage them to develop and follow their interests.

My father worked next to an animal experimentation lab. One day when I was seven, he brought home a beagle puppy. “She Wore An Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” was a song playing on radios everywhere that summer. I named the dog Teeny. I loved Teeny. I loved cuddling him and loving him. Teeny slept in the kitchen, a gate separating him from the green carpeted dining room. One morning I came downstairs to say good morning to Teeny and found him in the dining room, and a big wet yellow spot on the rug. When my father came down and saw it, he hit Teeny on the nose several times and then took him into the kitchen, saying, “bad dog, bad dog.”

Then I heard him open the door to the basement and say “bad dog” again, before throwing Teeny down the basement stairs. I heard Teeny yelp. Next thing I knew my father was walking out the door with Teeny. “Your father is taking Teeny to the vet,” my mother said. That was the last time I heard the name “Teeny” spoken in my house by either my mother or my father. I never saw Teeny again. I was too afraid to ask what happened. I don’t remember when I realized Teeny had died. But all summer when I heard the “Yellow Polka Dot” song on the radio, I cried.

Although this memory was buried deep inside me and I was not conscious of it on a daily basis, it is quite likely that this early childhood trauma was one of the reasons I did not want a dog. Afterall, my only experience with a dog had been so sad. This was likely the reason I did not think of dogs as living beings that could be happiness and love.

Furthermore, I was a working mother of three sons. I had enough to keep me busy and engaged. I did not need a rug-peeing, shoe-chewing, shedding, slobbering dog to take care of! For ten years I placated my son with tanked and caged creatures. Right before his tenth birthday I saw a headline in the paper, “African Hedgehog, The Perfect Pet.” When I suggested we get an African Hedgehog for his birthday, he said okay, since he knew a dog was out of the question. When I called the pet store for directions the man said, “You know, African Hedgehogs are really porcupines. You need to wear rubber gloves to handle them.” My heart sank. We had enough creatures that couldn’t be handled or cuddled. It was time for the dog.

I am not a shopper. When we relocated from Boston to Philadelphia I looked at three houses before I bought one. When I need an appliance I go to the appliance store and get one that is good enough. But, good enough was not going to cut it with the dog. I bought a 450-page book with dog breeds listed and described. One day my son came home from a soccer teammate’s house excited about his wheaten terrier. I looked the breed up in the book. It did everything but empty the dishwasher.

This was our dog.

Mattie, a tranquil wheaten terrier, had been your family’s beloved pet for seven years when he was hit by a UPS truck ten days before Christmas—as you dramatically describe in the first few sentences of the book. And then, the day after Mattie’s death, you chose Milo from a rescue facility and soon realize he’s the exact opposite—a complete hellion, violent and uncontrollable. In your book you describe all you had to do to help Milo “have as fulfilling a Milo-Life” as he could have without acting on his aggressive tendencies. Even so, Milo lost control and bit you or your husband about once a year over the ten years he was with you. Which is to say, you lived in fear of his Mr. Hyde side. What would you say to other dog owners with aggressive dogs? What made you stick it out?

To begin with, I stuck it out from Day One when I realized Milo had probably been sedated when we met him at the rescue, because I did not have the heart to send him back to his bed of rags in his cage there. He was everything anyone would dread in a dog. Still, I didn’t know if I could live with him. But, I knew that I would not be able to live with myself if I returned him. Milo didn’t ask to be born. It wasn’t his fault no one had ever taken the time to socialize him. Everyone deserves a second and third and fourth chance.

Furthermore, we absolutely, positively did not live in fear of Milo even though once or twice a year he bit my husband or me. We most certainly did not think of him as Mr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. I had established a simple regimen of reminding Milo that I was the alpha and he had to do as I said. For example, I always gave Milo a special bone to chew on while I worked out. “Sit, down, stay,” I said each time before I put the bone down in front of him. Then, I would say, “wait” and turn my back and walk away a few steps. Milo always obeyed these commands. When I was satisfied he had waited long enough, I would say, “Good boy, Milo, okay!” He would take his bone to his bed and I would begin my workout. Watching him enjoying his bone always helped me as I trudged through my workout.

