“Brendan,” I shouted, “there they are!” They were about one hundred feet away from us. I bent down and spoke to them in a sweet voice. I told them I wouldn’t hurt them.
“Hey, Alicia,” Brendan said, “watch. They’re terrified of people but when Bella gets next to the little red dogs - oh, that’s what we call them, the little red dogs - they let her get close to them. They’re comfortable with strange dogs but not with people.”
“No wonder they’re scared of people,” I said. “They must have had a pretty crummy life with that woman if she could abandon them like that. Now what, Brendan?”
“Well, since the animal shelter has not come to catch them, we’re trying to catch them ourselves.”
At that point, all we could see were pools of light on the ground coming from the streetlights. We could barely see two feet in front of us, let alone see the two little red dogs.
“This is really upsetting,” I said.
“I know, Alicia, I feel it too,” said Brendan. “I’m sure some folks will be out again tomorrow to try to catch them. By the way, it looks like the medium sized dog is a boy and the little one is a girl. Maybe they’re brother and sister.”
I thought maybe they were mother and son. Either way, we both agreed that they were definitely best friends.
Brendan nodded. “For sure. I’m going to stay in the park a while longer. You better head home. Stay strong, Alicia.”
“Thanks, Mista B, I’ll try.”
As Bella and I walked away, I gave her a full body hug, and then burst into tears. I’m not sure why I cried. I guess I felt sad, mad at the woman who left the dogs, helpless and frustrated all at the same time.
It was even colder now that the sun had gone down and I was starving. But I knew that in ten minutes, we could walk inside a warm apartment and have a nice, hot meal. I was afraid that the two red dogs might not make it through the night. It could have been a week since they had eaten anything.
When I got home, I told Mom that Brendan was in the park and that he was concerned about the dogs too.
“Oh yes,” she said, “that makes sense. I remember Brendan mentioning that he works with a wonderful animal rescue group. He’s a good person.”
My mom gave Brendan a call to make sure he would keep an eye on me. Even though Dad taught me a lot about dogs, Mom reminded me that I was not allowed to actually catch the dogs. Even though they looked sweet, they could bite me out of fear. She was okay with me going with Brendan if he would be the one to catch them. She tried to cheer me up about the dogs by putting on a funny movie, but I kept thinking about them being out in the park cold, hungry and alone with just each other. I prayed that the next day we could catch them.
Luckily, the next day was Saturday and I didn’t have to be anywhere in the morning. I was on a mission and asked Mom if I could go see if Brendan was in the park already. Without saying a word, she pulled out Bella’s coat, put it on her, gave me a hug and said, “Good luck. Please come home soon and call me if you need help.”
I thanked her and blew her a kiss. Bella and I were off. I was focused on going straight to the park. Bella and I had done this walk so many times before but today the five long blocks from Central Park West to Riverside Park seemed like fifty million miles. We finally made it to Riverside Drive.
We walked a few blocks uptown to get to the long staircase that leads down into the park. Just as I put my foot on the first step to go down into the park, I heard a loud truck horn blasting. I looked at the road to see what was going on. There they were! A big green pickup truck almost hit the boy dog. The man in the truck yelled, “Get out of the road, you stupid dogs. Then he looked straight at me and yelled, “You idiot, put leashes on those dogs. What’s wrong with you?”
My heart practically popped out of my coat as I watched them run toward the busy street. They were trying to stay close to each other but it was hard with cars whizzing past them. I was scared they’d get hit. They were headed in the direction that I had just come from and were going away from the park, not toward it! They ran right past “Café con Leche,” my favorite Spanish restaurant where the sweet smells spilled onto the street inviting us to come in. I wanted to get them food so badly, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them for a second. The smells wafting over the corner of Ninety-Sixth Street and Broadway must have tortured them. I thought maybe I could at least coax them off the street and back into the park but they kept going the opposite way. They crossed West End Avenue, Broadway, Amsterdam and then Columbus Avenue. I ran behind them calling, “Come on little dogs, please come to me. I promise I won’t hurt you. Please come to me.” At the same time I was calling them, I was afraid I might scare them back into the road again so I walked slowly behind them.
