Another Good Dog

by Cara Sue Achterberg

  Very.

  But you know what? The bottom line was that I had loved these puppies the best I could. They were healthy and happy and ready to break my heart and go to their forever homes. And it really didn’t matter so much to me if they were boys or girls, they were precious puppies. Every one of them.

  The next week was a week of goodbyes; by Saturday morning there were only three puppies left. As the puppies ate their breakfast, I took the quiet moment to check my email and discovered that at some point during the night, Homeboy’s adopter had decided he didn’t want to adopt Homeboy. He’d had his heart set on a boy puppy. A girl wouldn’t do.

  Now what? All three were supposed to leave that day so that Nick and I could sneak off for a scheduled birthday celebration. Nick’s birthday is actually in December but we’d had to repeatedly postpone his gift—a beer tour of Lancaster. I’d scheduled it for that weekend because all the puppies were supposed to be gone.

  Homeboy and I watched the other pups disappear down the driveway. She’d had a few experiences all alone, but every other time she was eventually reunited with some or all of her siblings, so she didn’t start crying for about an hour. Our reservation was nonrefundable and it was just one night, so there was no choice but to hand Homeboy off to the kids and head to Lancaster.

  When we arrived at our hotel that Saturday there were Christmas decorations everywhere. Since Nick’s birthday is three days after Christmas this seemed appropriate, but no, it wasn’t clever me, it was the Christmas in July convention. The hotel was inundated with Santa look-alikes, insanely sweet and pleasant midwesterners, and harried people carrying tubs of Christmas ornaments—presumably all buyers or sellers of Christmas decorations.

  Our absence left Ian in charge of Homeboy and her sadness. Reportedly, she whined so much that he was forced to carry her, hold her, walk her, and play with her that night until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, and then he left her with his eighteen-year-old brother who was wearing headphones. When we got home the next day, Ian greeted us with Homeboy in his arms and handed her over saying, “Now you can listen to her.”

  It’s hard to lose your family, so we moved Homeboy into the kitchen so she would have more company. To keep Gracie out of the kitchen (she was still making bodily threats toward Homeboy), we propped up a sagging baby gate with Addie’s mellophone case. We all enjoyed Homeboy’s company for another week, before she took off for her new home in Virginia with a mommy who couldn’t wait to spoil her rotten. The puppy room was empty and I felt like we’d just returned from a long messy, wonderful trip.

  *Cue the pretty music and birds singing.

  †OPH never repeated a name in their database.

  ‡I told him about his almost-name while were on this vacation, and he said, “That would’ve been pretty cool.”

  §Dogfish Head brewery in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

  ¶Sadly, Lug Nut’s eventual adopter didn’t keep the name.

  #Or in this lifetime.

  **A calm, quiet, non-stinky house would be another.

  ††Because these puppies have yet to be fully vaccinated, OPH takes serious precautions against the puppies being exposed to potential viruses. There’s also the risk that the puppies are carrying a contagious virus like parvo themselves. The quarantine is all-encompassing and serious.

  ‡‡Jillie Bean had an adopter before we’d brought her home!

  §§Adoption pending, or “AP,” as people at OPH called it, meant that her potential adopters had applied and been approved, but had yet to meet her and decide to take her home. In other words, they got first dibs.

  ¶¶Which I wasn’t. No more puppies for me. Gracie cured me of that idea.

  ##The most coveted toy in the pen. And, no, there was not a retainer inside that case when it graduated to puppy toy. (I believe that was Stitch’s doing.)

  ***Food was VERY important to Carla and not so much to Gracie.

  SIX

  Foster Fail?

  There was something different about our newest foster dog. And it wasn’t just his eyes—one was crystal blue eye, and the other eye was extraordinarily split exactly down the middle, half brown and half blue. Frank was skinny and shy when we picked him up in the bowling alley parking lot. His coat was a dull brindle brown and white, and he weighed forty-five pounds when he should have weighed sixty. Frank was an “owner surrender,” so he quickly ended up on the euthanasia list.* Most likely he was confused and a little bit stressed at the turn his life had taken.