One day, after a month of workout bones for Milo, I had a dentist appointment and had just enough time to work out and get there. I grabbed a bone from the freezer and hurried into the basement with Milo to work out. I was distracted, worried about being late. I didn’t want to take the time to go through the usual commands with Milo. I put the bone down on the rug between us and noticed my shoe was untied. As I bent down to tie it, I saw Milo leaning backward, his brown eyes wild and fiery. Instinctively, I stood up and backed away from him until I felt myself against the wall. I watched as Milo sprang forward into the air and lunged for me. His body taut, he stood on his hind legs, his front paws pinning me to the wall, and bit my upper arm. My heart banged against my ribs, and my body was quivering. Still flattened to the wall, I saw Milo step back and prepare for another lunge. I stood there afraid to move.

Afraid that any movement from me would make him even angrier and more dangerous. I watched, helpless, as he lunged a second time, landing eye level with me, his front paws sandwiching me. I held my breath, bracing myself for a second bite. I was terrified that he would clench down again on my upper arm. We stared at each other. It felt as if my heart ricocheted between my spine and my rib cage. I was determined not to look away. I had no idea how much time passed. Suddenly, Milo’s eyes lost their wildfire. His body softened. He dropped to the floor. I didn’t move. Milo walked back to the bone in the middle of the room, which was still on the rug where I had put it. He turned and faced me, his head lowered, tail and ears down. He didn’t pick up the bone. He didn’t sit. He just stood there and looked at me, his eyes peeking out through the narrow slits of his partially closed eye.

I slowly moved one foot toward him. He didn’t react. I moved another foot. He remained standing. I went through our sit, stay, down commands. He obeyed. I kicked the bone away from him and picked it up and put it on a high shelf. But, I was not angry at him. I had been told early on that no amount of management, reward, or love would keep Milo from sometimes forgetting his training and being triggered to be aggressive, that he was not 100 percent tameable. It was of utmost importance for me to always be consistent with my commands to remind him that I was the alpha not he. I realized that morning before my dentist appointment that I had not upheld my end of the agreement. I had been distracted and not made Milo do the regimen of commands. Then, I had stooped down to tie my shoe, putting myself in a submissive position. I had caught Milo off guard and triggered the untameable part of him to take control and attack me. I had forgotten that I always needed to be Milo’s alpha.

The times Milo bit my husband and me were also predictable. A week before he died, he bit Andy when pea soup fell out of the refrigerator and splattered on the floor. Andy reached to get the container and Milo bit him. “Fair is fair,” Andy said. “I forgot the rule. If it hits the floor, it’s Milo’s.”

People who saw us with our bandages would often say, “you have to get rid of that animal.” But, to us Milo was not an animal. He was part of the family. And who in this world never makes a mistake?! Who in this world is 100 percent good?!

My advice to dog owners who adopt aggressive dogs is get expert help. Do not try to figure it out on your own. Also, do the work, the homework required in socializing an aggressive dog. And be consistent. Establish a regimen that works and stick to it.

Your dog coach was instrumental in helping you train Milo. She also surprised you by describing Milo as gifted, something you witnessed often in the dog classes, as Milo was easily the quickest of all students to catch on to the new commands. Crucially, you learned in the classes that the only way to maintain a workable relationship with Milo was for you to play the alpha role, something that was very difficult for you. Why?

Any alpha I might have had in me was beaten out of me in childhood. I learned at an early age that obedience was of the utmost importance in my family. My father throwing my beagle puppy down the basement stairs for peeing in the dining room and killing him, was just one of many examples in my family of what happened if you disobeyed. I don’t even want to try to imagine what would have happened if I had tried to be any kind of an alpha to my mother or father.

