I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship (22 page)

If I live to be a hundred, I will never forget the look on that dog's face as she struggled so frantically to save herself.

I stopped my car—right in the middle of the interstate bridge—and got out. I walked over to the injured pooch and spoke softly to her. Incredibly, she allowed me to pick her up without the slightest struggle or whimper. She was quite an armful, and as I made my way to the back of my station wagon, I realized I had an upcoming dilemma: how to open the hatch while cradling this large wounded dog? It was clearly not doable solo. I turned to look at the drivers of the now stopped vehicles behind me until one of them slipped up and made eye contact. If eyeballs could grasp, then mine performed the equivalent of reaching through her car window and hauling her out by the nape of the neck and demanding that she
Get over here and open this door for me, you miserable wretch
, which she meekly did. I thanked her profusely, just as if she had done it willingly and with a glad heart, even though we both knew differently. She slunk back to her car. I climbed in mine and made haste to the nearest vet's office.

Bursting into the doctor's office, exclaiming that I had just rescued this injured dog from the middle of a highway bridge, I and my victim were able to cut in line ahead of any number of well-coiffed Shih Tzus and assorted other glamorous, pampered pets and their humans. The staff scrambled as if I were bringing in the Pope on a gurney, and indeed, I doubt whether the Pope himself has ever been as gently and lovingly addressed and treated. It was determined that there was a hairline fracture in the dog's pelvis and she was going to need some hospital time.

I was fine throughout this ordeal until I got into my car to leave and then . . . I just lost it. Calling my erstwhile husband, formerly known as MoonPie (more recently known by Other Names so let's just stick with that one), I managed to gulp and sob out the whole story of the rescue—every time I thought of her terrified little face, a new wave of bawling would ensue; so, it took some few minutes to relay the details of my morning, which concluded with the declaration that, in private conversation with the dog on the way to the vet, I had promised her that if she would just hang on and get well, she could live with us. This last part was met with utter silence on the other end of the line, especially when the dog's pedigree was revealed as “brown and sorta fat.” That silence, however, was met with an even more powerful commitment on my end.

First of all, my People have a long, well-documented love affair with Brown Dogs (fat and otherwise), but furthermore, I had made a promise to a dog and I would not break it. Although it should be avoided, you
can
break promises to people if you
have
to—because you can explain circumstances and make reasonable justifications and compromises with people.
Dogs take you at your word
—that's a lot to live up to—and I, for one, do not want to
be
the kind of person who reneges on a good-faith deal with a dog. You think Karma doesn't have a dog? I'll take that bet all day long.

Needless to say, this particular brown dog was released into my loving custody a few days later, but our path was not to be a smooth one. First of all, I had to set her down on my front porch to unlock the door—only to have my eardrums torn asunder by the alarm on the security system that MoonPie had for unknowable reasons chosen to set for the first time ever, without advising me of same. Cursing him, I managed to turn the thing off (making a mental note to set it off that night right as he was drifting off to sleep, just for grins), and looked around to see a brown blur hurtling down the street, with no trace of a limp.

At this point, the brown dog had not even been
given
a name, let alone had time to learn and respond to it, so all I could do was lope off after her. Suffice it to say that even a dog with a broken pelvis could outrun me, and this one did—all the way to one of the busiest four-lane roads in our whole city.

By the time I caught up, somehow, she had made it across two lanes of traffic to the median, while I was stuck on the sidewalk. As difficult as it might be to communicate
“Come back”
to a dog with whom one is barely acquainted, let me assure you that
“Stay”
is just a waste of time and breath.

Having fled my home, run from me and all my most heartfelt entreaties, and only now pausing to consider the potential ramifications of her choices, the brown dog looked across the sea of racing automobiles and seemed to decide, “Eh, what the hell—where else am I gonna go?” and she tentatively put one brown paw down onto the traffic lane as I resorted to mindless shrieking from my side of the street.

