Travels with Casey

by Benoit Denizet-Lewis

  When I finally reached him an hour later on the phone, Marc explained that it was all happening too fast, that the pressure of medical school and our Chalet romance had gotten to him, that he wasn’t sure we were meant for each other. He’d felt our distance the last few days, too, though he’d taken it as a sign that something was irrevocably broken.

  “So instead of talking it out like an adult, you bolt?” I said. “What are you, a twelve-year-old?”

  I was mad at him. But I was angrier with myself. How could I have liked someone who would act this way? What signs had I missed? Had the RV’s heating or air-conditioning systems expelled crazy-making toxins? Until that moment, I’d prided myself on my taste in boyfriends. My previous relationships had all been with upstanding citizens—funny, smart, honest, and unlikely to scram without at least a conversation.

  Of course, Marc wasn’t really my boyfriend, and what we had wasn’t quite a relationship. We’d had something, though. We’d opened up, let each other in. And I’d trusted him enough to involve him in a journey that wasn’t supposed to include romantic intrigue. He’d been there—in person or on the phone—for some of the most important milestones, including the rescue of Rezzy. His fingerprints were all over the trip.

  As I drove into Chicago that afternoon with the dogs, I worried that Marc’s departure would taint my last week on the road. “How dare he try to ruin this for me,” I moaned to my friend Dylan. “This trip wasn’t about him, and now how he left is all I can think about.”

  I moped around Chicago for two days. I tried to motivate myself with an Al Pacino–esque pep talk from Any Given Sunday (You will hold your head high today and fight through the pain and the doubt!), but my self-pity lingered. I walked the dogs to the Cloud Gate public sculpture in Millennium Park, only to have a park employee tell me that dogs weren’t allowed. I was getting sick of hearing that. I defiantly snapped pictures of Casey and Rezzy underneath Cloud Gate before agreeing to leave. I considered it my lone victory for the day.

  I then took a preplanned, dog-friendly cruise around the Chicago River and Lake Michigan by Mercury Skyline Cruiseline, but my mood mirrored the gloomy, charcoal sky. When I was certain Marc wasn’t going to magically reappear with flowers and an apology, I finally canceled the surprise dinner reservation I’d made for our last night there.

  Thank God for Casey and Rezzy. Perhaps sensing that I needed to be handled delicately, Rezzy didn’t attack any dogs over the next few days. If Casey humped anything, he did it when I wasn’t looking. Back on the road in the RV, they mostly managed to fit together in their favorite spot.

  I hurried east on Interstate 80, eager to get home. I’d planned to stop in Elkhart, Indiana, at the northern tip of the state and just off the interstate. Elkhart is considered the “RV Capital of the World,” and part of me wanted to visit. But the part of me that wanted the trip to be over won out.

  Before too long, though, the dogs slowed me down. They needed to pee, needed to run, needed a respite from my human drama. They dragged me out of the RV and, slowly, out of my despondency.

  At a truck stop on the Ohio Turnpike, Casey and Rezzy led me over to a rescue mutt (Bella) and her truck-driving human (Dave).

  “Where are you and the dogs headed?” Dave wanted to know.

  “Massachusetts,” I told him. “Can’t get back soon enough. I’ve been on the road for almost four months, and I’m having a bad few days.”

  “RV trouble?” he wondered.

  I shook my head. “Boy trouble.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  I asked if I could pet Bella, who was standing triumphantly in the truck’s front cab, her head and chest visible out the passenger-side door.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” he told me. “I’m one of the few people she likes.”

  Dave recalled that when he’d decided to start driving a truck for a living, he went looking for a dog he could take along for the ride. At the Humane Society in Payson, Arizona, he’d met Bella, who had been at the shelter for months because of her aggression toward humans. Bella, though, shocked the shelter staff when she took an immediate liking to Dave during his visit. (Unlike actor George Clooney, Dave didn’t need to resort to trickery to impress the dog. Clooney once rubbed turkey meatballs on his shoes to ensure that a shelter dog he coveted would show reciprocal interest.)