I did not have to be anything like an alpha raising my three sons. They were high-achieving, hardworking, polite, loving boys. They and my husband were the salve to my depression. They were the antidote to the toxicity of my parents. I never had to be an alpha. Furthermore, I would never want to be an alpha. I am very much a “live and let live as long as you don’t hurt anyone” kind of person. Even my fashion and home décor sense of style is easy, comfortable, unassuming.

So when Mary, the teacher helping Milo and me, said I had to be an alpha, it was a real departure from who I was and who I wanted to be. But, I knew that I was what was standing between Milo and a life sentence to a bed of rags in a cage at the rescue.

We found out after we’d had Milo a while that he had been placed with three families in his eighteen-month life. When we met him at the rescue, he had been so mellow and lovable that we nicknamed him Mellow Milo. But, the next day when we got him home he began howling and prowling, jumping and humping. Then he bit my son twice, once on the back and once on the wrist. When I was bandaging his bloody wrist, he said, “I bet they sedated Milo at the rescue before we got there.” As soon as he said it, it seemed obvious. I was so pissed. I was taking the monster back. But, then I pictured him on his bed of rags at the rescue and knew I could never do it

I did my best to be Milo’s alpha. Over the years we settled into a comfortable routine. Milo knew what he had to do to act as if I were the alpha. And, I tried my best to meet Milo’s needs and wants.

Yes, I was surprised when Mary, the teacher, said Milo was gifted. I knew Milo was smart. He learned the behaviors almost immediately. But my three sons are smart, hardworking, and high-achieving. They literally never got anything lower than an A. The first two went to Harvard. But not once did a teacher tell me they were gifted. But suddenly, I had a gifted dog? To be honest, I also had never thought of “gifted” in terms of a dog!

Your mother sounds like an A-Team button pusher, needling you about things both trivial and deadly serious. But it’s deeper than that. At one point, you write: “My mother had waged guerrilla warfare on me for my whole life. She rarely missed an opportunity to attack me. When she wasn’t attacking, she was withholding. As a result, I had battled depression for decades. I talked to a therapist weekly and tried over twenty antidepressants. For the most part, I managed to keep myself upright. But despite my best efforts, each time she struck I was devastated.” When do you first begin to realize that your mother’s treatment of you was abusive, unforgivable, criminal even? Why was it important for you to maintain a relationship for as long as you did?

One of the themes of my memoir, Mattie, Milo, and Me, is the energy derived from loving and feeling loved in return. For most of my life, I had tried to gain the love of both my parents. It was not until my thirties, when I began seeing a therapist, that I began to realize that my parents had abused me and were continuing to abuse me. It is common in individuals abused as children, particularly in cult-like conditions, not to realize they are abused. My parents scripted everything I said, did, and felt. But, I loved and respected them. I kept hoping that if I did everything they set forth for me, eventually they would come to accept me.

I never rebelled. Not when my father announced late in my junior year in highschool, that if I wanted him to pay for college, I would go to engineering school and major in chemical engineering. Even though I hate math and science and had never gotten above a C in either one. When I was eleven, my mother began lecturing me that if I did not marry someone Jewish, she would disown me. I didn’t know exactly what disown meant, but whenever she said it, I always imagined myself floating alone in a dark outer space.

My senior year in college I broke up with a boy I had been dating for six months. He absolutely got on my nerves. He was in medical school in Boston where I was also in school. And, he planned to stay in Boston, not far from the suburb I grew up in, and where my parents lived. When I told my mother we had broken up, she said, “You’re self-destructive. That’s why you broke up with Eric.”

My mother was a very smart, psychologically savvy woman. For many years she was a much-lauded high school guidance counselor. I trusted what she said. A few months after I broke up with Eric, I still didn’t have another boyfriend. I had three months until graduation and no marriage prospects. I decided my mother must be right. That there was nothing wrong with Eric. That it was my problem and I would have to get over it. So, I got back together with Eric. But, two weeks later, he said something demeaning to me, as we sat together trying to plan a Valentine’s Day party I was having in a week. At that moment, I stood up, put on my jacket, told him we were done, and walked out the door. I was willing to compromise on what I majored in in college and become a chemical engineer, but even at the age or twenty, I instinctively knew how important it was to marry the right person. Someone who was right for me. Not for my mother.

