Another Good Dog

by Cara Sue Achterberg

  Bambi went home that week with a family who had experience with greyhounds and a little girl who was in love. I smiled as she raced in circles around them, jumping on her new family. Who was that dog?

  A few days later, Ian went with me to take Lucy to the vet. I needed his assistance lifting her in and out of the car as my knee couldn’t be trusted. The vet confirmed that Lucy was not pregnant, and prescribed an antibiotic to help with the itching, along with a medicated shampoo. She told me the oatmeal baths I had given her were not helping; in fact, they were probably making it worse. Yay me. I scheduled Lucy for the first available spay appointment so that we could get that girl ready to be adopted.

  As I’ve said, I have a fondness for hounds, but Lucy’s houndness was wearing me out. Her energy and her need to sniff was making walking her a chore. She had a very hard time leaving scents lie so that she could take care of her potty business, and consequently walking her consumed hours of my day. Add to that the insatiable appetite, hardcore counter-surfing, and one serious cupboard raid, and my fondness for hounds was diminishing daily. Her beautiful bay wasn’t so beautiful at five in the morning or all afternoon while I was trying to write.

  And then the day finally came for Ginger to leave. I felt unprepared. Every other time when a dog was leaving, I had a plan in place. A new foster on its way or already in our house, or I had somewhere to go or be that would distract me. Not this time. I was still waiting to see a doctor who would have the answers about my knee, so I couldn’t commit to a new dog. I wasn’t a good patient or a patient person, so my hurting knee was dragging me down. Lucy was still here, but to my mind, it was well past her time to leave.

  Without my usual props in place, I felt the tears gathering as I waited for Ginger’s adopters to arrive. This was the hardest part of fostering. The heart-cratering pain that was so completely avoidable—if I just didn’t foster dogs. If I could just commit to adopting one, I could stop fostering and avoid this self-inflicted, preventable pain, and yet I kept setting myself up for it. I limped around the yard, watching Ginger and wondered if maybe I’d had enough.

  My bum knee had forced me to slow down and I’d finally gotten around to reading the book so many people had recommended to me, Rescue Road by Peter Zheutlin. It’s the story of a man named Greg Mahle who drives a tractor-trailer full of rescue dogs twice a month from the Deep South to foster homes and adopters in the North. He’d helped rescue over thirty thousand dogs and had driven a million miles. I was trying to read it as fast as I possibly could because it was unbearable. Peter shared Greg’s stories of the dogs he drove and the people he met. Every time I closed the book and moved back into my world I felt sad, unmoored, frustrated. How could there be people in this world, in this time, who would dump a litter of newborn puppies in a trashcan, or worse yet, set that trash can on fire?

  How could there be state-run “shelters” that were no more than concrete holding pens completely exposed to the elements, where dogs were dumped all together (young, old, sick, neutered or not) to wait for no one (or maybe a rescue) to claim them before they died of preventable diseases or state-mandated euthanasia? The book broke my heart. Gone was my feeling of euphoria a month ago. Gone was my hope that we could make a difference.

  Nick didn’t say anything, just listened when I shared the stories I was reading. He said nothing when I lamented how impossible the situation was and how hopeless I felt. There were too many dogs dying every day because of ignorance, cruelty, apathy, and lack of resources. The maddening part was that this was a fixable problem. The Scott County shelter had proven that. Maybe that’s what made me most crazy. Parvo, mange, heartworms, overpopulation—these were all preventable or treatable.

  “Everything will seem better when your knee is back in order,” Nick wisely said, but I didn’t believe him.

  All my mixed feelings and sadness was complicated by the fact that my knee was not healing. It limited me. Just that morning I fell, once again. Even though I had on my brace and my new super-grippy-but-incredibly-ugly shoes that Nick insisted I buy, my unstable leg still slid out from under me on a stick that fell in the storm the night before. Ouch.

  And then there was Lucy.

