You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness (9 page)

I had worn a hooded sweater and a down vest so I could have the extra pockets but, as it was right by the Hudson River, it was cold and
King Lear
windy. I put my hood on and tightened it and stood against the wall for warmth. I waited and looked at my watch and tried the front door and waited some more. It was 9:35 and there was no sign of Jen. I called her on my cell phone and she was stuck in traffic on the George Washington Bridge, which I could see from where I stood. Had it been moving she’d have been there in seconds.

The dogs we were getting were two of Rachel’s puppies, Sparky and Pepito. Everyone is always kind of excited when we get puppies because even though they’re untrained, they tend to be very little and cute.

The door opened and closed several times before I saw John. He was a heavyset, balding man with a great walrus mustache. He wore khakis and a gray crewneck sweater. In one hand he held a bag of toys, in the other, the leashes. The puppies were about forty pounds of writhing, screaming, biting, and barking. Pepito tried to bite me several times and Sparky just cried. John alternately shouted at them and hugged them, calling them in baby talk “little mushes” and “bacciagalupe.”

Here I was, the “expert,” and I was at a total loss. We walked the mongrels over to a nearby park, where the wind picked up and a small part of me hoped the two of them would get swept away on a current, two raging kites. No such luck. We talked and waited and every so often I got a call from Jen telling me she’d moved a quarter of an inch. “Well, we’re here waiting,” I said, remaining upbeat. This was Jen’s first foster so in my head I chose Sparky for her, the less terrifying of the two evils.

John regaled me with stories of walking his six dogs, which I could not imagine, these two and
four more
. As we waited the dogs settled down and eventually we hopped up on a stone wall and each held a dog in our lap.

“See what I mean? They’re just little loves!” he said while Pepito licked his face. I wasn’t convinced. I had frozen at this point after twenty minutes in the chilly wind, and I guessed the dogs might just be too cold to be bad by now.

John really was a sweet guy. When he told me his lover had died and that he himself was so sick he was on disability, I thought it was something like cancer. Then he started telling me about the court case with his landlord. His apartment was infested with roaches and he’d been
bitten
by them and had been sick ever since. Though I’d lived in Manhattan for twenty years, I had to admit I’d never heard of a person being bitten by a cockroach to the point of disability (or at all—cockroaches bite?). The whole image of the apartment overrun with man-eating cockroaches made me think Sparky and Pepito might have been victims of circumstances.

Jennifer finally rolled up in an SUV driven by her dad. She opened the way back and there were two crates. I had John sign the surrender forms quickly. He didn’t bother filling in the information—they had no vets, they’d never had shots. He’d already told me the food they were used to: Doritos, vanilla ice cream, and the #7 from China Fun.

I held the leashes while he picked up each dog. Tears rained down his face into his bushy mustache like the doorman at Emerald City. He held Sparky first, whispered something to him, put him in the crate, and said good-bye. Then it was Pepito’s turn. I was sobbing right along with him. He turned and walked away and I told him I’d call him. He silently waved, and Jen closed the back of the truck and drove off. I walked to the subway trying very hard to get ahold of myself, but it was no use. So I called Paul as I walked.

That night there was a flurry of calls. Pepito was terrifying his foster family and Sparky wasn’t faring much better. Jen said she would get a trainer in to work with Sparky but the people who had Pepito didn’t even want to go near him. One of the volunteers picked him up and a transfer was made to another foster home. As of this writing, both dogs are still in foster care. They are, in a word, unadoptable.

I had a lot of phone conversations with John, who wanted to know how Sparky and Pepito were doing. I kept my responses vague. He wanted the phone number of the foster family so he could call up and talk to the dog. (“Just have them hold the phone near them. I’ll say
puppy, puppy, ice cream
.”) He’d signed them over to us and couldn’t get them back—as he threatened—if he didn’t like what was happening. The social worker was concerned now that it was clear to all that Rachel was going to give birth again. John wanted me to dog-sit for him while he was in
Pwayrdoh Dreeko
. I said, “No way.” He wanted Rachel to be somewhere safe in case she gave birth because his roommate wouldn’t know what to do. In all the confusion of the pickup, I’d never gotten to look at Rachel, either, to see if she was okay.