  When I took him to some grass to relieve himself after the long drive, he left a nasty mess of blood-tinged diarrhea that was nearly impossible to clean up. So much for not leaving a trace. I contacted OPH medical and was told as long as we didn’t continue to see blood, it was relatively normal from the stress of the trip.

  As we drove home, I stole looks at his sweet face watching me. There was a depth of sadness there, but overriding it was something more—hope maybe, or longing. He was looking for his person. He never took his eyes off me during the entire hour drive home, even though he must have been exhausted.

  That night, I lay in bed still picturing his remarkable eyes peering back at me from the crate in the backseat. They were full of heartbreak and intelligence. Frank was no ordinary stray. I am not going to foster fail, I told myself. Heck, if I was gonna foster fail it would have been with Carla, not some skinny, funny-looking, boy dog with crazy eyes.

  The next morning, I took Frank to the farmer’s market where he charmed everyone he met. We stopped at the fancy homemade dog treat vendor so I could buy Frank a treat, but when the woman heard Frank was a rescue and saw how skinny he was, she gave us an entire bag of premium homemade treats for free!

  I thanked her and we started toward another booth. I was looking for kale as the caterpillars had eaten all of mine. A little boy teetered toward Frank, and his mother asked if he could pet him. I smiled and said that would be fine. Frank had given me no reason to think he wouldn’t be fine around little kids.

  The little boy’s face was level with Frank’s. He took Frank’s big head in his hands and rubbed his nose to Frank’s. Then he put his tiny hands inside Frank’s mouth to examine his teeth. “What a great dog,” the mother said. “Is he yours?”†

  “Kind of,” I told her. What? Where did that come from?

  “Well, he’s great,” she said and took her child’s hand.

  A week later Frank was still deathly skinny. His head looked oddly huge atop his emaciated body. Someone hadn’t taken care of this dog. But Frank? He didn’t have a resentful bone in his body (and I could easily feel pretty much all of them).

  I tried to cling to my convictions. I was not adopting another dog. I was only fostering. Somewhere along the line, the idea of adopting a dog to fill the hole Lucy left got overshadowed by a feverish desire to help as many dogs as possible. It wasn’t time yet to stop. Nick loved Frank too. He actually said, “Just keep him and then do only puppies.” That was crazy talk coming from him. The puppies’ noise and smell had nearly made him move out.

  But here’s what I knew—it hurt when Galina left. It hurt even more when Carla and then Homeboy left. I had sleepless nights and too many tears. Could I keep doing this? After only a week, I knew that pain was nothing compared to how much it would hurt when Frank left. Maybe I wasn’t made for this. Maybe I wasn’t as strong as I thought.

  But I wanted to be. I wanted to do this. Not for Galina or Homeboy or Carla or Frank, but for all the dogs to come. Because I knew, as evidenced by all the amazing dogs we’d already met, that another good dog was right around the corner. And they deserved the chance I could give them.

  Frank was a Catahoula Leopard Dog, more or less. Breed assignment is not an exact science in rescue work. Catahoulas are working dogs and herders by instinct. Frank was skinny and smiley, with a tongue longer than Mick Jagger’s. He followed me everywhere. His devotion so sure no leash was necessary. We walked the fence line early one morning and spotted a groundh
og who had recently dug a home beneath the tree line along the pasture. Damn groundhog. For years, Lucy had kept groundhogs from moving in. I was tempted to let Frank chase him down as he was clearly asking to do. But the hole was outside the pasture for now. We’d see if we could live peaceably. I tossed a rock in the groundhog’s general direction and he scurried into his hole. Was Frank as good a dog as Lucy? Was it fair to compare?