Even as my mother continued to abuse me, even after I had my kids, I still hoped that eventually she would accept and love me. Whenever my high-achieving kids achieved at a new level, I couldn’t wait to tell her. Hoping, hoping, hoping against hope. My parents were at the core of my being. I so much wanted them to love me. Unfortunately, I was not at the core of their being. Finally, as my kids became adults, I realized that the toxicity of my relationship with my mother (and father) was not worth the effort. I accepted that they did not have love to give me. And I pulled back. The unconditional love of my husband, Andy, provided a foundation for my ability to support my kids and myself. This book shows that the experience of feeling completely loved is possible even if you did not receive love as a child. This book shows it is possible to overcome a terribly abusive and unhappy childhood and to find people who respect you and love you. You are not doomed to relive the experiences of your childhood in your adult life.

Is it fair to say that your relationship with Milo—the natural give and take, warmth, mutual appreciation—was helpful in your coming to grips with your relationship with your parents? After so many years of trying to earn their approval, about the time you acquired Milo, your communication with them dropped to just a phone call or two a year. You write, “It felt so good to know that my presence made Milo feel happy. I loved feeling appreciated by Milo. I wished my parents had even once been able to give me this feeling.”

My relationship with Milo had nothing to do with my ability to pull away from my parents. My ability to pull away came from years of therapy and introspection. Additionally, as my children became adults, my mother did the most hurtful thing a mother can do to a daughter. She tried to turn my children against me. She tried to come between me and them. She could be a very persuasive, charming woman. My children, for the most part, did not fall into her lair. But I was disgusted watching her try. When she finally died a couple of years ago, it was as if a huge, heavy cloud had lifted from around me. For the first time in my adult life, I did not feel there was someone out there scheming to hurt me.

So no, Milo did not give me the strength to pull away from my parents. But Milo did for me what my parents could not and would not. Whenever I returned home and walked into the house, Milo swished his Lion King tail 180 degrees and then came over to brush against my leg and be with me. When I left him in the back of my station wagon to do an errand, whenever I returned to my car, his Lion King tail swished, also. It made me feel good to know that Milo was happy to see me. My parents were never happy to see me or talk to me.

How did your upbringing influence how you raised your own three boys?

The importance of nurturing individuality is another theme in Mattie, Milo, and Me. In childhood, I did not feel liked, loved, or welcomed by my parents. They also scripted everything I said, did, and felt. They took no account of my desires or inclinations. I was determined to be a different kind of parent to my sons. I was determined to let each of them experience the feelings of unconditional love and acceptance I had not felt from my parents. I was also determined to nurture their individuality. I wanted to help them find who they wanted to be and help get where they wanted to go. And, I absolutely did.

It was easy for me to help them find their individual paths. I loved encouraging whatever interests or passions they had from the time they were toddlers, whether it was dinosaurs, rocks, or baseball. As they got older, I loved hearing them talk about what excited them at school. I actually learned so much from them. I had never heard of Beowulf, or the canopy of a rainforest, or anything about Latin. But, I learned about these things and so much more from my three sons. I encouraged them to strive for what they wanted and not be intimidated or afraid of failing. I was and am so proud of who they were and are.

I also nurtured Mattie and Milo. Mattie wanted nothing more than to be by my side and give love and take love. That was, of course, an easy pleasure for me to do. Milo was an entirely different story. His individual path was outside the realm of what I knew. My parents had taught me that I was a burden and that I should not ask for help. With Milo, I learned to overcome my discomfort in asking for help because I knew I needed help rehabilitating Milo. I learned that it is okay to ask for help. And, it is okay to accept it when it is offered.

After six months of classes, Mary said we were ready to graduate. I was thrilled. Then she said, “Anne, your work with Milo has just begun. Every morning you need to go to the woods with him for an hour. He needs the time to run free and be the adventurous hunter he wants to be.” My heart sank. I hate nature. I hate hiking. An hour?! Everyday?!

