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The woman waved at me and held her finger up to tell me she’d only be a moment. She was wearing a white turtleneck with little blue snow-flakes and a baby blue cardigan. Her short blond hair was pulled into a springy little ponytail assisted by blue plastic daisy barrettes. There was a row of plastic angels on alphabet blocks that spelled out
Mindy
across the top of her computer monitor. “Okay now, we’ll see you on the tenth. Well, you have a happy holiday season yourself!” She hung up the phone and grabbed the edge of the desk. “This must be Joe,” she said, wrinkling up her little pug nose. She must have been over thirty, but she looked like she could still be bribed with a cookie.

“Yes,” I said. “This is Joe.” Joe sat next to me, leaning against my leg.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to fill out these forms.” She handed me a clipboard with a pen dangling from a neon shoelace.

“I’m going to take him back and get him weighed.”

She walked around the desk and took the leash from me. “Oh! This is cute,” she said, holding up the collar handle.

“I-I thought he was going to be smaller.”

“You’re a big boy, there, Joey, aren’t you,” she said, scratching Joe’s head. She walked away and he followed her the same way he followed me. I felt like crying.

I sat on a bench with my clipboard and tried to answer the questions as best I could. I knew Joe’s birthday, and I did remember to bring the papers he came with, but they were all in Slovak. What if he wasn’t really immunized? For all I knew, Joe could be horribly diseased. What if there was something really wrong with him and that’s why he was so crazy?

“Okay, ma’am.” The voice was soft and low with a slight twang. I hadn’t even heard footsteps. “Mindy’s got Joe in a room. You can come right on back.” The man the voice belonged to was what my mother would have called a tall drink of milk. He was tall, thin, and wearing a red flannel shirt and blue jeans with layers and layers of paint stains.

I stood up. He took my clipboard from me with one hand and reached out to shake my hand with the other. His grip was firm and his hands were thick and calloused.

He took a peek at the clipboard and said, “Ms. Leone, I’m Dr. Brandt.”

He looked like a farmhand or a stable boy, not a doctor. I thought vets were supposed to wear white jackets and green surgical masks. He had a mop of floppy sandy-blond hair.

“How’s my dog?” I asked.

“Well, why don’t you come with me and we’ll take a look.”

I followed him down a short hallway and into an exam room. He stepped back to let me in the exam room first. “After you,” he said.

My arm brushed his as I walked past. “Sorry,” I whispered, awkwardly.

Dr. Brandt smiled and pushed the hair out of his eyes.

Joe sat up on a big metal counter, and Mindy held his leash.

“This boy is such a good one!” Mindy said. She handed me his leash. “Why don’t you stand here and hold this?”

I took the leash. Mindy cupped Joe’s snout in her hands and kissed him on the nose. “Who’s such a good boy?” she asked in a baby voice. “Who is such a good boy?” Joe licked Mindy’s face. I felt like he was cheating on me.

Mindy stopped making out with my dog and shut the door behind her when she left.

“So,” Dr. Brandt said, “Mindy said you just got this big fellow.”

“Yes,” I said, scratching Joe behind the ears.

“Where did you get him from?”

I thought about the papers from Slovakia shoved in my purse. I didn’t want to explain the Rin Tin Tin movies and my vodka- fueled shopping spree. “ASPCA,” I blurted out. “I got him at the pound.”

“Okay, great. Do you have the papers?” He came up and patted Joe on the side.

“I forgot them at home,” I said, scratching Joe’s head hard.

“Okay, well next time you come in, we’re going to have to go through shots and worm prevention. But at least we know he’s had all the standard ASPCA care. That’s a good baseline.”

“Good,” I said, feeling like I was lying to my teacher about my missing homework.

“So what seems to be the problem, buddy?” he asked like Joe might answer.

I told Dr. Brandt about the poop on the floor, the chewed crate, the couch cushions flying through the living room, and the temper tantrum on our walk.

“Okay,” he said, absentmindedly as he felt Joe’s belly. He looked in Joe’s ears, checked his eyes, and pressed a stethoscope up to Joe’s chest. Joe struggled a little when Dr. Brandt lifted his gums to check his teeth. “It’s all right, buddy. It’s just a quick look.” Dr. Brandt stroked Joe’s nose gently until Joe let him look in his mouth. Then he pried Joe’s jaw open like a lion tamer.

