One of the goldens, named Gypsy, seemed particularly excited. She also was soaking wet—strange since it was the summer, which meant it hadn’t rained in more than four months.
It took me a moment to run through the possibilities. I could come up with only one, and it was a disaster to contemplate. I ran outside onto the property and out to the duck sanctuary.
Sure enough, the door had somehow opened, and dogs had gotten inside. There were three dogs in there when I arrived, two goldens and a German shepherd named Rudy. I assume more had been inside—certainly the still wet Gypsy had been—but they must have left to see me when they heard me pull up in the car.
I quickly locked the cage behind me, so that the other dogs could not get in. The two goldens were on the cement, barking at the ducks, but surprisingly not willing to jump in the pond. Rudy had no such reservations; he was in the water and chasing after the ducks. There was nothing friendly about his attitude; for Rudy it was duck-hunting season.
I ushered the two goldens out of the sanctuary, all the while screaming, “RUDY! RUDY!” I saw him look up at me, but his expression wasn’t saying, “Oh, sorry, Dave; I’ll be right out.” Instead he was saying, “You want me to leave? Are you crazy? These are ducks we’re talking about. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
I couldn’t reach Rudy, and he was closing in on the ducks. Eventually he was going to get one. The thought of watching Rudy kill a duck was even more horrifying than getting in the pond, as disgusting as that was.
So I jumped in.
Actually, “jumped” isn’t the best description. I waded in, moaning audibly at the fact that I was literally swimming in duck shit. I headed toward Rudy, who seemed so surprised to see me that he didn’t bother to resist. Which was fortunate, because if I’d had to stay in there an extra minute, I would have first killed him and then myself.
Finally I got him out of the sanctuary and locked it behind me. I then ripped off my clothes and threw them out.
It was early August when I got into the shower, and probably mid-October when I got out.
A Moment of Weakness
It could be that I was getting delirious, but it was at our first stop that morning that I experienced a sentimental moment. Sentimental moments for me come along about as frequently as Mets World Series wins, and I’m always surprised when I suddenly have one.
This one came as I was walking Weasel along the perimeter of our makeshift dog park. I looked over at all the great dogs milling around or lying down, and it hit me that pretty much every one of them would have been dead had we not intervened.
And then there were the people, these selfless, amazing people who’d given up their lives for a week to come do this. I knew they were having a great time, even if I had no idea why, but by any standard this trip had not been a walk in the park … it was more a tiring tiptoe through the dog shit.
And then there was Debbie, who at that moment was hugging Bernie and Louis simultaneously. If she didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have gotten involved in dog rescue. But if I didn’t exist, she would still have devoted herself to it.
I would love her no matter what, whether her time was spent saving dogs or collecting stamps. She takes her passion and runs with it, and a good strategy is not to get in her way. I can feel intensely about things as well, but I’m usually passionate from a seat on my recliner, remote control resting on my chest.
The way Debbie immersed herself in dog rescue was remarkable, and it’s not an emotionally easy thing to do. In baseball, they say a hitter can make it to the Hall of Fame by hitting not much more than three hundred, which means succeeding three out of ten times. But dog rescue is a hell of a lot harder; there is simply no chance to save three out of every ten dogs in Southern California shelters. For that reason it can be incredibly frustrating, and it can burn you out very quickly.
Debbie just shrugged this off and pushed on, using her time and money and energy and whatever else was necessary. The love and caring she put into the process over all the years makes me love her that much more.
And I looked at Wanda the mastiff, a gentle, lovable giant. There are thousands of Wandas chained up in backyards, spending their days alone and without the human contact they crave. I was just glad and very grateful that we had enabled her to live such a great life.
And of course there was Weasel, lumbering slowly at the end of my leash. Weasel had been with us since the beginning, which was almost seventeen years before. She’d lived with us in Santa Monica and Orange County, and since she had slowed down markedly, I’d been nervously hoping she’d be around to live with us in Maine.
And I decided that she would, even if I had to carry her across the finish line myself.
I remembered when we decided that Weasel would become a member of our family. She was the first dog for whom we had a permanent tag ceremony.
Some couples might play games like “lonely housewife and handsome deliveryman.” Not Debbie and me; our playacting, like everything else in our lives, is dog related.
So I would pretend not to want a dog that we’d brought in to become a permanent member of the household, and Debbie would pretend to try to convince me, though she was never successful. But she would “secretly” order a permanent tag, and once that arrived, the rule of the game was that it was too late for me to protest. So we’d gather all the dogs around and conduct a ceremony in which we’d put the permanent tag on the new dog.
I know … not exactly “stranded driver and the farmer’s daughter,” but we liked it. And the dogs liked it when they all got a biscuit as part of the ceremony.
But the goofiest thing I do, which I’ve never told anyone but Debbie before, is I talk to the dogs. Not just hanging out, “how’s it going” conversations, and it doesn’t happen that often, only when there’s something of significance to discuss.
For instance, whenever we bring a new dog into the house, I talk to the newcomer just before I go to sleep. It’s usually comfortably ensconced in a chair by then, or lying on one of the twelve thousand dog beds we have lying around the house.