I called Mary Lou. “If a dog of mine is going to give birth, I don’t go on vacation!” she said. Now, though, apparently John was not going to Puerto Rico for a
vacation
; he was picking up some medication for some elderly neighbor who didn’t have a passport, he said. We were all getting a little irritated with John’s complete lack of responsibility and the stories and excuses that would continuously morph at a dizzying rate into whatever he needed. And suddenly he was acting like we were his private Canine Staff. We all wanted to make sure the birth went okay, and it wasn’t going to help Rachel stay healthy if she was eating Doritos and ice cream. Sheryl and I discussed the appropriate boundaries. I said I’d bring him supplies, healthy food and vitamins and something to use as a whelping box for the birth. I went to my favorite local pet store, Petqua, and picked up a large metal crate, some fifty-pound bags of food, and Nutri-Cal, a vitamin paste. I told the owner the whole story and he said he’d throw in extra samples of food for them. And since I wasn’t going to be able to carry it up on the train, I had them deliver it. I also asked him to peek in at the dogs to see if everyone looked okay.

When I came home there was an e-mail forwarded from the social worker who said that I shouldn’t be offended that John hadn’t invited me in. He probably wouldn’t want me in the apartment because of the condition (oh right, the rabid roaches!), and she said when she’d gone there herself her coat smelled so terrible from just being inside that she had to have it dry cleaned—twice.

I was on the phone with John ten times a day. He wanted to know where the food and whelping box were. When were they going to be delivered? Did these people know he wasn’t paying? And on and on and on. He had a friend visiting from Europe who was going to stay and watch all of the dogs while he was away. On one of our phone calls, John had just come back from a housewares store to get a “cozy” for the toaster because the friend was a little grossed out by the roaches that were crawling in and around there. John was opening the bag while I was on the phone. He was cracking up at what the guy in the store gave him. “What is this? A
yarmulke
? This isn’t going to cover the toaster!” John was laughing but his friend was not. I think I would’ve been crying.

He had called to say he’d gotten the delivery and that the guys from the pet store were cute. “They’re a couple,” I said. “Forget it.” He laughed. I stopped by the pet store the next day to thank them and ask if they’d gotten a glimpse of the dogs. They said he came out into the hall; they couldn’t see into the apartment, but the dogs who came out with him looked fine to them.

I told John that now that this part was over and we were on to puppy-birth phase, he should call Mary Lou with any questions or problems. And as endearing as I found John, I hoped our time together was done.

I very happily heard nothing from him over the next ten days and then one morning I woke up and there were messages on my home and cell voice mail. It was John’s number on the caller ID. He was yelling hysterically that Rachel was giving birth at four in the morning and she ate one of the puppies! It was about 7 A.M. and I didn’t really know what to do. I Googled “mother dog eat puppy” and learned that when a puppy is stillborn or sickly, the mother dog will eat it so it won’t attract predators. It always kind of shocked me when these little pet shop dogs in their Burberry trench coats acted like wolves in the wild. The phone rang and it was John again and he was calmer. Five puppies had been born altogether (including the one she ate). I told him what I’d read and said I’d ask my rescue friends about it. He said they were very cute, and one was brown with blue eyes, and I had to come see them! I really wanted to, but the smelly twice-dry-cleaned coat and the roach thing kind of paralyzed my desires.

I stopped hearing from John and patted myself on the back for a job well-done. Every so often I’d see his name on my caller ID, but he didn’t leave a message. I called him back once to check in, but he wasn’t there.

Eight weeks after Rachel gave birth I heard from John again. It was a message on my machine. Through the wailing I heard something about “Rachel” and “murdered.” As I was listening, the call waiting rang and it was Mary Lou. She’d spoken to John. He had recently gotten a new roommate and while John was out of the apartment, the roommate claimed Rachel had attacked him and he killed her. He kicked her to death. The cops came and arrested the guy and the DA was up there now. Mary Lou’s husband was a New York City cop, and he was looking into it. She said John wanted me to go up there but she told him I was away. It really did feel like lightning just kept striking John. Another friend in the group went to John’s apartment and our group arranged for Rachel’s burial. It really was a sickening event. Boston terriers aren’t killers and nursing mothers are weaker still.

