The Orange County Humane Society, a nonprofit organization, makes it clear on its website that adoption is a far more considered process than many people might think. The staff’s interest is in the welfare of the animals placed in their care, many of whom come from extreme hardship, and also in making a match between animal and family that is best for all concerned. The shelter’s procedure includes a pre-application screening, proof of identity, proof of ability to house a pet (a rental’s pet policy or proof of home ownership), and a suggestion that the entire family, including other dogs, be brought to the facility prior to a pet choice being made. There’s a $130 adoption fee at the end of the process. The adoption policy on the site is firm and unapologetic, but kind. The intent is not to frustrate would-be adopters but to protect the animals involved.
As a rescuer, I can only applaud these kinds of policies. Too many animals are adopted out of casual interest or what some rescuers call “cage compassion”—the good impulses of the moment during a store adoption event that don’t survive to Monday morning, when the new animal chews a shoe or whimpers or has its own needs an hour before the adopter really wants to get up. There are worse outcomes too. Some shelters, particularly those with very low adoption fees, have also been hard hit by “adopters” fronting for dogfighting rings. These are professional scammers in every sense of the word. They know how to dress, they know what to say, they bring shining children as proof of goodwill. The end result is horrific.
Shauna Galligan and actor Mark Derwin, coordinating by phone with Tricia and her husband, Jonathan Marshall, made the trek to the Orange County shelter to do Todo’s shelter pull for me. Though I kept trying that entire Saturday, I hadn’t been able to make contact with the shelter, and because time appeared to be running out for the little dog, one of them would formally adopt him for me and care for him until I could get there. It would be a complicated process requiring a sync of schedules, a crosstown drive in LA traffic, and someone in this spontaneous rescue team of ours finding a way to provide proof of home ownership despite the fact that most documents were locked up in business managers’ offices on a Saturday.
Somehow Mark, Shauna, Jonathan, and Tricia achieved all that in a ricochet of e-mails and phone calls across North America. From Toronto, Tricia e-mailed me updates of their paperwork gymnastics and their progress toward Todo.
Finally, she e-mailed:
We got him!!! Shauna and Mark are taking him tonight. The shelter is shaving him now.
We got him! We got him! I post on Facebook, where Todo had an anxious following, and in moments the rescuers and dog lovers worldwide who knew about him began replying. Between his plea entry on Facebook and the ongoing updates on my own page—my Facebook friends were involved in the story unfolding too—Todo was well known before he ever left the shelter. Someone who had seen him mentioned that when she was there on behalf of two other last-chance dogs, she’d inquired about Todo and learned that shelter staff had been making every effort to get him the attention he deserved. “He’s such a cool little guy,” a volunteer said, describing a sweet, engaged personality that was slowly giving way to despair. This was a dog that loved people. There had been no interest in him from anyone for way too long.
Shauna writes:
Let’s see...we didn’t go past the front desk. We asked if we could adopt [Todo] and then they asked [if] we wanted to see him first and we said no we just want him. And quick!... They brought him out and he had very long fur, very dirty and stinky most of all. They asked if we wanted them to shave him and so they did. He still smelt so terrible and poor guy had big scabs all over his tiny body. He acted as though he had just given up on life and didn’t care what happened to him . . .
He had been in there for two months and they contacted his owners but they never came to get him.
My heart went out to him. He was in awful condition.
Todo had arrived at the shelter in rough shape. In addition to having an ear infection, he was blind in both eyes. Shelter staff had been advised that the left one might need to be removed. He had been given the best care available on limited shelter resources.
Shauna forwards photos of the little dog, shaved to the skin, wrapped in a towel, and collapsed in the back seat of a car. He looks frail and exhausted. He is on his way to Tricia’s house, where Jonathan (who is coming from three hundred miles away) will take him to the vet. A later photo from Shauna looks more hopeful. Todo is awake, upright, resting on his chest in deep grass. He seems to be enjoying a lovely California evening and the feel of spring sunshine on his skin. With that coat shaved down to nothing, he is a skinny, scrawny little thing with button eyes and a mouse nose. He is a cartoon rendering of a dog. His upright ears are impossibly big.