The drivers in the lane closest to me were clearly of superior intelligence, as luck would have it, and they had observed the scenario unfolding before them and made the wise and compassionate choice to stop as I ran out in front of them—but the jackass in the big ole Lincoln in the far lane—the one now containing that one delicately placed brown paw—showed no such kindly inclination. Perhaps I judge him harshly and mistakenly. It is, I suppose, possible that he was one of your rare
blind
drivers and thus truly did not see all six feet one inch of me, lumbering across the road, with my hands literally outstretched and clasped in an attitude of
begging
in his general direction. Perhaps he was also hearing-impaired and thus his ears were spared the sounds of my caterwauling being inflicted on the auditory canals of all others within a mile or so. Or perhaps he was, in fact, just your garden-variety jackass. Whatever. I knew if he hit
my
ass, it was gonna total the front end of that Lincoln, and I made the snap judgment that he was prolly underinsured for collision, not to mention short of bail money, so if he wanted to play chicken, he picked the wrong opponent.

The brown dog again allowed me to scoop her up out of traffic, but this time she showed her enthusiasm by peeing all over both of us. So, I trudged home, urine-soaked, carrying my prize. After cleaning us both up, I made her a bed in my daughter Bailey's bathroom, and after some soothing snacks and conversation, I left her alone to rest and collect her thoughts.

When Bailey came home from school, I advised her of our new family member and told her not to go in there without me, explaining the overwhelming events of the afternoon and stressing the need for solitude and peace. Bailey, six at the time, grasped this theory instantly and was in complete agreement and compliance.

Somewhat later, the erstwhile husband made his eventual return home and, big surprise, ignored all my explanations and instructions, barged straight into the bathroom, flipping on all the lights and speaking too loudly, and promptly got himself a dog bite. He launched immediately into all manner of proclamations about the actions and future fate of the brown dog—all of which fell on ears that were not so much deaf as
outraged
!

I informed
him
that what we had here is a dog who has been lost, run over, rescued from a bridge, spent a week in a hospital, been sent home with a stranger, had a 900-decibel alarm go off in her face, run two miles on a broken pelvis, played in traffic
again
, was rescued by the same woman, and had
just
got settled down for a nap when some
guy
she's never seen before comes busting up in
her new home
.

I told him I thought the brown dog made the best decision possible, based on the information available to her at the time—biting the shit outta him—and I freely admitted to feeling a similar inclination myownself at the moment—and hardly for the first time. Furthermore, I told him,
the dog
would be
staying
; he, on the other hand, could certainly make his own choice and best of luck with that.

MoonPie eventually made peace with the brown dog and so he was allowed to stay . . . for a bit longer. Although it must be told that the brown dog, superior being that she was, made the first overture. I had spoken to her frankly about her animosity toward him—and allowed as how I could totally understand where she was coming from, but I asked her if, as a personal favor to me, she would consider some sort of conciliatory act toward him, in the interest of domestic tranquillity. After a few hours' thought on the matter, she came into the room where MoonPie was lying on the floor, staring at a NASCAR race on TV. Giving me a look that spoke volumes, she sighed and walked over to him, stretched out on her side, and extended one little brown paw toward him. Harder hearts than his have been melted by less and all was made well—once again, through the wordless but boundlessly articulate communication of a dog.

The brown dog was very much in need of a name, though, and, as it happened, I already had a couple in mind. Six years earlier, when we learned that we would be having a precious baby girl, we spent the whole nine months it took to hatch her pondering on names. The day she was born, I knew at once who she was and named her for two of the dearest women in all of my life. Shortly after the birth and naming of our precious baby girl, MoonPie's best friend, one “Pete” from Atlanta, acquired himself a puppy—to which he assigned the
very same name
as our
daughter
. And thus, when we found ourselves in possession of a new dog of the female persuasion, needing a name, I told MoonPie that
he
could choose . . . with one caveat: “Pete” had himself a wife and a daughter, both with perfectly acceptable girl-type names, either of which would be suitable for
our
dog. He could choose between “Sharon” and “Jena.” And so, the days rolled by and Sharon became part of our family, getting along easily with our other dogs, the cats, and even the erstwhile husband.

