Warm Fuzzies with Karen Swallow Prior

From Buster the Rabbit to Horses to Chickens to Dogs, KSP Is a Lifelong Animal Lover

Karen Swallow Prior with her two dogs, Eva and Ruby. (Photo Credit: Ashlee Glen)

Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D,  is a classic book lover’s best friend; she’s also become a darling of well-read conservative and liberal Christians for her hot (but always gracious) takes on cultural issues, like the ones discussed in her latest book, The Evangelical Imagination and on her Substack, The Priory. Not only is Karen an accomplished magazine, book writer, speaker, and professor, she’s also an animal lover, frequently posting pictures of her two dogs, Ruby and Eva, on social media. 

A big thank you to Karen for taking the time to talk to All the Feels about her affection for animals and kicking off “Warm Fuzzies,” a brand new monthly feature where my favorite authors, musicians, and media figures discuss the animals who owned them!

All the Feels: What pet(s) currently live with you? 

I have four chickens (unnamed—some seem to demand names; most don’t), and I have two dogs who are the center of our household: Ruby, a 10-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer, and Eva, an almost 10-year-old Weimaraner. They are both beautiful, silly, messy, and are deeply bonded to my husband and me and to each other.

Why do you own a pet? (How has owning a pet positively impacted your life, family, and/or mental health?

I grew up with pets. My maternal grandparents were farmers, so through them, and then my mother, life without animals was (and remains) unimaginable. Over the course of my life, I’ve had cats, dogs, horses, guinea pigs, gerbils, chickens, sheep, goats, fish, mice, rabbits, and one parakeet. 

My husband and I share a love of dogs in particular, and neither of us would have married the other if we didn’t feel the same way about them. One of our dogs was a three-legged Boxer named Gracie. She was an incredible dog. We had her when we moved from New York to Virginia, and not long after she died from a tick-borne disease. It was devastating. 

I also grew up with horses and even worked on two horse farms through college and graduate school. The last horse I had died a few years ago, and I haven’t had one since simply because I don’t have the time or energy for the work they require. I still adore horses, though. One never really recovers from horse fever. But my dogs are central to my work-at-home life as a full-time writer. They lie around all day and keep me company.

All pets require care and routine. Caring for animals keeps life tangible and physical in ways that thinking, reading, and writing don’t do. That helps to keep me balanced. And because I’m a person who loves routine, I love pets that share a routine with me. It’s very comforting and grounding.

What is something your pet does that makes you laugh?

Ruby and Eva are energetic breeds of dogs, and although they are older and quieter now, they still play with each other and prance around when we come home, or company comes, or a squirrel shows up, or they get a treat. So there is a lot of prancing that goes on in a day. It always brings me joy. Also, Eva in particular is a real couch potato. The poses she comes up with when she stretches out on the sofa can really crack me up. (Ruby tends to be more demure.)

How has your (or any) pet embarrassed you?

I wouldn’t say it was embarrassing—maybe more disappointing. But for years as a kid, I had a rabbit named Buster who was solid white except for the black rings around his eyes. Every year that I entered him in the town fair, he got second place. Year after year. Second place! No matter what other rabbits he was competing with. I never could figure out why he wasn’t worthy of first place. He was big and handsome, I thought.

What has your pet taught you about God and/or faith?

So many things! The fact that God created so many different kinds of creatures, some of them adaptable enough to live with us and enjoy us as we enjoy them seems like a miracle to me. And they have so many personalities, too, even among the same species and breeds. What a reflection that is of his human creatures!

But even more, God shows me through my pets how much he cares for me and for them. He makes each animal, just as he makes each of us. And he cares about them: “not one sparrow,” Matthew 10:29 tells us, is outside his knowledge and care. What a gift—and responsibility—God allows us by allowing us to care for his creatures.

More personally, I have perhaps never felt the love and care of God more than when he answered my prayers to bring Ruby home when she went missing as a youngster for four agonizing days. (I wrote more about that here.) Even though that was years ago now, I cannot look at Ruby and not be reminded of the Lord’s loving kindness and mercy to her and to me.

Visit Karen Swallow Prior online at karenswallowprior.com to learn more about her body of work, which includes writing, speaking, and lecturing.  Be sure to pick up her latest book, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Crisis in Culture and subscribe to her SubStack, The Priory.