They headed towards a big dumpster and started sniffing around for food that may have dropped to the ground. There was nothing for them but even if they had found something, it probably would have been frozen. Then I saw a boy who looked like he was around eleven years old coming around the corner. The boy dog got very close to the young boy. The kid started laughing and teasing the dogs and making loud barking sounds. He shouted, “Hey, dumb dogs, go eat something at home.” He picked up a rock and threw it at them but luckily it missed them. I was mad but I didn’t have time to talk to the boy because the dogs ran off into the street and almost got hit again. I kept walking behind the dogs. Before I knew it they had reached Central Park.
I was scared because Central Park is bigger than Riverside Park. Whenever I went there with Bella it seemed like a lot of the people without dogs weren’t nice to people with dogs. I was afraid that if they saw the two lost dogs, they may not be nice to them. Also, this park goes all the way over to the east side of the city. I was hoping that someone would help. I couldn’t believe it. Just at that moment, I looked up and saw my friend Leslie. She already graduated from high school but we were still friends. She was walking her purebred Boxer named Calvin that her parents purchased for her from a dog breeder. She named him Calvin because she likes Calvin Klein clothes. I liked her and her dog a lot. I never told her this, but I wish she had gone to a Boxer rescue organization to adopt a dog.
“Hey, Leslie,” I said.
“Alicia, what’s up? You look upset.”
I told her about the dogs and asked for her help. She said that she had to go home for lunch and besides it was too cold to stay out another minute.
She continued, “I’m sorry I can’t help, Alicia, but don’t let this upset you so much. There are people who don’t have enough to eat in New York and homeless people who need help too.”
I felt like she was saying this shouldn’t be so important to me. My mother always told me that there are a lot of big problems in the world and it wouldn’t be good if we all cared about the same things. Besides, she’d tell me, it’s just not good to judge someone for caring about something that you don’t get involved in. “Compassion is contagious,” my mom would say.
I was kind of disappointed with Leslie but I bit my tongue. I wanted to ask her if she cared about anything other than designer clothes. Instead I said, “Thanks anyway, Leslie, right now I need to find someone who will help me.” As I walked off, I turned around and called to her, “Oh, hey, Leslie, there’s a homeless guy on the corner of Broadway and Ninety-Sixth Street. He wears a purple corduroy hat and a blue pea coat. He loves cheese sandwiches, no mayo and a large hot chocolate.”
I kept looking for the little red dogs, but no luck.
I had a rehearsal in a little while for Shout about It, an original musical theatre piece that we were putting on at school. I knew I would need to concentrate that night and not worry about the dogs. I would have to stay focused. The director would be finalizing the blocking of the show. This was one of the best public schools in New York City for theatre. I worked hard to audition for the theatre group three years ago when I was thirteen and was excited that I had gotten in. I didn’t want to mess things up now. When I got to rehearsal, I told my fellow c
ast members about the dogs. They were shocked and many of them offered to help. It was great that they cared about the situation, which made it easier for me to concentrate during rehearsal.
When I got home that night I went straight to bed so I could get an early start on my search the next morning. When I went to the kitchen for breakfast, my mother said she could hear me talking in my sleep. She came into my room and heard me say, “Come on little pups, please come to me.” She said I was tossing and turning. I was pretty beat on Sunday morning because I didn’t get much sleep but I knew a second wind of determination would kick in.
My mother didn’t want me going to the park alone again so she called Brendan to see if he was heading there. The weather report said it was going to snow again, so I bundled up and met Brendan in the lobby. He had been working late the night before and looked like he was sleepwalking. He mumbled, “First stop, Ms. Alicia, is the coffee shop.”
“You sure you’re going to make it Mista B?”