But there we were in the woods the next morning. And every single morning after that for ten years. I had crampons, rain gear, bug repellent. I’d trudge along the path counting down the minutes when Milo would come soaring above my path, crossing from one side of the woods to the other. Seeing him like this took my breath away. I was elated to watch him be the living being he wanted to be.

Being Milo’s person taught me that I could experience joy in the exact place I dreaded. In meditation class, I’d heard of sympathetic joy, but I’d never really understood the concept. This is exactly what I was experiencing. Joy in proportion to Milo’s joy. Being a good dog mom to Milo was having the desired effect on my depression. When Mattie died, I had hoped that getting Milo would help me cope with my depression. Milo gave me so much more.

I would never have traded Mattie for Milo. My love for low-maintenance Mattie had been as simple and pure as her love for me. She never frustrated or angered me. Milo was a different story. He needed not to be a threat.

For me, the best way to meet Milo’s needs was to play to his strengths, encourage his non threatening behaviors. Just as my favorite role as mother was enabling my children to find and pursue their passions, I wanted the same for Milo. I wanted to help Milo be the best Milo he could be, even if it meant doing things I didn’t like to do. I learned to experience moments of the day through Milo’s eyes. His enthusiasm and joie de vivre lifted me out of myself and lightened my mood. Comparing the dog I had seen in his cage on a bed of rags at the rescue with the dog maximizing every moment in the woods with all his vivacious being made my heart soar. The contrast between what Milo had been and what he became with me was well worth the work. It made me feel good to be able to make a difference in another creature’s life.

I helped Milo, and Milo helped me. It was simple. It was complicated. It was love.

Throughout the book, you reveal a great deal about your severe depression. Will you tell our readers how it affects you from day to day? Can you also talk about how the act of writing, of sitting down and doing the hard work of putting words on paper, affects your melancholia? Is it therapeutic, in a sense?

I suffer with severe writer’s block. When I was growing up my father would say at the dinner table, “You can listen, but don’t speak.” If I ever dared to say something to him outside of dinner, he would say, “I don’t want to talk to you. You have nothing interesting to say.” I realize these factors play a major role in my writer’s block. I have no trouble writing about topics assigned to me by an editor because, in that case, someone has given the topic a stamp of approval. But when it came to writing about myself, I never could. After typing out one or two sentences, I would hear a voice in my head say, “So what? Who cares?” My fingers would slide off the keyboard and I was done.

Then, in January, 2016, I moved with my husband and three dogs from Philadelphia to Chicago where my husband was a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago. It was eight degrees, I knew no one and needed something to do. I enrolled in improv—it was Chicago—but after flailing and failing I was finally kicked out of class. When I got home, I asked my new dog-walker what she did when she wasn’t walking dogs: “I host a storytelling mic. You should come.”

I had never heard of storytelling. Eventually, I got up the nerve to tell a story at an open mic. People came up to me afterwards and told me how much they liked my story. So, I continued. It was easier to tell stories about myself than to write them because I got immediate positive feedback after each telling. I did not have only the negative voice in my head to listen to. Soon, people with curated shows were asking me to come and tell. Then, someone said I should go to The Moth. I had never heard of The Moth. But I went. I was terrified, but I never let terror stop me from doing something.

So, when my name was called, I got up onto the stage. The lights were so bright I could not see the audience. But, I told my story. I didn’t win that night in Chicago. But, I did win two Moth StorySLAMS there shortly thereafter. I decided I wanted to get some storytelling coaching. The first thing the woman said to me was, “If I had a magic wand and could grant you one wish, what would it be?” Her questions surprised me and caught me off guard. I had expected a question about my storytelling goals. My spontaneous answer to this question was, “Write a book.”

“Well then, that’s what you have to do.”

I knew she was right. But for three months, I fought myself and did not sit down and try to write. Finally, I was so angry with myself that I decided it would be better to just try to do it. I reasoned that I work out every single day. I never feel like beginning my work out, but I never question whether I should do it. “Just do it,” I tell myself. “You always feel better when you are done.” And I do. So, I decided to apply that mindset to sitting down and writing.