  “I guess there really is a dog for everybody,” I said.

  “Yeah, though I’m not sure what it says about her taste—there are better guys out there than me,” Dave told me. He shrugged his shoulders. “Still, I’m not complaining.”

  “What’s the greatest thing about having her with you in the truck?” I asked him a couple minutes later, after Bella jumped out of the cab and came to stand next to him.

  He didn’t hesitate. “We keep each other company.”

  WE KEEP each other company.

  Is the dog-human bond as simple as that? Over the course of my fifteen weeks on the road, I’d spent more than a few nights in barren RV parks reading about complicated anthrozoological and psychological theories of pet ownership. Some people believe we share our lives with dogs because they’re handy substitutes for human interaction in an increasingly disconnected world. Others think we live with dogs because they keep us active and healthy, or because they teach empathy and responsibility to children.

  There are also less generous theories, including that we live with pets because of a subconscious need to dominate nature, or because “of a misfiring of our parental instincts,” as Hal Herzog put it. Herzog offered another possible explanation: “From the meme’s-eye view, pet-keeping is a mental virus spread by imitation,” he writes. He concedes that while “this idea seems far-fetched . . . the evidence for this perverse hypothesis is surprisingly strong.”

  Herzog notes that living with a dog in Japan became popular only after World War II, when “the Japanese began to emulate aspects of American culture.” Or that in Sri Lanka, the higher power you choose to believe in predicts whether you’ll share your life with a dog. “The fact that a Sri Lankan Buddhist is twenty times more likely than a Muslim to own a dog,” Herzog writes, “suggests that Islam inoculates believers from infection by puppy-love memes, while Buddhism makes people more susceptible.”

  But I like the we keep each other company theory of pet ownership best. Whatever the merits of the ownership-as-virus in the abstract, I’d encountered no evidence of it on my trip. The dog lovers I met didn’t live with dogs out of some rote, unthinking social obligation; they lived with dogs because they couldn’t imagine life without them. Even many of those who relied on canines for a specific skill (herding, police work) couldn’t help letting their dogs finagle their way into the master bedroom—and their heart.

  When my friends called me during my journey to gush about their dogs (“Little Petey wants to be in your book!”), they spoke often about the ease of their dog’s company. The dog could be counted on—to show up, to make them laugh, to comfort them—in a way that many of the humans in their lives couldn’t, or wouldn’t. In many cases, though, their close human-animal bond came only after some initial conflict or misunderstanding. There had often been some drama to overcome.

  One of my favorite examples of inauspicious beginnings came courtesy of a friend, Joe, who runs a landscape nursery near Boston. He’d called me when I was in Truth or Consequences to see how I was holding up. I told him that I would never forget when he took me aside and recounted the first few days he’d spent with his Otterhound mix, Winona.

  The dog had quite a backstory: she and her littermates had been tossed from a moving vehicle in Tennessee and ended up at a local no-kill shelter. While Winona’s siblings were quickly adopted, she spent two years at the shelter. Nobody wanted her—until Joe did.

  He arranged to have her transported by a trucking company that brings Southern shelter dogs to their new lives in the Northeast. At a truck stop in Connecticut, Joe stood alongside a dozen other people waiting for their dogs. One by on
e, the rescues were led out on a leash to meet their human families.

  “Finally, a handler came out with the scruffiest, most timid, and wildly shaking animal I’d ever seen,” Joe recalled. “She looked something like a cross between a pig and an opossum. That was Winona.”

  The dog froze when the handler gave Joe the leash. As Joe kneeled down next to her, Winona wormed her way out of her collar and ran straight for the highway. Fortunately, she took a pit stop behind the wheel of the transport truck, giving the handler time to catch the trembling dog, secure her with a new collar, and hand her back to Joe.

  He drove Winona to a nearby hotel, where he hoped to bond with her before bringing her to his home in Massachusetts. But on the way, Winona pooped all over the car’s backseat—and herself.