Dr. Brandt patted Joe’s side and went back to the counter. He scribbled in his file. “I think . . .” He trailed off and scribbled some more. “I think he . . .” He kept writing. “He . . .”

I was ready to scream for him to get on with it. Brain tumor? Some kind of rare Slovakian parasite?

Dr. Brandt put his finger up. “One sec.” He flipped pages and checked off boxes. Finally, he closed Joe’s chart. He looked at me and smiled. “You’ve got a healthy dog here, Ms. Leone. I don’t see anything to be concerned about, and I don’t think his behavior as you described indicates any underlying issues. Sometimes dogs coming from a shelter or another stressful situation have issues with being crated. Especially German Shepherds. They’re very smart dogs, and they’re very high maintenance. It’s not uncommon to see issues when they’re left alone. So, I guess my official diagnosis is that he’s a German Shepherd puppy. Puppies are erratic. They have amazing fluctuations in energy, and- ”

“A puppy?”

“Yes.”

“How is he a puppy? He’s huge!”

“Didn’t the ASPCA tell you how old he is?”

“Um,” I stammered, “I know he’s not an old dog. I just . . . puppies are small.”

“From looking at his teeth and overall development, I’d say he’s five or six months old. Large dogs have a slow process to maturation. I think you’ll see some puppy behavior well into two years. But I think that’s all it is. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

I felt like he must have been missing something. No way was Joe a puppy. I was promised a puppy, but what I got was very much a dog. If Dr. Brandt was using that to explain Joe’s behavior, he could be overlooking something big.

“So what would happen if we didn’t have all the standard ASPCA care?” I asked.

“Well, there are a few other things I’d test for. Heartworm, parasites, things along those lines.” He leaned back on the counter.

“Interesting,” I said, trying to act casual. I couldn’t cover up to save face if it meant Joe might not get the treatment he needed.

“It’s rare, you know, someone dropping a dog like this at the pound, without a rescue group stepping in to take him.” He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Take a look at this snout. He’s a purebred German Shepherd. Looks like he’s from European lines. Beautiful. And a really nice temperament.” I couldn’t help but notice that Dr. Brandt had a really nice temperament too, and a really nice smile.

“I guess I lucked out,” I said, shrugging.

“Down,” he said to Joe.

Joe looked at him blankly.

“Platz!”

Joe just cocked his head to the side.

“L’ahni!”

Joe’s belly hit the exam table. Traitor.

“Štekat’!” Dr. Brandt said, and Joe sat up and barked once. Dr. Brandt raised one eyebrow and looked at me.

“He’s from Slovakia,” I blurted out. “I accidentally bought him online.” I wanted to hide under the exam table.

“Well, that would explain why he’s trained in Slovak. My first guess was Germany.” He turned away for a moment and scribbled something in Joe’s file. I could see him smiling to himself, and when he turned back, his lips were firm and trembling slightly.

“Go ahead and laugh,” I said.

“I wasn’t going to laugh.” He looked shocked.

“You know, I’d laugh if I were you,” I said. My face got hot. Joe nudged his head into my armpit.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How do you accidentally buy a dog?” He smiled wide. He had nice teeth.

“Vodka,” I said, “and a
Rin Tin Tin
marathon.” I knew my cheeks were flaming.

“A dangerous combination, apparently,” Dr. Brandt said, laughing openly.

I pulled Joe’s paperwork out of my purse and handed it over.

Dr. Brandt smoothed the papers out on the counter and hunched over them, pointing to words on the page with his pen and muttering to himself.

“Is he okay?” I asked. “He has all the shots he needs, right?”

“Oh, of course! If you imported him, he had to have all the necessary injections before he got on the plane.” He gestured to the page. “See here?”

I went over to stand next to him so I could see the paper. He smelled like soap and fresh laundry. Joe jumped off the table, pushed his way between us, and put his paws up on the counter.

Dr. Brandt and I laughed. “He knows we’re talking about him,” he said. He scratched Joe’s head casually.

Dr. Brandt pointed to the top of the page where it said 11/5. “This is his birth date,” he said.