All he could do was nod. Once Brendan was coffee’d up and more alert, we headed to Riverside Park. I looked at Bella with her new winter coat on. Brendan smiled, looked at me and then at Bella and said, “Come on, girls, we’ve got work to do.”
We hoped the pups would be there. We both agreed that even though it was cold, at least it was a beautiful, sunny day.
Brendan asked about Bella and commented on how well she walked with us. I told him about my parent’s friend Bob who is an awesome positive reinforcement trainer who helped me with Bella.
“By any chance, does he do a lot of work with abused pit bulls?”
“Yeah, do you know him?”
“No, but I’ve heard of him. He’s really into helping animals and a very cool guy.”
I asked Brendan when he thought he would get another dog.
“When I rescued Jackson, I wasn’t working so many hours. But after he passed away, I started working a lot more. It wouldn’t be fair to a dog, especially a puppy to have to be alone that much. When I have any extra time I volunteer with rescue groups and as often as possible I do what we’re doing right now.”
“That’s cool, Brendan,” I replied.
As we entered the park, Brendan and I couldn’t believe our eyes. Right in front of us were the two little red dogs. They were so close to us I wanted to scream with excitement. Instead I called to them. I gently put my hand in my pocket ready to grab the leashes I had just in case and handed them to Brendan. Both dogs stopped and for a split second we thought they might come to us.
The boy looked right at me. Then the girl did too. I wondered what she was thinking. Seeing the sadness in their eyes tore me up. They both looked exhausted and like they really wanted to trust someone but there was also terror in their big brown eyes. Brendan walked very slowly so they could barely tell that he was moving. There was a fence right in front of us, and I thought they were trapped.
He moved toward the little girl but she was so skinny from not eating that she slipped right through the slats in the fence. The boy dog ran down the path to the end of the fencing and caught up with the girl. They both scurried away down into the park. We missed them by inches.
My excitement turned to a feeling of helplessness again and my breakfast turned to lead in my stomach. We just looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and sighed. As we turned to walk away, we saw a guy coming towards us wearing a crazy fluorescent colored hat and scarf, and glasses that looked like ski goggles. He was walking with a group of five dogs, all different shapes and sizes.
Brendan curved his hand around his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Keith!” Brendan introduced us. “Alicia, this is my buddy, Keith. He has also been trying to catch the little guys. Keith, this is Alicia. She’s concerned about the dogs too.” Keith gave me a “way to go” pat on my shoulder with his huge quilted mitten. I thought I might tip over.
We all walked together and talked. “Wow,” I said, “it looks like you have a nice pack of dogs.”
“Yeah,” he said with a big grin, “I rescued all of them from different places. This is Amsterdam because I found him on Amsterdam Avenue. This is Parker who I found tied to a bench in Central Park. He’s named after the musician Charlie Parker, and this is Coltrane after the famous saxophonist, John Coltrane.”
Amsterdam, Parker and Coltrane were all big and the others were funny looking little ones. Usually dogs look like their owners and have similar personalities. It was hard to tell which dog Keith was most like.
Bella definitely looked like me. She had the same color hair except for my reddish - purple streaks. Her ears were long like my hair, but I have bangs and her hair was spikier on top. Bella was very protective of people she loved just like I do.
“I had no idea that there were so many homeless and abused dogs until I rescued mine from a junkyard,” I told Keith. “I can’t believe how careless people can be with animals.”
“Keith, Brendan,” I shouted, “look, there they are again. They are so skinny. Do you think they’ll live much longer?”
Keith and Brendan spoke almost simultaneously and said the same thing. “I hate to say it, Alicia, but I doubt it.”
I called ahead to the boy dog. “Come on buddy, please come with us. Look Keith, he’s stopping.” Then the boy dog stared at us as if he was contemplating a decision with global implications.
“It looks like he’s trying to make a choice,” I said.
“Yeah, it does,” Brendan agreed.
The boy dog took one more look at his partner, then at us. He saw that she had run further away from us and suddenly, he bolted to catch up with her and we could tell that he had made his decision. They ran together again.