  In their hotel room, Joe gave the terrified dog a bath, after which Winona wedged herself into a tiny space near the nightstand and refused to budge. Hoping food might help his dog trust him, Joe hand-fed her a burger from the hotel’s café. A few minutes later, Joe coaxed Winona out of their room for a walk on the lawn, but when they returned she refused to follow him inside.

  Joe picked up his quivering dog and placed her on one of the room’s two queen beds. “Then poop basically started exploding out of her again,” Joe said. “She ran frantically around the room, feces flying everywhere.”

  There were coin laundry machines across the hall, so Joe spent the next few hours washing sheets and blankets. Then he scrubbed the carpets and went to sleep.

  The next morning, Joe tried to sweet-talk Winona into his car for the drive to Massachusetts. He picked her up with “all the deliberate tenderness I could muster,” but in the car Winona was frantic and started pooping again.

  “So there we were, with shit everywhere and me cleaning and trying to calm her down,” Joe said. “I felt so bad for Winona. I’d never seen a dog so scared, and I was worried that I was hurting her as I tried to clean her. Finally I looked at her and I said, ‘I am never going to leave you. I will clean you up as long as it takes. I will never abandon you.’ Then I burst into tears. And you know what that little rat-pig-possum did? She stuck out her long tongue and licked all my tears away. That was the end of the pooping. Benoit, it was like she understood me. I’m convinced she understood me. Now, every time she sees me throughout a day, her tail wags in circles so hard, she literally looks like a helicopter about to take off!”

  FOR MY last night on the road, I parked the Chalet at a KOA southeast of Pittsburgh. I was grateful to be feeling sentimental; it meant I wasn’t thinking about Marc.

  “Today is my last full day in the El Monte RV that has been my home these past four months,” I wrote on the trip’s Facebook page. “Things I will miss about my 25-foot ride: Playing my harmonica while lounging in the shockingly comfortable bed . . . Easy access to midnight snacks . . . Meandering along in the right lane to Florence and the Machine . . . The freedom to drive my home wherever I want to go.”

  Then I added what I wouldn’t miss about the RV life: “Spending between $150 and $190 to fill up my home’s gas tank every 400 miles. Small country roads with oversized trucks barreling toward me. Wind, which throws the RV around and makes me seem drunk. Emptying out the ‘black water’ tank. Waking up in a panic, unsure what state I’m in.”

  I took Casey and Rezzy for a walk around the park’s small lake, where a mother and her young son fished with the tiniest poles I’d ever seen. “Catch anything?” I asked, though I doubted they could reel in a goldfish with their equipment.

  I let Casey off the leash and watched him saunter to the water’s edge. He sniffed some grass, then steadied himself to pee on it. (Unless he’s urinating against a tree or a fire hydrant, Casey doesn’t lift his leg.)

  “You’re a good boy, Casey,” I said, prompting him to look back at me with that slightly confused look he gets when I compliment him for doing nothing.

  My session with Dr. Gold felt like it had happened years ago, in a parallel universe. He’d expressed doubt that this road trip would fundamentally alter the nature of my relationship with Casey, but it had.

  What had caused the shift? I wasn’t exactly sure. I suspect that I’d learned something from the hundreds of dog people I had had the fortune to meet during my long American walkabout. (Or Chalet-about, as it were.) Sure, some worried whether their dogs were happy. Others confessed that they didn’t always feel like they deserved their dog’s attention, respect, or blind adoration. But most simply appreciated their dogs. Their dogs weren’t the cause of their worries; they were a respite from them.

  Watching Casey interact with so many different people and dogs helped me realize just what a trouper he is. He’s easy to be around, easy to entertain, and easy to travel with. (It helped that he finally learned to tolerate the RV.) He loves being outside, loves being athletic. He’s friendly and kind, if sometimes distant and a little neurotic. In all those ways, he’s a lot like me.

  Somewhere around Texas, I stopped worrying about whether Casey was the right dog for me and started appreciating him for the dog he is. (I also came to appreciate simply having an active, healthy dog. Andy, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi I’d spent hours searching for in Connecticut, had never been found.)