  As I read about these dogs that were used and thrown away, I pictured Lucy. I didn’t know her whole story, but there was no doubt that she somehow escaped a life of neglect or possible abuse. She had given birth to countless puppies; this was obvious from the shape of her body, her elongated nipples, the scars. Her hair was thin, but growing back after being treated for the flea infestation. Living in a house was all new to her. House-training was slow, but progress was finally happening. When she first arrived, she peed in her crate and then simply lay down in it because most likely she’d lived a life where that was her only option. The nasty, thick scar that encircled her neck told of a life lived on a chain with a collar embedded in her neck. Who did that? What kind of person? Did she only serve a purpose for someone else?

  In Rescue Road, Peter Zheutlin tells of dogs who were used solely to breed a new hunting dog—a male, before the other puppies and the mother dog were disposed of or dumped. Or dogs of no pedigree that were bred in the hopes that the owners could make a few bucks selling the puppies. When it didn’t work out or there were too many expenses that canceled the profit, the dogs and puppies were abandoned. One vet office discovered fourteen puppies from two litters stuffed in a plastic tub with the lid on and left on their front step. If an employee hadn’t come in early that day, they would have suffocated. Miraculously, they all survived and made it to forever homes thanks to rescue efforts of unsung heroes in Louisiana.

  The true miracle here was that despite her early years, Lucy was a happy, loving dog. She shouted out a joyful hound greeting from her crate in the morning when she heard me on the stairs. When I let her out, she jumped on me, wagging and licking and so hopeful for my attention. How could anyone tie up and neglect a dog with a heart like this?

  This is where my mind was as I tried to say goodbye to Ginger. The night before she left, for the first time in twenty years of marriage, Nick let a dog sleep in our bed. Ginger snuggled between us all night and in the morning after Nick left for work, she and I had a serious talk. I tried to explain to her that I had to let her go so that I could help more dogs. I cried and she watched me. I looked into her sweet face and I promised her, “I’m gonna save as many as I can. That’s the only reason I can’t keep you. I have to save more.” When I’d finished, she rubbed a paw along her ear and eye, as if to say, “Aw, don’t worry about me.”

  But it wasn’t her I was worried about. I knew her adopters were ready and excited. They’d come to visit her twice and asked all the right questions. It was a wonderful home with a fenced yard, two runners in the family, and three little girls who were getting their very first dog! Ginger deserved a home like that and she’d certainly waited long enough (over five months).

  No, I wasn’t worried about Gingersnap. I just hoped I could hold it together so the adopters didn’t feel bad. I didn’t want my pain to lessen their excitement. When the adopters arrived, I talked about the details, the contract, the future. I tried not to think about Ginger. I took a picture of them with her and posted it to Facebook so that all of Ginger’s foster mommies could see how happy she was. And she was. In that picture, she is smiling almost as much as the little girls surrounding her.

  After Ginger left, I headed to the doctor’s office to get the results of my MRI and find out what happened next in terms of fixing my leg. Until I knew the answer to that question, I couldn’t commit to another foster. I hoped the news would be good because I felt a sense of urgency. I needed to do more to help solve this fixable problem. We needed more foster homes, more resources, more awareness, more education. I wanted to do more. Now, if only my stupid leg would stop tripping me up.

  *Remember, I write fiction for a living.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Second Chances

  My MRI revealed that there was a lot of
damage—deep bone bruising, strained Achilles tendon, and a small tear in my meniscus. The doctor told me all this, but in the days between when I had the MRI and when I’d come in for the appointment, my knee had been feeling much better. I still couldn’t bend it tightly—no crouching down or crawling on my knees—but other than that it felt nearly normal; weak, but not about to collapse as it had felt the week before.

  “The tear might be old. We won’t know until the bone bruising and the tendons heal,” the doctor told me, sitting on a stool and gazing up at the image of my knee on the screen.

  “So that means . . . ?”

  “You can go back to normal activities.”*

  “Running too?” I asked.

  “If it doesn’t hurt, you’re okay to do anything you want.”

  Great advice. And not just about running.

