“That’s not just the foster dogs,” I countered. I knew Gracie was just as guilty of scratching up the floor with her nails as any of our guests.
“I’m not going to keep doing this,” he said.
I looked at him in disbelief. I knew he’d been frustrated with the work and the mess lately. I’d abandoned him with it more than once as I traveled to promote Girls’ Weekend. His own work was stressing him out of late, but I didn’t dare mention it. He had a right to be upset about the dogs and it wouldn’t be fair to blame it on his work.
“Obie will be out of quarantine soon. And Rooney already has an adopter,” I said, trying to ignore his comment, pretend he hadn’t just said what I thought he’d said.
“I can’t work from home with Lucy here.”
Lucy, being a hound dog, was very vocal. She had an uncanny knack for starting up every time Nick’s conference calls commenced.
“Maybe you should just go to the office more, then.” As much as it sounded idyllic for the two of us to work from home together, it had been anything but. What’s that they say about too much of a good thing?
“Holy shit!” yelled Nick, jumping out of his seat and racing out on the deck where Lucy was now pooping. It should probably be pointed out that Nick built both our deck and our screened porch and feels a bit proprietary about them. I watched him drag Lucy down the stairs out into the yard. “I mean it!” he yelled back at me. “I’m not going to keep doing this.”
Later, once all the dogs were in their crates, I joined Nick on the porch, hoping he’d cooled down.
“I’ve had enough,” he said calmly when I sat down.
“Of what?”
“The dogs. It has to stop. You’ve done enough.”
“But I haven’t,” I said. “I’m not finished.”
“Well, I am.”
“Are you telling me I have to decide between you and the dogs?”
He didn’t say anything. He closed his book, got up and went inside. I hoped he didn’t mean it. I love my husband, but the fostering had become about a lot more than enjoying the company of dogs. It was my mission. I was writing a book about it. Would I give it up for Nick? Was it fair for him to ask?
If I picked him over the dogs, I’d be angry with him for the rest of our lives. If I picked the dogs over him, well, what did that say about me? About our marriage?
When I finally went to bed, Nick was already asleep. I lay there wide awake. It was wrong for me to even consider dogs over my husband. What kind of person was I? I watched him in the dark. How could he just go to sleep after asking something like this? Didn’t he understand how important fostering was to me?
As the night wore on, my anger and fear refused to let me sleep. I got up and wrote in my journal. I said the things I couldn’t say to Nick. How dare you ask me to choose between you and the dogs? I choose the dogs! I got back in bed and stewed more, building my resentment at his unfair demand.
The next day Nick didn’t mention his ultimatum and Lucy didn’t have any accidents in the house or on the deck. I waited for Nick to bring it up, but he didn’t. The week wore on. Lucy and Rooney made their peace; I waited for Nick and me to do the same. We tiptoed around each other, being impeccably polite.
I did my part to lessen the dog-strain on Nick. I located an outdoor kennel from another foster and installed it on the opposite side of the house far from Nick’s work-from-home desk. I put Lucy in it while he was on conference calls, and instead of Nick’s coworkers, the neighbors were treated to her lovely songs. I took her for long walks around the pasture. There were no more accidents in the house.
Eventually, we were able to joke about the ultimatum over a beer.
“I figured there wasn’t a contest, you’d pick the dogs over me,” he said.
“Never!” I said. “Okay, maybe.”
As the topic of Nick versus the foster dogs faded, I promised myself that I would be very careful not to push him so far again. I wouldn’t take my husband’s help with the dogs for granted. I needed him. But more than that, I loved him.
Free from his quarantine, Obie became a source of great joy. He bounded around the yard and spent hours chewing on a stuffed pumpkin that came in his foster bag, making it squeak-squeak-squeak. At an adoption event, I mentioned it to another foster and she said, “You know why they like that sound, don’t you?”
I shook my head.
“Because it sounds like a baby bunny dying.”
She was absolutely right! I heard that sound nearly every night all spring as the cats disposed of all the new bunnies. Now, as I listened to Obie squeaking the pumpkin over and over, I thought, He’s too little and sweet to be a killer.†
Both Rooney and Obie were adopted as soon as their holds were up, but Lucy lingered on with no adoption applications. I updated my kennel record,‡ and noticed that the next foster we took in would be number fifty!
Fifty dogs! Was it really possible we’d saved fifty dogs?
*I didn’t tell him that normal activities mean fostering a herd of rescue dogs.
†A few weeks later, his adopter would email me to say that Oberyn found a nest of baby mice in his new home and killed every one of them. It did, indeed, sound like the pumpkin squeaking.
‡We did finally have our kennel inspection (and passed!), so I was diligent about updating our records, especially now that we would easily surpass the twenty-five dogs-per-year mark.
TWENTY-THREE
Fiftieth Time’s the Charm
There wasn’t another transport scheduled for two weeks, but I was itching to find number fifty. A post popped up on the OPH Facebook feed. Pregnant black Lab.
I studied the picture. It was taken from above, so the dog’s nose looked very long, but her belly didn’t look so big. She looked like a real Lab, though, not just a BLM. I commented, “I’d like to take her, but I would have to move Lucy.”
That was all it took to set things in motion. I felt a little guilty that I was trying to pawn Lucy off on another foster so that I could take this pregnant mama. Was I giving up on her? No! That wasn’t it. But maybe someone else would do a better job helping her find her forever home, I reasoned as I watched her examine the same patch of grass for the eightieth time and not pee.
Later that week, we dropped Brady off for his second year at Susquehanna. As we moved him into his dorm room in a stately old building with pillars and brick, I felt like an old pro. We met his new roommate, an equally smart, nerdy guy with a bright smile and a positive attitude. His mom was a horse person and a writer, so we hit it off immediately. Nick rolled his eyes as we stood in the cramped room bonding over horse stories.