They seemed so close; like they knew what the other one was thinking. I let out a long sigh and my breath formed a cloud of smoke from the cold. As we were walking along the path we bumped into a woman and her dog. Adriane was another friend of Keith and Brendan. She and her tiny dog Roxy were also trying to catch the two red dogs. We walked and talked and I learned how she rescued Roxy when she was a little puppy. Roxy had been living in a house where no one took care of her and the kids teased her a lot. Adriane lived next door to them. Roxy escaped one day and when Adriane was not looking Roxy jumped into her car and just sat in the passenger seat and waited for her. They have been together ever since.
I learned that Adriane, as well as other people, were cooking delicious and yummy smelling healthy food for the little red dogs and bringing it to the park to try to lure them. Keith and Adriane shouted in stereo as they saw their friend Lowell up ahead. “Hey Lowell, come on, we’re trying to catch the little ones.”
Two more friends appeared and Brendan shouted, “Hey, are you here to help us catch the little ones?”
“You bet,” one of the guys said, “if we don’t get them tonight, they will die. It’s going to snow again.”
At that point, we all saw the little red dogs darting around the park again. Adriane gasped, “Today the dogs look skinnier than ever and it looks like they can barely walk. They are definitely not walking as quickly as they were a week ago.” We all agreed.
A whole group of people including more adults, some kids and a bigger group of dogs formed a rescue unit and we walked the length of the park determined to save the red dogs. Now we were a team.
I was introduced to Leo, Lee, Nicole and her husband Brian and everyone’s dogs, Daisy, Sasha, Ben, Bogie, Devin and Bodie. I stared at Sasha who looked just like Bella. Then I remembered that the lady who rescued Bella told me that a really cool woman from Inwood had rescued Bella’s sister.
I said to Nicole, “Hey, by any chance did you get Sasha from Miriam, a woman who rescues dogs? Was Sasha born in a junkyard in the Bronx?”
“Yes!” Nicole shouted. “Are you Alicia?” We both screamed and hugged like we had known each other for years.
“Doesn’t that make us in-laws?” Nicole asked.
“I guess so,” we both laughed.
“Wow,” Nicole noted
, “I can’t believe you adopted Bella and that she’s lived this long. She’s big too. Miriam told me that most dogs with her type of problem don’t survive.”
“I know,” I told Nicole. “My dad took me to visit Miriam to see all the dogs she had for adoption. My eyes went right to Bella because she was so cute. She ran, got a ball and gave it to me. She played fetch with me for a long time while my dad talked to Miriam about her condition. By then I really liked this puppy a lot and so did my dad. I could not get her sweet eyes and oversized, floppy ears out of my head. I remember thinking that maybe I was the one who was meant to care for her. We talked it over with my mom and figured out what we would need to do if we adopted her. My mother finally agreed. A couple of days later we picked her up and she never fetched a ball again. She must have been putting on a show for us!” I said, and laughed.
“What was her problem?” Leo asked.
I told him, “Bella was born with a condition called megaesophagus, which means that her esophagus is enlarged and her muscles can’t push her food down. It would take us about thirty minutes to feed her three times a day when she was a puppy and now, two times a day. She eats sort of standing up and then has to lay propped up with pillows so the food will go down by gravity. She knows that when we say “time to digest” that it’s time to go to the couch and stay propped up for a bit. We made this a happy time for her so she does not try to get up. I think she thinks all dogs eat like this. There are lots of risks with this condition. She had pneumonia twice but we love her a lot and keep a close eye on her. Since we made the decision to adopt her, we’ll do whatever it takes to keep her healthy.”
Then Nicole said, “This is so cool, we’ll be friends for life.” You’ll have to come up to Connecticut sometime. Brian and I have a farm where we have lots of other rescued animals. I looked up and realized that the entire rescue team had been quietly walking right along side us listening to the story while they kept an eye out for the two dogs. I felt so happy to be with such a great group of people.
The Story of Lilly & Lou Page 2