By and by, regular checkup time rolled around for our other dogs, which offered the perfect time for Sharon to be introduced to our family vet. Boy, were we in for a surprise. No sooner had we walked in the door with our four-legged posse than we were set upon by every doctor and staff member in the office with gleeful shouts of
“Poochie-Mama! It's Poochie-Mama! Omigod! It's a miracle! Poochie-Mama is here!”

Nonplussed would not begin to cover it for us. Self-centered as the day is long, of course, I initially think they're talking about
me
, and I'm less than thrilled at being referred to as
any
kind of “mama” by any group of people other than those to whom I may have personally given birth, and
“Poochie”
would, of course, be unacceptable, coming from any source that wanted to continue breathing air. It took a minute or so to realize that they were referring to
Sharon
and to realize that they knew her from her Former Days, before she hit the road, as it were, and before it hit her back.

One of the vets finally managed to rein in her Poochie-Mamainduced hysteria long enough to begin telling us the Story—but as she was telling it, the receptionist was on the phone, calling Poochie-Mama's mama, and when that connection was made and the news of Poochie-Mama's Miraculous Appearance was delivered, the whole room erupted into great whooping shouts of joy and huge buckets of happy tears were shed.

Well, it seems that Poochie-Mama's mama, Linda, had cancer—a big bad one, and she had to go way, far off, for a long time, for a bone marrow transplant. Poochie-Mama was a one-woman dog and she had gone into mourning over Linda's absence—which, of course, could not be satisfactorily explained to her, her being a dog and all, and after a while, she just decided to take matters into her own paws and she set off on a search for Linda, which didn't get any farther than that interstate bridge.

Meanwhile, Linda was in total isolation because of the bone marrow transplant. She had one sacred ritual performed daily, with almost religious fervor, to hold on to some semblance of normalcy and sanity: Late every afternoon, at about the time in “real life” when she should have been getting home from the office, she would lie in her hospital bed and softly call out for her dog, “Pooooochie-Mama! Mama's home! Come here, girl! Poooooochie-Mama!” And in her mind, Linda could hear the tap-tap-tap of the brown dog's toenails on the driveway as she ran up in happy greeting. She would imagine fondling Poochie-Mama's silky ears and rubbing her fat belly, which would quickly be presented for that very purpose.

I believe that, in the mysterious realm of Dog Omnipotence, Poochie-Mama heard Linda's call, followed it miles to the interstate, and had her journey not been so rudely interrupted by her injury I have no doubt that she would have eventually walked into Linda's hospital room, road-weary but very happy to have found her Woman at last.

Obviously, while Linda was literally fighting for her life, nobody could bring themselves to tell her that Poochie-Mama had gone missing, and so, even though her eventual homecoming was an ecstatic time for her and her whole family—we can't really even imagine her sadness when there was no tap-tap of toenails, no silky ears, no fat, furry belly to rub, no Poochie-Mama there to share the joy of that homecoming, that she had unknowingly done so much to help make possible.

For Linda, days turned into weeks, weeks to months—and her gratitude and happiness with being home were always tempered by her grief at the loss of the one blessed creature that had helped her survive. (Isn't that just the sum of Dogs right there—how they help us and heal us without even knowing it?) And then, one random afternoon, no different from any other, her phone rings and there's a crazy-happy person on the other end, telling her,
“Poochie-Mama's been found!”

And they lived happily ever after. (Cue orchestra and choir of angels.)

Contributor Bios

Or, What We Do When We're Not
Walking You, Feeding You, Petting You,
Grooming You, or Cleaning Up After You

Alice Bradley writes Finslippy (
www.finslippy.com
), a personal blog, and cowrites Let's Panic About Babies! (
www.lets-panic.com
), a fake parenting site.
Let's Panic About Babies!
, the book, was just published by St. Martin's Press in the spring of 2011. Alice's work has been featured in numerous anthologies, magazines, and Web sites, including
Redbook
, Nerve, the
Sun
, the Onion News Network, and Fence. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in nonfiction. Alice lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son, dog, and cat. Alice supports the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC;
www.barcshelter.org/
).