“Holy ears, Batman!” says a friend who sees the picture. “That’s not a dog. That’s a rabbit.”
It is something very like a rabbit I see Jonathan Marshall holding in a photo taken at the vet’s office later that evening. Jonathan looks triumphant. Todo looks better. He is resting comfortably in Jonathan’s arms, his ears up and face alert, one forepaw casually extended. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but the little dog seems brighter, as though somehow in his recent passage through kind hands, he has sensed that things are looking up.
Heart murmur, total blindness, uncertain hearing, arthritis.
Other than that, Todo is in “pretty good health,” reports the vet who attends him. Jonathan sends a video of their gentle first interaction. I can see blind Todo’s cautious way-making on frail legs, and the vet’s soft examination of his body and his movement. He is at last getting the veterinary care he’s needed for months.
We are trying to figure out how I should bring Todo home. The heart murmur, of uncertain grade, is a concern. His current level of exhaustion is too. A plane flight in the cabin at my feet would be a shorter but more intense process than a drive. Would a four-day car trip truly be less hard on him? It’s difficult to know how to bring him to Texas. When Jonathan reports the next day that Todo isn’t eating or drinking and has done nothing but sleep, I can’t be sure it’s best to bring him here at all. I put out the word with my California contacts that we may be looking for a local adopter; if someone falls hard for Todo, we can avoid the stress of a long-distance transport entirely.
He’s something of a worry across the next several days. The little terrier-Chihuahua-papillon (possibly) mix refuses food and sleeps almost nonstop Monday too. Jonathan has installed him in his own home office, given him a little dog bed and a plush towel blanket, and, because the little guy seems to tremble all the time, made him a sweater from an athletic sock, cutting out holes for paws and head.
Todo also has a new name. Shauna and Jonathan agreed that he needed a name that reflected both his hardship and his survival. Todo was no longer appropriate. Oliver Twist was good; Ollie T, the twenty-first-century upgrade with some street cred, even better. On the second day after the rescue, Jonathan sends a photo of Ollie in his rad sock sweater stretched out on their lawn. He still isn’t eating, but he’s awake and alert. It is a bright shot of a blind dog enjoying sunshine and soft grass. Ollie’s head is up; his forepaws are stretched forward luxuriously; and his perked ears and wide smile, mouth open in a pant, suggest a dog outrageously happy.
Now, if he would just eat.
Newly back in town from Toronto, Tricia takes him to the vet for a second checkup, an evaluation for flight, and any documents Ollie might need to travel. The second vet evaluation seems more hopeful. Ollie is responding well to the medication, is brighter with rest, and he is overall a stronger dog, even though he’s still not much interested in food.
I make a late-late-night flight to Los Angeles from Dallas, and it is a bright, beautiful morning in LA when Tricia takes me home to meet Ollie. He’s been camped out in Jonathan’s office since he came out of the shelter four days before, visited and scrutinized by their rescue cats—particularly Cesar, an extremely social orange tabby who wants to make
friends. Ollie is less withdrawn now and has begun to explore Jonathan’s office a little more. Previously subdued and so silent he seemed to be mute as well as deaf, Ollie surprised Tricia earlier that morning with a bark. It was a real-deal attention-getter of a bark that she heard one floor down and three rooms away. He was awake, he wanted something, and he didn’t mind barking to get it.
He is awake when I arrive. Tricia carries him out to meet me. She’s experienced and gentle with rescues. He is smaller than I had imagined. The little dog is quiet as she holds him, again lying easily with the left foreleg extended, and I get the sense that in his previous life, Ollie was very much a dog in arms. I am used to holding senior dogs, but when we shift him from her arms to mine, his fragility startles me. I can feel the hammering pulse beneath his left foreleg, the ribs and hipbones jutting just beneath raw skin, and the trembling that everyone has noted since the day he came home. Whether from age, chill, or the trauma of change, Ollie shakes all the time. He trembles as I hold him, even as he leans into my first scratches of his chest. He shivers as I lower my face to him, but he lifts his cold mouselike nose and bumps mine with it—hello in dog terms—the briefest exchange of information.