  I was back! Lucy and I quickly upped our walk times and I even began adding in some slow jogging. “Don’t overdo,” said pretty much everyone. But I wasn’t inclined to listen to everyone.

  As Lucy and I wandered the back roads, I was still mulling over my new commitment to dog rescue. The challenge was enormous and complicated and, heck, where did I begin? I felt the same way I did when my elementary school science teacher explained how long it would take to get to Pluto—an impossible journey to even fathom. My teeny, tiny part in rescuing dogs couldn’t possibly put even the idea of a dent in the problem. But now that my leg was healing, I was ready to get back in the game. I was ready to save more dogs. I was all-in. I would use the only tool I had besides my willingness to sacrifice my carpet, my home, and the patience of family and friends—I’d write about it. I began working on a proposal for a book about our foster experience. I’d tell our story in the hopes that others would read it and they’d see that they could foster too. My blog had lots of readers. People loved dog stories. And I had a good one to tell.

  Meanwhile, Lucy still didn’t have a single application for adoption. No one wanted her. And in reality, she was a hard sell. She wasn’t a puppy, she was high energy, she was VERY hound-like, and at that point, she wasn’t even particularly housebroken, much to my frustration. That morning she had peed on the Frank bed. I was furious! Why would she do this? Why? Why? Why? I took her outside, waited for her to not-pee (since she’d already done that) and then I brought her back in and closed her in her crate.

  “You shouldn’t write about that,” said Nick.

  “What?” I asked. “Me yelling at her or her peeing on the Frank bed?”

  “Her peeing. No one will ever adopt her.”

  “Apparently, no one will ever adopt her already. I might as well be honest.”

  “Maybe put a positive spin on it.”

  “Right.”

  For the sixty-gazillionth time I wished dogs could talk.

  Lucy wasn’t a puppy and she lived a long time under harsh conditions; it would take time to teach her differently. But we would get there. The fact that she was in my kitchen was really a small miracle. She’d already beaten some pretty long odds. Neglect, early (and repeated) motherhood, desperation, then a skin infection, and another possible pregnancy—by every count, Lucy shouldn’t have been here. Any shelter, even a good one, would have put her on the euthanasia list. It was too much effort and expense for one dog who wasn’t very adoptable. Those resources could be used to save five or ten highly adoptable dogs instead.

  And yet, here she was. Because someone, somewhere decided she deserved another chance. But why her and not another?

  I didn’t know, but what I did know was that after the past few weeks with my injury, I needed a puppy. Bad. So that night I picked up Oberyn, a three-month-old shepherd puppy from North Carolina, and another Scott County dog named Rooney, a blue heeler mix whose picture reminded me of Gingersnap.

  The house was full and I was busy. No time to think about missing Ginger or all the dogs we couldn’t save.

  Our new foster, Rooney, was striking looking with a grey/blue-flecked coat and a tail ringed like a raccoon. I looked up blue heelers and she seemed to be textbook heeler. Wicked-smart, quiet but observant, and already very loyal and protective. She arrived with a urinary tract infection, most likely from holding her pee for the entire ride north. We were giving her cranberry pills and taking her out frequently, but she definitely seemed uncomfortable. Rooney’s UTI, in fact, was most likely how the whole war started. It was the first grenade launched.

  What war, you ask? The one that began raging in my kitchen the day after Rooney arrived. I didn’t know who started it. I didn’t know how it could possibly be “won,” but I’d had entirely enough of it.

  Both Lucy and Rooney had large crates in the kitchen. Although there had been no growling, snarling, barking, or even any mean faces, it seemed they didn’t like each other. For the first twenty-four hours or so, they took turns being loose in the kitchen or shut in a crate. When Lucy was out, she spent the time cruising for crumbs or lying in her open crate—unless someone was in the kitchen handling food and then she gave them her unwavering attention.