  Still, I had to worry about something. So I turned my attention to Rezzy, who had spied a squirrel in a nearby tree and was straining at the leash and whining ever so softly. She wanted desperately to reach the squirrel, to live out her calling as a chaser of animals big and small.

  I was more convinced than ever that Rezzy was part, or mostly, Border Collie. For one thing, she looked like a Border Collie. For another, she loved running after things—and herding Casey. Had I rescued her before my stop at Rob and Bruce’s cattle ranch in Colorado, I would have let her loose on the cows. I bet she would have known exactly what to do.

  Part of me worried that I’d made the wrong decision rescuing Rezzy. On the reservation, she could chase anything she liked. In fact, she’d been after something in a field the moment I’d pulled into the Spirit gas station. Should I have let her stay out there with her pack? When I’d called Garrett to confess my Rezzy worries during a long drive through Montana, he laughed.

  “You idiot, she would have died if we hadn’t taken her,” he reminded me. “Remember her uterine infection?”

  “Oh, yeah.” How had I forgotten about that?

  But if Rezzy was in fact a Border Collie, was she meant to live in a city with me? Sure, I would take her to parks and let her run free. But wouldn’t she be happier on a farm somewhere? Wouldn’t she prefer to live somewhere else, with someone else?

  I sat on the grass by the lake. The squirrel was long gone, so Rezzy shuffled over to me and nuzzled her snout into my chest.

  “Are you sure you want to live with me?” I asked her.

  I brushed my teeth, closed the RV’s shades, and powered down my laptop. There were a few dirty dishes in the sink, but I figured I could get to those in the morning. No reason to start being a neat freak on the last night of my trip.

  I encouraged the dogs to join me on my bed. They jumped up, tails wagging. When Casey realized we weren’t going to play a game, he sighed and plopped himself down at my feet. Rezzy, meanwhile, edged toward my pillow. She wanted to be close to me.

  I don’t remember what I dreamt about that night. But when I woke up the next morning to the sound of kids playing by the lake, the dogs of my dreams were still there.

  They’d barely moved an inch.

  Casey, in the RV on Day 1 of our voyage. Everything was fine until I started the engine.

  An English Springer Spaniel at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, considered the Super Bowl of dog breeding. (Brad DeCecco)

  Casey and I during a break from the human drama at Tompkins Square Dog Run in Manhattan. (Brad DeCecco)

  Kim Zakrzewski with Baxter, a Westie/Bichon Frise mix. Kim was taken to court for allegedly not picking up after the dog.

  “Wolf Man” Rob Gudger and his wolfdogs in
their pen behind his house in the North Carolina mountains.

  It was all fun and games at this Ultimate Air Dogs dock-jumping event in Jacksonville, Florida.

  Hanging out with Casey—and looking oddly like Edward Norton—at an RV park in St. Augustine, Florida.

  I spotted many funny signs on my journey, including this one at the Pecan Grove RV Park in Austin, Texas.

  This mangy mutt got a second chance thanks to the rescue organization San Antonio Pets Alive!

  Casey at the Marfa Lights Viewing Area in Marfa, Texas.

  Cows were no match for two Border Collies on a cattle ranch in Gunnison, Colorado.

  One of the stray “rez dogs” I came upon on an Indian reservation in Arizona. I named her Rezzy and decided to take her along for the ride.

  The RV parked outside my father’s house in the Arizona desert.

  Casey and Rezzy across the bay from San Francisco, where I was born and raised.

  “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan gave Casey, Rezzy, and me a tour of his Dog Psychology Center—and told me everything I was doing wrong with my dogs.

  In Kent, Washington, I spent time with this homeless teenager and her then boyfriend—and their two dogs.

  Pet photographer Amanda Jones photographed the dogs and me in San Francisco. Notice me holding Rezzy—unlike Casey, she wasn’t a “model model.” (Amanda Jones)

  The bathroom is in the rear at the Dog Bark Park Inn Bed & Breakfast in Cottonwood, Idaho.