Charm cocked her head at me and then began rummaging in the toy bin again. Quite possibly, there wasn’t a more agreeable puppy in the world.
The next weekend, Ian, Nick, and I drove up to Brady’s college for family weekend. Because we had puppies at home, we only planned to spend the day. The pouring rain canceled all the activities the college had planned. I had been looking forward to kayaking on the Susquehanna River, even though Brady groaned when I told him I’d signed us up. Instead we took him to Target to buy sweatpants, socks, and snack food. We stopped in Dick’s searching for a new pair of Crocs and had lunch at the little pub in Selinsgrove that brewed delicious beer and root beer.
I’d missed Brady so much that a few hours weren’t enough, so I suggested bowling. We drove to a town a few miles away in search of the bowling alley. When we pulled into the parking lot the GPS had led us to, it was a local VFW hall. We were about to give up and take Brady back to the dorms, when Ian spotted a tiny sign that said, LANES. It was above a set of stairs that led to the basement of the building. Sure enough, there was a bowling alley down there. We were the only customers that afternoon; a vending machine provided snacks and shoe rental was only a dollar. Nothing like small-town America.
Despite the weather and despite the abbreviated visit, I was happy as we drove home. Brady was doing well. He’d found friends and was enjoying his classes, even his Chinese history class, which sounded to me like a form of torture. He hadn’t lost his keys and had only slept through a few of his 8:00 A.M. classes.
“This is our exit,” I said as we approached the north side of York.
“Tell me again why we’re getting another dog?” asked Nick. We were following sketchy GPS directions in search of the house of another foster who had picked up our newest foster and was graciously holding her for us. Rollie was a ten-month-old shepherd/Lab mix.
“Because I’m weak,” I told him. I’d seen the transport list and the repeated begging for foster homes and I’d caved. We didn’t need another puppy, but I couldn’t bear the thought of a puppy in a boarding kennel.
“I don’t want to sit with it,” said Ian from the backseat. “What if it pees on me?”
Everyone was grumpy by the time we found the house. When I knocked on the door, a chorus of dogs started up, just like at our house! I’d set off the “dog bell,” as Nick called it.
When Christine let me in she immediately began explaining the dogs swirling at my feet—a personal dog, a foster, and a foster fail. Again, it was a familiar scenario. I’m always explaining my own swirling dogs to friends, neighbors, the milkman, even the UPS guy. Partly it’s because for me the dogs are part of the family and thus require an introduction, and partly because I want to explain that I’m not completely nuts, there’s a reason for all the dogs.
Christine led me into her kitchen through multiple baby gates to retrieve our new foster, Rollie, who was in a large crate alongside another large crate holding another foster dog. These crates took up serious real estate in their kitchen.
This was the first time I’d been in the home of another OPH foster and it was a relief to know we were not the only people who lived like this. Something you learn very quickly when fostering dogs is your home will never be the same. The dogs become the priority and home decorating gets pushed aside. Of course, one bonus is that I never have to explain why my house is a mess. You have a dozen foster dogs? Of course your home is a mess.
For instance, our home now features a lovely gated entrance to the kitchen.* And in the living room, where once the antique mission table resided, there is a large dog crate, tricked out with a fancy dog bed that matches the carpet. (It sits near the base of the stairs and is normally piled high with everything I’m too lazy to carry up the stairs at the moment.)
In our entrance hall, there are not just several bags of dog food (puppy, personal dog, foster dog), but also the cabinet that used to be in our mudroom but doesn’t fit ever since we retrofitted the room with a puppy pen.
In our kitchen, we’ve installed another extra-large dog crate for Rollie, plus a decorative basket filled with dog toys, a cookie jar filled with dog treats on the counter, and the Frank bed.
As the fostering habit grew and more adjustments were made to accommodate it, I worried that Nick would one day say, “ENOUGH!” There were occasional grumbles, but for the most part he’d been a very good sport about this and I couldn’t do it without him.