One morning after I worked out, I sat down at my desk with the goal of sitting there and writing for two hours. No questions, no doubts. Just do it. And I did. Day after day after day. I was writing a story based on a five-minute Moth story I had won. Whatever came into my head, I wrote. I didn’t dare question myself. If I did, it would be a slippery slope and soon I would be saying, “so what? who cares?” to everything I thought about writing. The first draft of that manuscript was close to one thousand pages. It had everything that had happened to me up until that time. The eleventh draft of that manuscript is three hundred and fifty pages and will be published by She Writes Press in the fall of 2025.

In the time period I was working on draft after draft of that manuscript with an editor, I had moved to New York City. One of my goals was to win a Moth StorySLAM here in New York. On my first try I told a five-minute story about Milo. And, I won!!! People had so many questions for me about my experience with him. For months after, when I went to hear a Slam, people would come up to me to ask about it. At one point in the editing process of my first manuscript, it was taking a very long time for the editor to return my manuscript. So, inspired by all the interest I had gotten in my Milo story, I sat down and wrote, Mattie, Milo, and Me: A Memoir.

I do not find writing at all therapeutic for my depression. I do not journal or write out issues that are burning in me or troubling me. I work those things out before I sit down to write. Someone once asked me if writing Mattie, Milo, and Me was fun. I was shocked by the question. When I sit down to write, it is wonderful when I get into a zone in my head where the time flies by and I am shocked when I look at the clock and see two hours have passed. It is gratifying. Fulfilling, even. But, I would not call it fun, exactly. When I was writing both of my manuscripts, I did not know if I would find a publisher for them. But, as I do with everything, I took it one step at a time. And now, I have two books!

But, it is still a struggle for me to get into a writing zone and write. I need to think there is someone who wants to know my story. I always need a muse.

Regarding me and depression: I don’t think depression is something that is ever cured. But, in my case, I am happy to say that over the last few years, I have begun to feel better. Depressed but less so.

I believe there are a few factors that account for my improvement. Both my parents died a couple of years ago, within six months of each other. My father first. I had not spoken to my father in five years. He had rebuffed me anytime I reached out to him. So, I was shocked to learn that he had included me in his will and estate equally with my two sisters. It made me feel that, although he was not able to show me in life, he did consider me part of his family. My father’s mother had died in childbirth when he was four. He had a very difficult childhood and it embittered him his entire life. But, it was affirming to me that this man that I had loved just because he was my father and he was at the core of my being, had in his own broken way felt something—love?—towards me. Not surprisingly, my mother tried to change his will and estate and cut me out after he died. But my father had made it ironclad. Lawyers told her she could not do it. When my mother died, not long after my father, it was as if the external stressors that had been wearing me down my whole life were gone. For the first time in my adult life, I did not feel that there was someone out there conniving to hurt me.

Another factor that helped me with my depression was a solo trip to Australia in 2014. I had suddenly quit my job teaching at Community College of Philadelphia after having one desk too many thrown at me, and after being tired about worrying about my safety amid all the violence. But, as I walked out the door of the school knowing I was never returning, I began to panic. I was terrified that without a schedule to my day, and life and living in an empty nest house with a husband who traveled a lot, I would fall into the abyss of depression. So, as soon as I got home the day I quit my job, even though I hate to travel and I hate to be alone, and I hadn’t known what a Bruce Springsteen was a year earlier, I booked a trip to Australia to follow Bruce Springsteen’s tour. I was terrified. But I didn’t let that stop me and I went. I didn’t go to change, but change indeed is what I did. I came home with a ball of energy I had never felt before and I was determined not to lose it. (This is the basis for my Fall 2025 She Writes Press memoir.)