  Later, as I worked at my desk, Frank lay behind me on the guest bed, watching my every move.‡ I clicked onto his OPH page and looked at the only picture there. It was grainy. Frank was standing in a grass-bare yard, looking cowed and anxious with the words “coming soon” printed beside him. I knew I should update his page, but instead I spent the better part of the week in a crazy debate between my head and my heart about Frank. I knew as soon as I started writing about his awesomeness on his adoption page, some wonderful person would want to adopt him and I was still trying to figure out if I was that wonderful person.

  Nick was pressuring me too. He even went so far as to say, “What if I put in the application and he’s my dog?”

  But Frank wasn’t his dog.

  Frank loved me. When I left him for the first time, he nearly went through a window screen to follow me. I’d always said I just wanted a dog who came when he was called. Frank didn’t even have a real name and he came when he was called.§

  After much debate and waffling, we made the decision not to adopt Frank. We loved him, maybe too much, for which we would decidedly pay in a week or so when his wonderful new adoptive family arrived to take him home.

  The biggest reason we decided against adopting had to do with Gracie, whom I maligned on a regular basis to anyone within earshot and occasionally on my blog.¶ Sure, she drove me nuts and she was everything I didn’t want in a dog—disloyal, disobedient, disrespectful, and, for lack of a better word—dumb. But, we’d had her since she was a puppy. The kids loved her. This was her home. Gracie was going nowhere.#

  When I explained to Nick that we couldn’t keep Frank because it would make Gracie seem even more inferior, he said, “Gracie has always been the second-tier dog.”

  True. But for better or worse, we were committed to Gracie. And despite potential jealousy, Gracie was tolerating the foster dogs better than expected. Occasionally, they even brought out the best in her. When I was trying to teach Frank to sit, Gracie sat repeatedly for me (a skill she’d rarely before demonstrated).

  Galina and Stitch had taught Gracie to eat her dinner when it was served,** before another dog ate it. Carla taught her to walk on the leash. When we were out for a run, I looped Gracie’s leash over Carla’s and when she attempted to dart somewhere, Carla’s bulk held her. And when she lagged behind, Carla dragged her along for me.

  I was hopeful that Frank would teach her to come when she was called. She was getting very good at coming when I called Frank. Whenever I yelled, “Frank, come!” both dogs barreled into the room. I didn’t have to do this very often as Frank rarely let me out of his sight.

  I knew another week with Frank might make us regret our decision or be happy we chose to let him go. It probably depended on whether he got his teeth on a chicken and whether Addie finally decided to give him a chance. He loved Addie and made regular overtures, licking her leg and following her around the kitchen. “Oh, gross! Get away from me dog!” she yelled, but he was undeterred in his affection. When he destroyed her favorite umbrella, she labeled him the “worst dog ever!”

  Either way, the decision was made. The option was no longer an option. I would not entertain the idea of foster failing anymore. Not that foster failing was failing, I explained when pressed. It seemed to have been a great option for plenty of people. But for us, for Gracie, for right now, foster failing was not an option.

  Frank ended up staying with us for another two weeks before heading to his new home. He needed to be treated for worms.†† His adopters were generous people, who hugged me when we met. They were excited to take him home, but respectful of my sad feelings. They pulled out of the driveway and I watched Frank disappear from my life. My heart hurt.

  I was sure Frank’s did too. I wished there was some way to explain to the dogs why they had to leave, so they didn’t think I was one more person deserting them. It always helped to see the pictures adopters sent a few weeks later of a happy dog who’d long forgotten us.

  On the surface, Frank’s leaving was well-timed. My debut novel, I’m Not Her, was released that week. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. A ten-year dream come true, but publicizing it was a whole other kind of work that was difficult for me and far outside my comfort zone. The effort seemed endless and consumed large swaths of my time. There was always something else I could do. I’d read articles by other authors sharing their five-step plan to becoming a New York Times bestseller and they made it sound easy. It was not. Sleep became tough; my mind was always spinning. I spoke with the social media manager and another person in marketing at my publisher and both assured me I was doing fine—blogging, being accessible, tweeting; I’d even delved in to Tumblr, although truth be told I still didn’t understand it. There was so much to do that some days I was overwhelmed and simply surfed Facebook or wandered around the gardens trying to figure out where to begin.