Recently we were enjoying a rare date when he said, “I know I give you a hard time about it, but I’m really glad you’re doing this thing with the dogs. It’s fun.”
To my mind, sweeter words had rarely been uttered. He’d had a few glasses of wine at that point. Sometimes the honesty of alcohol is a good thing.
*Now that marching band had started up, instead of propping up the sagging wooden baby gate with the mellophone case, we’d installed a sturdy, metal four-foot gate.
NINE
Puppydom
Having three large puppies in the house sometimes felt more like I’d invited several hundred toddlers for a visit. It was loud. It was messy. They broke things. But gosh, they were cute. We were entering week three of life in puppydom. As veteran parents, we are familiar with the work that comes with caring for toddlers. We even understand that sometimes a toddler might bite you. They might pee on the floor occasionally. They don’t take direction well. Even so, despite the cuteness and my understanding, sometimes it became too much.
Shut up, I thought when I heard Chism holding forth one afternoon. Shut up, shut up, shut up! I knew she was just a puppy; she couldn’t help herself, but she was so darn loud. There was nothing quiet or soft or gentle about that pup. And I was trying to write. I had a deadline to meet.
I was trying to finish the first draft of my third novel. I loved this story, but the constant interruptions were making the final edits torture. I needed quiet to think. Addie can do homework while simultaneously watching Parks and Recreation and listening to music on her earbuds. Ian watches YouTube videos while he eats, texts, and studies for a test. I’ve begun to think this generation functions best with their attentions divided. Not me, though, every noise is a distraction to me. Even my laptop’s internal fan shifting on interrupts my thoughts. It’d been doing that a lot lately and I briefly wondered if it was overloaded with too many words. Was that possible? Could you max out a laptop?
A familiar, gnawing sound attracted my attention and I ran from my office, slammed through the baby gate into the kitchen to scold Rollie for once again attempting to eat my kitchen cabinets. There was no way to put the cabinets out of reach, so I put Rollie in her crate. I tossed her three tennis balls and a treat and got back to work.
Soon enough, the pitiful cries of Charm pulled me from my work. She could only take so much of Chism and her endless need to play. I grabbed a leash and took Charm outside. I found a sunny spot on the hillside and sat down in the grass with her. She rolled over and leaned against my leg as I scratched her belly. Puppy bellies are calming. Ten minutes, I thought. And then I heard Chism’s loud howl from the house. How much longer until you go away? Three weeks was too long to have three nearly-grown puppies.
Charm’s potential adopters hadn’t responded to my email, so I was beginning to think they weren’t very serious. Puppy adopters were usually overeager for information and would practically bribe me to ignore OPH’s two-week hold* so they could get their hands on their puppies. Chism’s adopters, on the other hand, had many questions. They sounded concerned (as they absolutely should have). I wasn’t sure it would be a good fit, but they were coming down the following weekend to meet her.
Rollie was going to be adopted by Mer’s daughter, Shannon. It only took us a few days to realize that Rollie was a level-headed, super-sweet, smart dog—exactly what Mer and Shannon were looking for; although truth be told, Shannon just wanted a dog. Now.†
Hoping for the best, I left the three pups to play in the kitchen and went back to my laptop. Ten minutes l
ater, I heard a familiar gnawing sound . . .
Years ago, when I was home with my three small kiddos, my days blurred together. The work (and joy) was endless. At the end of each day when Nick would come home and ask, “What did you do today?” I would shrug my shoulders, unable to remember anything I’d actually gotten done. My days lately had an eerie sense of déjà vu. But then, one by one, the puppies left.
First, Rollie, now Molly, went home with Shannon and Mer. She easily charmed their elderly beagle and Mer’s hesitant husband.
Chism’s adopters came to meet her and after she terrified her potential fursister (a sweet little dog, the kind who wear bows and require a groomer), they decided to adopt Charm instead. Since Charm’s adopters had still not made plans to come meet her, OPH was fine with the switch.