I convinced my husband to move to Chicago for six months and be a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago. It was in Chicago that I discovered storytelling and a community of storytellers who encouraged me and filled me with more energy. When my husband needed to return to his job in Philadelphia, I remained in Chicago and he commuted for two years. I knew I did not want to return to Philadelphia where we had lived for thirty five years and raised our three sons. My husband would have been happy to move to Chicago but I felt we were too old to move to such a cold place with no nearby relatives. So, I decided on New York. And in the middle of 2018 we moved to midtown Manhattan. Aside from my decision to marry Andy, it is the best decision I have ever made. There is enough energy in this city to satiate anyone. Certainly me. I love it here. I especially love the arts in this city and also, at the age of seventy one, the healthcare.

Still, depression is not something that ever goes away entirely. Every morning when I wake up, I feel dread, and I think, “Oh no, another day.” But I shut down the voice and I put one foot in front of the other. I eat breakfast and read my three, black and white, paper newspapers. I love reading newspapers. Then, when I am not recovering from a surgery or an injury, I head for my exercise bike. Working out has always been something that helped elevate my mood. Back in the day, it might have been only for five or ten minutes but something is always better than nothing. Now, when I finish my fifty minutes of pedaling nowhere and listening to the same Bruce Springsteen album I have listened to for the past ten years of workouts, I feel good. Not just for five or ten minutes but for the rest of the day! When I get off my bike, no matter how bad I felt when I began or how difficult it felt while I was doing it, I feel ready for the day. I feel ready to do what I have to do, no negative thoughts ruminating in my head.

Milo is diagnosed with cancer and dies within a week. With his body still warm, you write, “I need another dog now.” What do you have to say to those people who stress the importance of a grieving period after a death?

I believe everyone has to do what is best for them. Some people feel they need time. I don’t. I am a very proactive person. It is how I deal with my severe depression. As long as I am moving myself forward in some way, I feel a modicum of hope. And, it is hope that gives me the courage and fortitude to do what is necessary to try to create a good life. Quickly adopting a new dog doesn’t make me miss the one who has died less. But, it is a very good distraction. More importantly, by finding a new dog, I am opening myself up to more love. Ten years ago when I was walking my dogs on the beach, a man about seventy came over to pat the dogs and talk. I asked him if he had dogs. He said, “My entire life I’ve had dogs. But, I can no longer go through the heartbreak of losing another one.”

I know exactly how he feels. It is so sad to lose a beloved pet. But, by getting through the grief and getting another, you are opening yourself to more love. Both for you and for the new pet. It can be win-win.

And then late in the book, that question gains further significance when you say you have the same attitude about replacing your husband, should he die before you, as you do about replacing dogs. Can you talk about this attitude, please?

I get so much energy from loving and being loved in return. With my pets, and, of course, my sons. But, even more so with my husband. Andy and I have been married forty six years. When I think about it, I am awed that at the age of twenty five, I knew who I needed and wanted to spend the rest of my life with. At that age, I really had no idea who I was and, of course, what lay ahead for me. I had no idea I was abused. I had no idea that the feeling I walked around with was severe depression. I had no idea I would get cancer twice. I had no idea of any of the struggles I would deal with in my life. But, I always knew that I wanted a kind, smart, interesting, respectful person with whom I would share my life.

Andy is that and so much more. Whenever we have a problem, we talk about it together and figure out what to do. Abuse, Andy’s alcoholic, abusive mother, cancer, more abuse, and more cancer. Sadly now, I add to that list the difficulties of having an estranged son. But always, Andy and I come together and discuss a way forward. We don’t always agree, initially, or even see the same problems. But we talk until we can see each other’s point of view and work out a solution that is good for both of us. I love having someone to share things with, things big and small. A problem. A movie or play. Anything. When I am not with Andy, when I am going through my day, I often have a reel in my mind in which I am telling him about everything I am seeing and thinking and doing. Of course, I don’t. I spare him much, but certainly not all.