I was at the airport a few months later when I picked up the
New York Post
. There was a picture of John along with the graphic story of Rachel’s slaying and the indictment of the roommate for aggravated cruelty to animals.

I resolved to help John when I returned, smelly apartment or not. So often these sweet little needy pups that I desperately want to help are attached to humans who may see this as an opportunity to get some rescuing for themselves. Letting that stand in the way only hurts the dogs. It’s always hard to set boundaries, but it’s imperative to do it with people you’re helping out so you don’t go crazy. It’s why my therapist doesn’t give me her vacation house number. (Why? I wouldn’t bother her. Maybe just a quick check-in to see if she’s got good weather ...)

The point is, since rescuing these dogs, on a given day I have anywhere from four to sixteen feet walking all over me. I don’t really want any more.

LESSON SIX

How to Fall in Love . . . Again

My life always operates at two speeds, a
Wizard of Oz
cow-in-the-air-tornado velocity and just above flatlining. And now I was in the latter. Work was at a point where I was mostly waiting for things. Violet was settled into her pre-K program. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next and my mind needed occupying.

I had been monitoring the message boards as usual. Since I’d joined the rescue group, I’d heard a lot about a group of surrendered Bostons that became known as “the PA dogs.” A family in Pennsylvania had two “intact” (not spayed or neutered) Bostons and their seven puppies. They lived in a trailer and from what I had heard, it was not in good shape. Apparently their neighbors didn’t like that or them, so they demanded the family get rid of all but two dogs. They surrendered five to NEBTR half a year before I joined and everyone who’d fostered one had ended up keeping him or her. They were legendary, the greatest dogs ever. My friend Joy had one, and she occasionally asked Jane and Sheryl if there had been word on the surrender of the final two. She wanted to get them, check out the family, and find out what sort of magical people had created this pack of amazing canines.

Jane called to check in with them and they said yes, they were ready to go. Joy immediately volunteered to pick the two up. One foster home was lined up and they needed another. Joy would forward me all the postings, and gently try to persuade me to consider fostering one. She knew I wasn’t that interested in fostering, but she felt one of these dogs would come to us and maybe stay. There were no photos of them, which was my usual method of swaying Paul. It was very hard to look into the eyes of a soon-to-be homeless dog and say, “Nah.” Jane posted the little information she was able to glean from the owners. One dog was fine, a sweet fellow. The other one spent his life under the family’s couch, terrified by the other dogs. The easygoing dog had a foster home lined up, but the frightened one was up for grabs.

I was wary; I knew that scared dogs could be very tough to take on. The term “fear biter” came to mind. These were timid dogs who lashed out when threatened. Paul and I talked it over and decided we’d try to foster him, but that at the first sign of aggression, he’d have to go elsewhere. We weren’t going to be held captive like we had been with Hank. And, no matter what, we were not keeping him. After our brief experiences having two dogs, we realized we didn’t want it to be a permanent condition after all.

There was a flurry of correspondence regarding the transport. No one could do the last leg, and in the end, my aunt Mattie offered to take me to meet the rescuer in New Jersey and get him. The trip was arranged for Saturday, but it was a Jewish holiday and the family was coming to Mattie’s apartment for dinner. The dog would stay overnight with the last driver, and we’d meet them at an exit of the New Jersey Turnpike Sunday morning. While we were at Mattie’s, Joy called to tell me he was in the car, and that Rascal was his name. And she told me about the family. They were a very young couple with a small child—she thought around five—walking around in nothing but a diaper. The place was a mess, but they seemed to really love their dogs. After I spoke to her, she e-mailed me a picture of Rascal. He had a half-black and half-white face. Very cute and solemn, no goofy tongue lolling. I showed the picture to Paul, and Mattie said, “What’s that?” And Paul replied, “Our new dog.”