I’d worried for weeks that Chism would never find someone who could handle her. She was smart and so, so much dog, but a few days later an adopter materialized. He was a sizeable guy who drove a truck and wore camo and probably knew his way around a power tool. His girlfriend, who’d come with him, said to me, “She’s going to be his only daughter and you know how that goes . . .”
He had planned on naming her “Betty,” but once he met her it didn’t seem to work. She definitely wasn’t a Betty. Whatever her name would be, she’d have space to roam on his family’s farm and a fenced yard where she could hunt bunnies. The adoption magic happened again, I wrote on my blog. Just when I thought it would never happen—boom! Perfect adopter.
All my puppies were set and we were finally dogless. Except Gracie. She lay next to me as I worked on my laptop, snoring and farting, happy to have me all to herself again. It was too quiet. I missed my puppies. Nick observed my sadness and said, “You’re jonesing for a puppy, aren’t you?”
I was.
Usually, when one dog left, we were already prepping for (or in some cases already had) a new foster dog. It kept me distracted from the sadness of letting the last one go. This time there was no dog waiting in the wings.
Nick and I were taking a short trip to Virginia to celebrate our twentieth anniversary. The leaves would be awesome, the weather looked good, we were taking the bikes, and I’d researched which wineries we’d visit. I love my husband. I love Virginia. I love wine. It would all be good.
But I still wished I had a dog.
I watched the list of dogs and puppies on the next transport. We can’t take one, I reminded myself. Besides, we needed a break, didn’t we? We’d just survived a month of three puppies. Absolutely silly. I would not volunteer to take a new foster.
But if I didn’t, then I’d have to wait another week without a foster dog.
This was how bad the addiction had become . . . while on our wonderful vacation with my wonderful husband, I was quietly communicating with another foster about picking up a dog from her on our way home. I had a serious problem. I knew this, but I figured it was way better than cocaine or gambling or Internet porn.
The foster dog in question, John Coffey, was not getting along with one of his current foster’s dogs,‡ so I was contemplating helping everybody out (the foster, the dog, me!) by stopping by and grabbing John Coffey on our way north.
We’d had a wonderful vacation—the wine, the weather, the oysters were all wonderful. If I hadn’t done a face-plant during our first hike it would have all been perfect,§ but I was ready to be home and to have a new foster dog. I thought Nick wasn’t paying attention as I sent frantic emails and quizzed him repeatedly on what route we would take home from Virginia, but he knew me well and as we packed up the car that last morning, he left a dog-sized space between the suitcases in our backseat (the trunk was full of wine), and placed a comfy blanket in the space.
“It’s on our way home,” I told him.
“Sure, it is,” he said and hugged me.
“See? That’s why we’re still married,” I told him.
On the drive home, we met Livia in the parking lot of a Wendy’s just off the highway in southern Maryland. John Coffey was one squirming bundle of happiness. It came out his pores. He couldn’t wag fast enough to express his joy and emitted tiny little whimpers of ecstasy when you petted him. He resembled a Boston terrier with black-and-white patches on his head, but he had more white than black and there were traces of brindle in some of his black patches. He was very handsome with a sparkling personality to match.
“I owe you,” said Livia, almost teary as she said goodbye to “Coffey,” as she called him.
I promised to send updates, and we waved goodbye and placed John Coffey in his section of the backseat. It was immediately evident the backseat would just not do, not when there were TWO people less than an arm’s length away who could be petting him. He rode the entire hour and a half posed like a hood ornament on the console between our seats, alternately licking a face or nuzzling a shoulder.
When we got him home, the energy did not dissipate. Luckily for us, John Coffey had smarts in equal measure to his energy and was eager to please. I’d decided that his full name fit him, as in “John Coffey get down. John Coffey that’s enough. John Coffey DOWN.” He was like a small, excitable child whose mother needed to use his full name on a daily basis. And so he wouldn’t be JC or Coffey, but John Coffey.