“I think there was a mix-up. They sent the wrong dog-the wrong papers. There’s no way Joe was born on November fifth.” I worried about Dr. Brandt’s abilities as a doctor. How could he think Joe could have gotten so big in just a few weeks? I didn’t know a lot about dogs, but I knew Joe couldn’t possibly have grown so huge so fast. Joe jumped down, and leaned against my legs.

“He was born in May,” Dr. Brandt said.

Finally, it clicked. “European dates are backward,” I said, smacking my forehead. “Eleventh day, fifth month. Oh, God! I thought they made a mistake and sent the wrong dog!”

“You got a much bigger dog than you bargained for, didn’t you?” Dr. Brandt said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Were you scared?”

“A little.”

“Are you going to keep him?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said, shocked by the idea that I’d actually give him up. You can return a pair of jeans when they don’t turn out to be as slimming as they looked in the dressing room. You can return milk that’s gone sour before you even opened the carton. You can’t just return a dog. And, as much as Joe was driving me crazy, I didn’t want to send him back or give him up. I liked having him around.

“Well, he’s healthy and stable. And he will calm down as he gets older. Just work with him. Make sure he gets enough exercise. Make sure he knows you’re in charge. You’ll be fine.” He copied a few things from the papers into Joe’s chart. I was still standing very close to him. My head buzzed like when your grade-school crush writes a note on your binder cover.

He folded up Joe’s papers and gave them back to me, clicked his pen closed, and dropped it in his breast pocket. “So, looks like we’ll need to see you in three months for some shots. Take care, Ms. Leone.” He winked at me and walked out.

Three months. It was silly, but I felt a little slighted. Shouldn’t he check back in with Joe sooner, just to make sure he was okay? By the time I thought to say “Thank you,” or even just “Bye,” he was gone.

J
oe had been with me for just under a week when I got the letter. I came home after a meeting to find a bright orange homeowners’ association envelope tucked into the storm door. All of the condo notices came in color-coded envelopes, because Mr. Wright, the homeowners’ association president, was the most anal-retentive person alive. Blue meant the water was being shut off for maintenance, green was always about lawn-related things-how many flamingos or gnomes or wind chimes you were allowed to display, or what color annuals you could plant-and yellow was all things electrical.

I got an orange envelope once before, when I didn’t pay homeowners’ dues for the first three months I lived in the condo. I didn’t even know I had to, and then all of a sudden there was a bright orange envelope with an invoice for six hundred dollars and a handwritten letter from Mr. Wright explaining the importance of paying dues on time. After that, I paid two days ahead of the due date every single month, so by the time I opened the letter, I was already fuming. I’d paid my fees. There was no excuse for this.

But I guess orange wasn’t limited to homeowners’ dues. Apparently Joe exceeded the weight limit for pets, which, according to the letter, was thirty-five pounds.

I marched down the street to the Wrights’ unit and knocked on the door with my fist even though they had a shiny brass knocker. Mrs. Wright answered. Elizabeth Wright was a small, bony woman with sharp cheek-bones and a weary, pinched expression that never went away. Mr. Wright called her Eliza, but when we first met, she introduced herself as Betsy. He pruned her name to his liking the same way he made the bushes in their front yard look like they were made of pom-poms.

“Oh, hi, Savannah. Come on in,” Mrs. Wright said, eying the envelope in my hand. “I suppose you’re looking for Harold.” She pursed her lips like she was eating sour cherries. “I’ll get him.”

There was a framed watercolor of a duck wearing a kerchief and a big floppy hat in the entranceway. The condo smelled like meat loaf. I shoved the letter in my pocket, and took my leather gloves off. My hands were sweaty.

I heard whispers in the other room, and then Mr. Wright walked over. He was wearing a smoking jacket over a white undershirt, and his salt- and-pepper hair was slicked into a bouffant. I fixed my attention on the duck until I knew my smirk was under control.

“Ah, Savannah, I see you got my letter.” He folded his arms in front of him and leaned against the wall.

“Yes. Yes, I did, and it’s absurd!” I pulled the wadded-up letter out of my pocket and shook it in his direction. “Mrs. Mackenzie has six garden gnomes.” I raised my hands to hold up six fingers to illustrate my point, but with holding gloves and the letter, I had no free fingers. I put my hands down. “Six. That’s three over the allowed limit for lawn adornment.”