He had a stench when he was first rescued, but the shave-down and good care have helped. He now smells sweetly of dog. The ear infection seems to be gone.
He’s been a little more awake today, Tricia says, but he’s still not eating well. They have tried all kinds of wet dog food, mixing and mashing and offering it to him in a bowl and by hand. He not only refused it but definitively turned away. He’s taken some water but is just not interested in food. Earlier this morning, worried that he hadn’t eaten anything much in three days, Tricia finally got him to take a little cat food by hand. Ollie didn’t seem to be able to find it in a bowl. She’s concerned. Could it be possible he’s somehow lost his sense of smell too?
It is all a concern. Ollie is already far too thin. We make a run to Petco for something—anything—that might tempt him. We try him on new dog food. Not interested. We try him again on the cat food. Better, but not much. He takes a trembling lap or two and turns away. He puts his nose to a water dish and snitzes. Ollie, Ollie, Ollie. We can call the shelter to see what they were feeding him, because obviously he was eating something there, but getting a response by phone is no easy thing.
Despite the eating problem, the dog we are seeing today is really getting around. His gait is curious—a combination of blind caution and arthritic joints—and he wanders on light feet, lifting them high in a kind of circus-horse prance. Now he moves carefully across the kitchen and into the TV room, bumping lightly into furniture and redirecting himself so easily that I get the sense he has managed his blindness a long time. Several of the cats watch him from the sidelines, but Cesar trails him. Once, when Ollie turns while Cesar stays in place, they connect. It’s a little like a chest bump between athletes, a little like a Three Stooges head bang, but after the first startled twitch, neither seems worried about it. Ollie continues his exploration, Cesar shadowing his progress.
Ollie is a brighter dog that evening, too, when friends come over for a spontaneous dinner party. Shauna and three other actors are there, and at one point or another, Ollie ends up in everyone’s arms, even taking a little cat food from two of the guests. He is very much the center of attention, and the little dog takes to it well, despite the trembling. He is happy to be held by everyone in turn, his head lifted and his sweet face alert.
It’s when the Chinese food is delivered that we get a clue to the mystery of Ollie. Lying in a cat bed near the kitchen, he’s napping hard when the food comes in. It takes only a few seconds before his head pops up and his nose begins to work at the scent of stir-fried everything. He springs up from the bed and heads straight for the group of us assembled around the kitchen island, his tail wagging wildly.
The good news: There’s nothing wrong with Ollie’s sense of smell. The bad news: Ollie’s interest says clearly that he’s been fed people food. I’m guessing maybe exclusively people food. That would explain the diminished weight from his time in the shelter and the preference for cat food now, with its higher protein and fat content. As interesting as this revelation is, eating human food is not a habit Ollie can continue, and none of us likes to think what Chinese food might do to a stressed, exhausted dog’s constitution. So Ollie doesn’t get any Chinese food, though he certainly asks for it. He weaves his way to me and stretches up his paws on my knee in petition, patting my leg with one forepaw and then the other, the practiced movements of his past life with someone else—who must have loved him and may certainly have spoiled him with kung pao chicken. Whoever she was, whatever happened, I can’t help but honor the woman who must have once responded to that approach and light double-touch. I put my index finger to his little paw, and we hold there a minute before he drops to the floor.
Later, Ollie is cradled through the dessert course and the after-dinner drinks. He dozes companionably in arms and seems to most relish being held on the hearth. Heat-seeking, he stretches out his body and tilts his spine toward the fire, flexing his toes. For a time, his trembling stops.
