My husband and I adopted a greyhound, a two-year-old retired racer, in 1999. Her racetrack name was “JP’s Mickey,” but her genteelness made her seem more like a Stella, and besides, we wanted to be able to make the Streetcar (and Seinfeld) joke.

The first time I walked Stella around my neighborhood, she pounced toward a squirrel burrowing through a leaf pile. Stella’s powerful agility made sense of what the greyhound adoption staff had told me the day before: Never, ever walk your greyhound off leash, and only let her run around in an area that’s totally enclosed. That’s probably a good rule for all breeds, but for greyhounds—sight hounds whose chase instinct remains strong even as they age—it’s imperative.

When Stella was still pretty young, she lick-attacked (licktacked?) every single one of my mother’s Beanie Babies. (Mom, at the time, was just coming off an intense Beanie Baby collecting phase, and had arranged the toys atop a large buffet table in the hall.) Mom and I discovered Stella holding Turk-e the turkey in her jaws, shaking it as if to break its neck. Then she pinned Turk-e between her paws and licked it all over, giving it a thorough bath. She was standing among a colorful sea of about one hundred Beanie Babies, all of which apparently had received the same shake-lick treatment.

I did some research and discovered Stella was exhibiting another common greyhound peculiarity: a fascination with small plush toys.

These Stella stories might make greyhounds sound wild. The truth is, while Stella and I went through the getting-to-know-you growing pains that any dog adopter experiences, overall, she’s sweet tempered and comically low energy. Nine of ten greyhound adopters describe their dogs as such.

In many ways, Stella’s a typical dog. She begs for table scraps via the staring method. She hangs her head out the car window. She naps in the sun. She noses my hand for Scratchy Time. She sheds. A lot.

The greyhound in my debut novel, Simply From Scratch, is named Captain Ahab. Like Stella, in some ways he’s a typical greyhound, in others, a typical dog.

It’s in his greyhoundness to chase small furry things, to never sit, and to sleep on his side with his legs sticking straight out from his body, as if he tipped over from a standing position and just stayed there.

And it’s in his dogness simply to be present, to bear witness, as his adopter, a young widow named Zell, regains her footing in the land of the living.

Maybe Ahab’s delirious romps around the fenced-in field remind Zell to partake in simple pleasures.

Maybe his velvet fur invites her to be gentle, to touch and to feel.

And maybe the way Ahab depends on Zell for everything—food, shelter, affection—encourages her to try.

I hope you’ll read Simply From Scratch, available August 5, and decide for yourself exactly what it is about dogs that can make people more complete, more companionable, more alive.

~Alicia Bessette [http://www.aliciabessette.com]