I have a friend my age who has been married a few years longer than I have. Her husband is abrasive and curt and often unkind to her. She and I were once discussing the idea of remarrying if/when our husbands die. She was shocked that I would want to remarry. I was shocked she wouldn’t want to. In retrospect, I realize that one of the reasons I would so much want to remarry is that my experience with Andy is so wonderful. And she doesn’t want to remarry because her experience with marriage is not as unequivocally positive.

At the end of the day, this is a book about dogs and depression, with uplifting descriptions of the profound growth you experienced when you got outside your comfort zone, as well as heartbreaking anecdotes of the dreadful relationship you have with your parents, and also the lingering sense that you write to keep some demons away. You’re a complicated woman, Anne Abel, and this is a book unlike any other. Who is your ideal reader? Who was in your mind’s eye as you wrote this intense memoir?

This book will appeal to people of all ages, from teenagers to adults. People who love dogs, people who hate dogs, people who fear dogs, people who have had dogs, and people who haven’t. Parents who struggle with how to be a good parent. People who have had an abusive childhood or felt deeply unloved by their parents. People who try to be accepted by their parents and fail. Anyone who questions if love is worth the risk of loss.

What’s next for you and your talented pen?

In Fall 2025, my second memoir is being published by She Writes Press. After having one desk too many thrown at me at the Community College of Philadelphia where I had taught for five years, I walked out the door and thought, “I am never coming back.” But as soon as I was making a u-turn to go home, I was panicking. I suffer from severe depression, and I was terrified of falling into the abyss once again. I needed a plan. I needed a project. As I was merging onto the expressway home, I thought, “I know, I’ll go to Australia and see Bruce Springsteen’s tour.” So, at the age of sixty, even though I hate to travel and I hate to be alone, and a year earlier I had not even known what a Bruce Springsteen was, I WENT!

MATTIE, MILO, AND ME

A MEMOIR

Anne Abel

She Writes Press

Clarion Rating: 4 out of 5

Raw, vulnerable, and introspective, the memoir Mattie, Milo, and Me covers a woman’s transformative relationships with two dogs.

Anne Abel’s loving memoir Mattie, Milo, and Me covers her care for an aggressive dog, which influenced her own approach to her clinical depression.

When a delivery truck ran over Abel’s joyful terrier, Mattie, Abel reacted with grief that terrified her; she curled up under a table. The following day, she and her family ended up at a dog rescue. There, she met Milo, a big dog pitched to her family as a perfect fit. He was in fact an aggressive and dangerous dog. Milo’s threatening behavior created conflicts that intertwined with the conflicts of Abel’s depression, with the situation escalating in just a few days—to a bloody extent.

Moving at a rapid but deliberate pace, the book jumps from Mattie’s death to coverage of Abel’s mental state. It includes an early revelation about Abel’s own origins in her family: Abel, obsessed with being a good mother, permitted the addition of a dog. Related questions are rushed by in the process, though, including regarding the roots of Abel’s parenting preoccupations, her own childhood, and her decision to keep a violent dog. But such questions are answered in a gradual way as the book progresses, with bits of information dropped in like treats.

Though it is raw, vulnerable, and introspective, the book moves with speed. Its language is concise and action oriented. Descriptions of Milo’s power, strength, and beauty are embedded in scenes that center on his behavior. In moments when trying to mimic his actual speed would create a word-blur, Milo’s behaviors are treated in a slowed-down, step-by-step, rhythmic way.

Still, the story is told at somewhat of a distance: Abel is most often seen from the outside rather than through her internal monologues. Other people’s assessments of her in conversations, combined with her own actions, shape the book’s nonetheless complex portrait of her values and motivations. What emerges is a sense of a woman who was made vulnerable by experience and who protected others, including Milo, when they were vulnerable too. Her relationships with others, including her husband and her sons, are fleshed out through conversations as well, and without editorial interjections or the baggage of judgments. Indeed, even the difficult relationship between Abel and her mother is presented through bare exchanges alone.

Mattie, Milo, and Me is a warm memoir about a woman’s connection to—and transformation because of—her dog.

Reviewed by Michele Sharpe

December 1, 2023

Matt Sutherland
April 23, 2024

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