I looked up the name on the Internet. John Coffey was the character played by Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile (based on the book by Stephen King). He was on death row in Aiken, South Carolina. Our John Coffey had originally come from a shelter in Aiken, where he was also on death row. In addition, Google revealed that there was another guy named John Coffey who had a PhD in Positive Developmental Psychology. All his papers on LinkedIn were about happiness. This was the most positive pup possible who had just escaped death row in Aiken, South Carolina. Finally, a foster dog with a perfect name!
Left alone for twenty minutes in the kitchen the next morning, John Coffey rearranged the furniture. He moved the Frank bed to the middle of the room, ostensibly so he could lie on it and still see around the corner to where I was in the living room. He pulled a dictionary (a big dictionary, think unabridged, hardback) down off the kitchen table and I found it, unmutilated, but open to the J’s!¶ He dragged the toy basket to the center of the room, right next to the Frank bed, which made it easier for him to sort through the plethora and take out all the yellow plastic tool casings and make a separate pile of them by the door.#
Livia told me that John Coffey had gained nine pounds in his three weeks with them, but he was still so skinny I couldn’t imagine what he looked like previously. She said he was a “skeletor,” and I believed it. We tried to pile on the pounds, but he preferred to eat his food scattered across the floor so I wasn’t entirely sure how much he was taking in. Each time I put a bowl of food down, he promptly dumped it. I didn’t know if this made dinner more interactive for him, or if he was complaining about the service.
If my nephew/dog whisperer Brandon lived closer, I would have adopted John Coffey and found him an agent. He was a goofball-funny, ball-chasing, potential movie star trick dog. He was crazy athletic, intensely paying attention, and as eager to please as a used car salesman. Throw in a tiny little bit of manic, and you had the makings of dog headed for Hollywood, or at least dock-diving. At any rate, John Coffey needed a job.
I could run him four and a half miles in the morning, and he would still be dancing (for minutes at a time) on his hind legs as I prepared dinner.
He would chase a ball all day. I’m not exaggerating. All day. Our dog, Lucy, had faithfully retrieved every ball Nick shot with his lacrosse stick for about fifteen–twenty minutes, but after that she’d keep the ball to herself and find a comfy spot to lie down. Not John Coffey. We had to put the balls where he couldn’t find them to end the game and he’d still spend a few minutes searching for them.
Tennis balls exist in multitudes around our house, thanks to Brady’s efforts to make the high school varsity tennis team. He used to spend hours hitting balls against the garage, breaking a gar
age door window and forcing Nick to hammer boards over the rest to protect them. His grandparents encouraged this habit and regularly showed up with a half-dozen cans of tennis balls, barely worn but not good enough for the retirement community courts. John Coffey discovered that he could usually find a ball or two (or five) under the furniture in nearly every room and littered all over the yard. He generally had two or three going at a time. No person to toss one? No problem. He could toss them for himself.
Nick pulled out an old basketball one night and John Coffey went bonkers. The wiggle-spin-whine excitement was off the charts. It was hard to throw a basketball safely in the house, but we tried. When everyone else tired of it, he gnawed on the ball with a maniacal gleam in his eye, beyond happy.
The basketball was exciting, but then Ian got my exercise ball/desk chair—I thought John Coffey’s head might explode! It was the first time I’d heard him bark. His mind simply could not contain the idea of a ball of that size. I worried for his heart.
Despite me bragging about his ball-catching ability on his OPH webpage and my blog, he garnered no adoption applications. The next weekend, I took John Coffey to an OPH adoption event. The activity and the other dogs sent him into sensory overload. He was an intense little guy who paid attention to everything, but it was pretty much impossible to pay attention to everything when everything included five or six other dogs, dozens of people, a busy parking lot, yummy food smells, and even an entire bag of tennis balls someone thoughtfully brought along for him.
He was frantic, pulling at his leash and barking. The only way to calm him was to pick him up, so I did, but at thirty-five pounds, that didn’t last long. Luckily there were several teens volunteering that day and I gratefully handed him over. They had that teenage ability to see right through bad manners and noise. They happily cruised him around the parking lot, hunkered down with him on the far edge of the event, and sat with him in the kissing booth.**
Another Good Dog Page 12