But it had to have had a rough day, coming into a house with maybe thirty dogs, all of whom had bombarded the new one with attention and curiosity. And much worse than that is probably the life the new dog led before us that resulted in its being dumped in an awful shelter.
I never have any way of knowing how much it has been bounced around, or how many times it has been abandoned or thrown out. The poor dog could be viewing our house as just one more stop, one more place in which it would ultimately not be wanted.
So I would lean down and spend a few minutes petting and telling the dog that it was safe now, and would be comfortable and loved forever. I’d say how happy we were that it was part of the family, and that it should just relax and enjoy life. The dog never responded verbally, but I would keep petting until it shut its eyes, so if there was any discomfort it was well hidden.
The other time I’d talk to the dogs was when they were ill and we both knew the end was near. I’d tell them that I knew they didn’t feel well and that we wouldn’t let them feel that way for much longer. I’d tell them not to worry, that we would do only what was best for them. And I’d tell them that it was great having them as part of our family and that we would always see them that way.
But at that moment, in that makeshift dog park next to the RVs, I leaned down to talk to Weasel. We’d had a lot of conversations over the years. “Weasel, old girl, we’ve come a long way.”
She didn’t answer me, which was to be expected. Weasel had never been much of a conversationalist.
“You’re going to love Maine,” I said. “We’re on a lake, and the last time we were there, wild turkeys came right up to the house.” The truth was I had no idea whether Weasel had feelings for wild turkeys, either positive or negative. I was just very happy she was going to live long enough to see them.
Debbie came walking toward us; I would have bet everything I owned that she knew
exactly what I was feeling.
When she reached us, she leaned down to pet Weasel and then looked up at me. “She’s going to make it,” Debbie said.
I nodded but didn’t say anything, since I was in the process of experiencing another sentimental moment. It was the second one in a half hour, doubling my previous high.
Finally I said, “Yup.”
I’m at my most eloquent in sentimental moments.
Feeding Time at Home
One of the difficulties of having so many dogs is the fact that they like to eat.
Every day.
Day after day.
Vets say that it’s best for dogs to be fed twice a day, so that’s what we do. It’s not easy, and each feeding takes probably forty-five minutes or so, depending on how many dogs we have at the particular time. But it is truly something to behold.
The dishes are spread out all over the house, and each dog knows exactly where his or her dish is going to be. Some of them inhale their food and then go on the prowl to find those who they know are not going to finish. Others just hang out with their food, not showing any interest at all until I start to pick up the dishes, at which point they spring into eating action.
We separate from the group those that might be on special diets for reasons of health. They go into rooms by themselves, behind closed doors, to eat in peace.
The only one to always be separated not for reasons of health is Wanda, the mastiff. After a month or so of her chowing down on everyone else’s food, we started putting her in the laundry room, separated by a half door, open at the top. When she’d finish she’d stand with her head at the open area, looking down at the others eating, wishing she could have their food.
But Wanda couldn’t get to them; and she wasn’t happy about it. At times I thought she was going to eat the door.
In ten years at our house in Orange County, I don’t think there were three occasions, outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas, that Debbie and I ate at a table.
It was just too much of a hassle. First of all, once any food was put on the table, it then had to be guarded. Therefore, one of us would have to bring all the courses in while the other stayed vigilant. Wanda, for instance, would need about thirty seconds to clear off and suck down the entire meal.
The eating itself was no easier. Dogs would completely surround us, pleading looks on their faces, wanting some of our food. Then, of course, there were the non-silent beggars, barking angrily at not being invited to dine at the people table.
Of course, Debbie would make it worse by slipping some of them tastes of the food. Very rarely did they react by barking, “OK. Thanks for that … enjoy the rest of your meal.” Instead it obviously got them even more eager for even more food, and pissed off the ones that hadn’t had a sample.
It wasn’t an atmosphere conducive to fine dining, and as you can imagine, we didn’t throw a hell of a lot of dinner parties. Instead we ate standing up, in the kitchen.
In addition to the dogs’ meals, there were other things we did that could best be described as unusual. We used to get two dozen bagels each morning, and the dogs would surround us in the kitchen. Debbie and I would break up the bagels into bite-sized pieces and drop them into the waiting mouths of the dogs.
But on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we would up the ante. We’d buy a half-dozen large London broils and cook them on the grill. That was the easy part; it was the cutting of the meat that was hard. Because of that experience, if there was a London-broil-cutting competition in the Olympics, I could go for the gold.
It would take two or three hours from beginning to end, but each dog wound up with a dishful of meat, and not a single piece went uneaten.
Ever.
I used to imagine that at London broil time, veteran dogs in the house probably nodded to the newcomers that had never experienced it and knowingly barked, “I told you so. Is this a cool place, or what?”
Liza
Liza is a big, burly golden retriever that we got from Lorie Armbruster, a good friend and a great rescue volunteer in Orange County. Liza was a victim of some kind of hoarding situation. I sometimes think that we might be considered hoarders, though I suppose a major distinction is that hoarded animals are not well cared for or loved; they are simply kept.