  When Rooney was out, she would sit or lay next to Lucy’s crate. She didn’t interact with Lucy or even glance at her. She just sat there looking very uncomfortable, but not making a sound. At some point on Saturday morning, Rooney peed next to Lucy’s crate. I cleaned it up, took Rooney outside for a bit, and then put her in her crate and let Lucy have time in the kitchen.

  Lucy checked the kitchen for crumbs and then helped me pack my lunch (we were getting ready to go to an adoption event). I ran out of the room to get something, and when I came back, Lucy had peed in the exact spot that Rooney had peed. Game on, apparently.

  I said a few things that shouldn’t be repeated, cleaned up the mess, and left for the event. Just to be safe, I left Rooney in her crate while we were gone. I won’t bore you with the details, but some version of this battle continued for the next two days. Lucy upped the ante after they were both loose at the same time by peeing in Rooney’s crate. After that, Rooney attempted to get in Lucy’s crate at every opportunity.

  All of this was making me NUTS (that’s the PG version of my feelings). Both of these dogs were really sweet and got along fine with each other, if never acknowledging the other or interacting in any way (even when standing side by side) constituted getting along fine. Basically, they ignored each other, but it was obvious they weren’t really ignoring each other. This was some serious passive-aggressive maneuvering.

  When the pee wars started, I thought, if only they were male dogs, I could cover up those bad boys. But then it occurred to me that there is a dog product for every need and every dog. So of course there must be doggie diapers out there. And sure enough, I found them at my local pet store. I wasn’t sure yet which dog should be wearing it, but I’d decided to place blame on the dog who should know better, so Lucy was now sporting a lovely, turquoise-colored doggie diaper complete with a hole for her tail.

  Meanwhile, our other new foster, Oberyn, was an adorable puppydoll residing out of the war zone in the puppy room per puppy quarantine rules. He was a crazy-cute, solidly built little guy with a face that begged to be cuddled. I couldn’t get enough of his puppyness and retreated to his space many, many times a day, where I held him in my lap or played puppy games like chase-the-toilet-paper-roll or one-sided-tug-of-war (I didn’t want to pull out a puppy tooth). I told him he was gorgeous and perfect and I lamented the pee wars going on in the next room and then I promised him that after the war ended, I was ONLY going to foster puppies like him. He understood. (And he never peed anywhere but on his pee pads!)

  One morning, in an attempt to help Rooney and Lucy “bond,” I took them both for a walk up our road. I had intended to do my regular four-plus mile loop, but we barely made it two. Lucy barged ahead, straining at her harness, as if she had someplace to be. Rooney scuttled along behind me like the heeler she is. Each time Rooney stopped to pee (a lot), I had to haul Lucy back. Pretty much the entire walk, my right arm was stretched out in fron
t of me trying to keep Lucy at a reasonable pace and my left arm was stretched out behind me, trying to encourage Rooney to keep up. I’m sure my neighbors enjoyed a chuckle as they passed me on their way to work.

  There was no bonding, so we were back to taking turns in the kitchen. Whoever was loose wore the diaper. I was hoping some kind of truce would be declared soon. Meanwhile, I hung out a lot in the puppy room. Obie was the best kind of company. A puppy doth soothe the soul of a war-weary foster mom.

  Lucy was a bit of a redneck, propelled by an intense appetite. She had no qualms about stealing food off the counter or licking abandoned plates at the table. She also didn’t hesitate to pee on our living room carpet. To be fair, she wasn’t the first dog to do it, and the large brown carpet probably smelled like a giant puppy pad. One night, I was mopping up her latest mess and shoved her out on the screened porch because Rooney was in the kitchen. Nick was on the porch reading. When I came out to get Lucy, he said, “At some point, this is going to stop, isn’t it?”

  “What?” I asked, hoping he was referring to the peeing in the house and not the fostering. He’d grown tired of the three-ring circus I was currently running with Rooney and Lucy battling, Oberyn trapped in puppy quarantine, and Gracie not getting along with any of them.

  “They’re ruining the floor,” he said, nodding at the scratched-up cedar floor of the porch. I shooed Lucy off the screened porch onto the deck.