  I tried to write. I needed to begin my third novel. It was due in December and so far, all I had was an entire notebook filled with snatches of conversations, ideas, interviews with characters, and a very loosey-goosey plot idea. One of my characters was a boy with Asperger’s syndrome, so I was reading books and blogs and beginning to think that all of us were on the Autism spectrum somewhere. Some of us just managed our obsessions and distractions better. Another of my characters was a hospice nurse, and I lost entire days reading first-person accounts of working in hospice. I wondered if there could be anything like hospice therapy dogs—dogs who could visit hospice patients and just hang with them, lending the comfort of their presence. Little by little the dogs were creeping into every corner of my world. As my third novel finally began to appear on the page, several of my foster dogs made cameos, including Frank.

  Summer was ending and fall would bring big changes for all of us. Ian would start his last year of middle school, and play “fall ball” (lower key travel baseball) and rec soccer. Addie would begin her junior year of high school, but this year she was dividing her classes between “brick and mortar” classes (those held in the high school building) and online classes. For the first time, she was actually excited about going back to school rather than dreading it.

  When she was little, Addie made friends easily and charmed her way into every situation, but as adolescence descended everything became more complicated. She didn’t want to be like the other girls and she wasn’t. She had always been an independent thinker, but as her world expanded, she discovered feminism and liberals and turned her intense passion to what was wrong with our world; always ready to take up the fight of the disenfranchised. I was proud of how brave and committed she was, but her unwillingness to dress or act or think like the average teen made an American high school a place she didn’t exactly find welcoming. For the past two years, she’d spent her lunch periods in the library reading Psychology Today and writing fan fiction for Les Misérables. She studied French so that she could read the story in its original language. She found her place in the music and theater departments and most of her teachers appreciated how well she thought (and lived) outside the box, but I was hoping this new plan would make for a happier kid.

  Brady would leave for college in two weeks. As I helped him pack his things, I found myself in tears almost daily at the thought of him leaving. How had it happened so fast? You think you have all the time in the world to raise your children and teach them all that they’ll need to survive, but the day is upon you and there’s so much left unsaid and undone. I was in turmoil emotionally and the chaos of our days felt relentless. I longed for my solitary days alone with the computer and the cats.

  An
d I missed Frank. He had been such constant company those last few weeks. He’d been my bodyguard and devoted friend, never leaving my side and always happy to listen to my ramblings even when Addie slammed her door on my nagging or Brady put in his earbuds when I asked if he had packed anything.

  “I’m going to get another dog,” I told Nick as we sat in our chairs surveying the manor one night.

  “It’s kind of a crazy time right now. Sure you don’t want to take a breather? What if Frank comes back?”

  We’d been getting emails from Frank’s adopters that things weren’t going well, but I had faith that they just had to get used to each other. Frank would settle down. The adopters were such nice people—they’d even sent Addie a new umbrella to replace the one that Frank had destroyed. The tag was signed, “Frank.”

  “Frank isn’t coming back. He’s the best dog. They’ll figure it out,” I told Nick.

  “Even if he doesn’t, you’re so stressed right now.”

  “Which is exactly why I need another dog.”

  “You make no sense.”

  “This time, I’ll pick a dog that will get adopted quickly. No more hanging around and getting attached.”

  Nick took a sip of his beer and shooed Crash off the arm of his chair. “Right.”

  Later, after I’d checked the transport list and emailed Mindy, I told Nick, “These ones will go quick. They’re border collies!”

  “They?—there’s more than one?”

  “I can’t just take one of them. They’re brothers or cousins or something. They were owner-surrendered together.”

  I pulled up the pictures of Texas and Tennessee on my phone. I knew Nick liked border collies as much as I did. “They’re beautiful. They’ll get adopted quickly,” I told him.

  “Not everyone can handle a border collie,” he said.