Later that night I carry him down to the guest suite and offer him more food. I call the mash-up of dog and cat food heavenly hash—selling it to his unhearing ears, offering it by hand. He turns away and away, and away again. Rrrrr, he mutters. He takes some water and turns away from food again. When I put him in the cat bed Tricia and Jonathan have given him, next to a gifted red teddy bear he seems to respond to, Ollie sinks down into the warmth of it, rolling over and rubbing his nose with his forepaws. He’s comfortable and happy. He will sleep through the night without a sound. We will leave for Dallas tomorrow.
We are up early—I because I’m still on Texas time; Ollie because among his virtues is excellent housebreaking, and he has risen from his fuzzy bed and given me a set of grumbles that tells me he’s ready to go out. Ollie’s timing is excellent. Jonathan is leaving for work and was hoping for a chance to say goodbye to Ollie but hadn’t wanted to wake me. Tricia joins us too. I hand Ollie into Jonathan’s arms, and he and Ollie and Tricia have a moment together. It’s a brief, affectionate interaction on all parts. I’m convinced that Ollie has begun to identify the scents of the humans who rescued him. Just before the transfer from my arms to theirs, I saw the tiny triple head-pop of a dog tagging scent. I know this one. . . . and this one. Ollie leans into Jonathan’s hand for the scratching.
I turn away reflexively from their private exchange. I’ve been that intermediate person in the rescue of a dog bound for somewhere else, and I’ve loved those dogs intensely even in that short time. I can’t speak to Jonathan’s feelings, but I’m glad he wanted to say goodbye and that Ollie had the chance for one last interaction. That late-night vet trip they took together had made all the difference to a diminishing dog. I turn away, humbled, as I’m always humbled by how far some people will go for the good of a fellow creature in trouble. Just because they can.
First class. Ollie T is flying back first class, because that’s the way he rolls, I post on Facebook, but actually because I think he’ll travel more comfortably there. I flew out in coach but am dropping some frequent-flier miles to give him an upgrade. I want more under-seat room for his carrier and the opportunity for him to get onto and off the plane first. For a dog that came from very little, Ollie will fly to Dallas well accessorized. He is traveling in the sock sweater, accompanied by his red teddy bear, and is wearing the collar and the Thundershirt anxiety wrap Tricia bought him, in case plane travel makes him nervous. Tricia and I have somehow crammed the bed she and Jonathan gave him into my luggage, so when he gets to Dallas, he’ll have their scent and the comfort of objects he knows.
Tricia and I part at the airport—a suitcase, a hug over a carrier full of Ollie, and a flash of a wave goodbye. I have gracelessly babbled my thanks to her on the way to LAX in the car, hoping to get out that it would be a fine world if every unwanted animal were thrown a li
feline like Ollie’s. She, Jonathan, Shauna, and Mark had been so good to him. A week ago, none of us knew he even existed.
LAX takes us in, feeds us through ticketing and TSA, where agents do a double take over the creature in my arms. I have shucked shoes, jacket, cell phone, and keys. Ollie has come out of his carrier with his ears straight up, which gives his mouse face a somewhat shocked, indignant expression. Yikes! he barks as he comes out of the carrier. “Dude!” says a teenager behind me. Those ears, that single bark, carry the day. The agents laugh and speed us gently through the process, one even helping me negotiate the old dog back into the carrier afterward. The agent looks wonderingly at Ollie’s ears, which obligingly swing back out of the way as we zip the carrier closed.
Today’s not the best day for pet travel. Certainly not the best day for senior-rescue-pet travel. The gate area is hot and congested. Something has burned at one fast-food stand or another, and the scent of grease and scorched bread makes it seem hotter still. Every seat here is taken. It’s spring break, and groups of excited teenagers rush back and forth on missions of their own that they must do in hyperdrive, squealing and pushing one another out of the chairs they’ve claimed.
The frequent fliers sigh. Many of the adults isolate themselves from the hubbub, earbuds in place, sinking deeply into books or laptops. Against the wall, a few frantic people are obviously on their cell phones. Each has his head bowed and one hand cupped to the Bluetooth ear, and they all alternately pace and cock their heads sideways to glare at the overloud teenagers.
The Possibility Dogs Page 24