Liza’s pretty much a loner; she’s happiest when she’s in her own space. For a long time that space was in the bathroom, in front of the toilet. I think she liked the cool floor, but it definitely made for a few awkward moments.
Liza has a really thick coat, and after we were in Maine for a while, we noticed a small amount of blood seeping through it on her back. It turned out that she had a cyst underneath the coat, and therefore not visible. It had ruptured—hence the blood.
Our vet performed the minor surgery required, and he had to shave a good deal of her hair in the process. We decided to finish the job and had our groomer shave her the rest of the way. It was the beginning of summer, and everyone felt that she would be more comfortable.
Her reaction was immediate and weird. She was no longer interested in staying in the bathroom, and in fact became much more sociable. She started climbing up onto one of the recliner chairs, an act that at her age and weight I never thought she could manage.
Now, with Liza and Kahlani constantly stationed on the two recliners in the TV area, Debbie and I don’t watch as much TV as we used to.
Go East, My Friends
I’ve always preferred the East to the West. My experiences are limited to living in New York or New Jersey on the one end and California on the other, so I realize I’m making way too broad a generalization. But people in the East seem realer and friendlier and a hell of a lot less pretentious. Plus, there is actual weather in the East; the years are divided up into four seasons.
Pretty much the only upside to California is the fact that NFL games start at ten in the morning, and nighttime football is finished by nine at night. Staying up until midnight or later to watch was going to be difficult, especially for the first couple of years, since I figured it would take that long to catch up on the sleep I was missing on the RV.
But the trip provided another reason for preferring the East; the states are narrower. We could get through them quicker. The Nebraskas of the world take forever to cross, and there is not even the illusion of progress. Once we got past the Mississippi, the fact that we were able to cross states off our list more rapidly made me feel like we were approaching the home stretch.
I got an e-mail from George Kentris, a Taco Bell franchisee in the Findlay, Ohio, area and a good friend of Debbie’s and mine. He’d been following our progress on Facebook, as had apparently most of the free world. George was wondering if we’d be coming through the Findlay area, because he’d very much like to house and feed us if we were.
This was an offer with some teeth in it. In addition to owning Taco Bells, George owns a couple of Comfort Suites hotels, and he said that we could stay there overnight, or just use the facilities to shower and get refreshed.
I consulted Cyndi Flores, our official navigator, and she said that if we stayed on schedule, we would pass right by Findlay at around six P.M. And the hotel that George was offering was no more than three minutes from the highway, so stopping there wouldn’t set us back much at all. That’s about as perfect as it gets, so I e-mailed George and told him to expect us.
We got to Findlay right on time, and what was waiting for us felt absolutely fantastic. The Comfort Suites hotel was right across the street from one of George’s Taco Bells, and we parked behind the hotel. There was a large grass field in which we set up the dog fence so that we could walk and feed the dogs.
There were signs up at the hotel welcoming “Woofabago,” and George had his whole staff there to meet us and provide whatever help we needed. They absolutely could not have been nicer, and we could not have been more grateful.
George gave us the keys to a bunch of rooms in the hotel, and we went in to shower. It was the single best shower I had ever
taken, and it was the first time I’d felt human in what seemed like months. I even took fresh clothes out of my suitcase that did not have dog hair on them, which would be a short-lived state of affairs.
Once that was done, George led us over to the Taco Bell, where our gang ordered whatever they wanted, free of charge. This particular store was serving as a test restaurant for the Doritos Locos Tacos, so we got to sample it before the rest of America.
Of course, as good as the food was, the people in our group had already made it clear that they would rather eat dirt than the food I had stocked the vehicles with. I used this opportunity to throw most of it out, since the refrigerators were not great, and the cold cuts didn’t seem to be aging well.
We took advantage of George’s hospitality for at least two hours. I know that a shower and a bunch of tacos may not sound like a dream vacation, but I cannot tell you how much I and the rest of our gang appreciated all that George had done.
He had been incredibly welcoming and provided the best two hours of the trip. Of course, as far as I was concerned, there weren’t too many other hours competing for that honor. But Debbie and I were extraordinarily grateful for George’s generosity and hospitality, and always will be.
In fact, since he’s a huge Ohio State fan, I find myself rooting for the Buckeyes in his honor. He’s also a Browns fan, but I’m not quite ready to go that far. I mean, all we’re talking about is a shower and some tacos, right?
I had the fleeting idea that I should hide in a hotel bathroom in the hope that the others wouldn’t notice and the RVs would leave without me. I opted not to, figuring that if I’d come that far, I could make it the rest of the way. Besides, Emmit would realize what I was doing and rat me out.
It’s fifteen hours from Findlay to our house in Maine, so we drove for five hours and then stopped to get some sleep. Nobody felt the need to find a hotel; we’d just catch a few hours on the vehicles. Then we’d get an early start in the morning and drive straight through.
Dogtripping: 25 Rescues, 11 Volunteers, and 3 RVs on Our Canine Cross-Country Adventure Page 18