When the unpacking was finished, we took Brady to lunch at our favorite little pub that made wonderful craft beer. Brady was happy to eat with us, but it was clear that he was excited to get back to his dorm and reenter his college world, so we said goodbye and headed home.
This time my tears were minimal as we drove away. It seemed like it was only yesterday my own parents left me at my dorm in Virginia. It was also a traditional old brick dorm building, but not in nearly the excellent condition of Brady’s new dorm. There was no air-conditioning and only cranky radiator heat on Bottom Davenport, where I lived for three of my four years at school. The old wood floors had dips and swells and you could pick holes in the plaster walls with their inch-thick layers of paint. I remember the rush of freedom that swept over me when I was finally alone in my new room. Life seemed so possible back then. Not that it isn’t possible now, just, I don’t think my life has been anything like I imagined it to be. It’s been better.
I glanced at my husband. I have been blessed to have a partner like him. Even if he can irritate me at times with his Eeyore attitude and his need to explain details. Someone once told me that you should look for a person who brings out the best version of you. Most of the times, that is the case with Nick. His constant support for all my endeavors—writing, organic gardening, horses, and now dogs, has given me free
dom to try almost anything because I know no matter how much trouble I get myself into, he’ll be there to fix anything I break, clean up my messes, or pour me a glass of wine of congratulations or consolation. I really should tell him more often. I wondered, though, did I bring out the best in him? Who would he be if he’d never met me twenty years ago?
“We’re lucky,” I said and reached for his hand.
“We are,” he agreed.
My phone lit up with a text from Ian and my nostalgic, romantic moment was gone.
When will you be home?
I was certain his real question was, When’s dinner? but he was being polite.
“I wonder where we’ll be driving Addie this time next year,” mused Nick.
I shook my head. “I can’t even begin to guess, but I hope it’s Virginia.”
Addie was considering Shenandoah University and I had my fingers crossed that it would be her first choice, and that they would offer some scholarship help, two very long shots.
“It’s happening so fast,” I said.
“The nest will be empty before you know it,” smiled Nick. “But then you’ll just fill it up with more dogs.”
I laughed, but as we drove I wondered if he was right. Was I taking in more and more dogs to fill the empty places created by kids who no longer needed me? And what if I was? Was that such a bad thing? If I was honest, I’d admit that there were moments when I longed for a quiet house where only Nick and I lived. We’d never really had that. We met in February, started dating seriously in June, got engaged in October, and married the following November. Then I got pregnant with Brady three months after we’d married, so we had very little couple time that wasn’t clouded by new love, wedding plans, or baby plans. It might be nice to just be us for a while. Well, us with a few dogs.
The dogs weren’t replacing the kids, I decided. They were just giving me somewhere to aim the excess caregiving I found myself saddled with now that my kids had only occasional use for it.
The next day we hosted a gathering of OPH fosters and volunteers for a cookout. It was a last-minute affair, thrown together pot-luck style. Usually I only saw these people when we were “working” at adoption events, transport, or in my driveway or theirs handing off dogs or supplies, so it was a treat to see them for the simple purpose of being together. I discovered I enjoyed their company even when there wasn’t a dog involved. Juanita observed Lucy, who was lapping up the attention and occasional dropped treats, and said, “I can take her. She’ll fit right in.”
“You’re serious?” I asked. At that point, we hadn’t found a replacement foster for Lucy, and I worried we wouldn’t. Juanita’s house was like dog paradise. Lucy would love it there. She’d quickly forget about me and my insistence that she pee outside and not bark so much.
True to her word, Juanita picked up Lucy on Thursday, which gave me two days to prepare for foster number fifty. I’d named the mama dog Edith Wharton, in honor of the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was a busy week as Nick was in France for most of it, so I was solo-parenting it. Addie was buzzing with the news that she got the part of Black Stache in the school’s production of Peter and the Starcatcher. And before you ask, yes, Black Stache is normally a male role, but as I’ve pointed out before, my daughter absolutely breaks the norm on a regular basis.
All week as I went about my business, I painted a lovely romantic picture in my mind of Edith Wharton giving birth to a handful of puppies in our kitchen as we all watched the miracle. What a great experience for our milestone foster. I was so ready. I told everyone I met—“We’re getting our fiftieth foster dog and she’s pregnant!”
I borrowed a whelping box from Chris and Mary, my vet and his wife, who breed Gordon setters. Chris had built the box. It was large and spacious and too big for the puppy room, so we set it up in the kitchen. When Nick got home he ran to the hardware store and bought foam pipe insulators to cover the top edges so Edith wouldn’t rub her heavy belly on it when she climbed in. I set down a layer of puppy pads and soft towels in preparation.
I looked through my calendar for the next week or so, making sure I could be home if necessary, already preparing my excuse (“Sorry, you’re on your own. Gotta go. There’s a dog giving birth in my kitchen . . .”)
I read about puppy whelping and even watched a few badly made YouTube videos. I got advice from Mary and gathered all the supplies I’d need. Edith was due to arrive in less than twenty-four hours!
And then I checked my email.
Apparently, Edith was not made aware of my preparations and my whelping box. She’d given birth to the puppies at the shelter that morning.
I was disappointed and a little bit relieved. But then I read the rest of the story—Edith Wharton had TWELVE puppies. Twelve? I said to Gracie, who gave me a confused look and thumped her tail. Where will we put twelve puppies? Nine puppies pretty much maxed out the puppy pen last spring. Ah well, that was a problem for another day, because now I had to spend an entire evening worrying about Ms. Wharton traveling all night on a transport van in a crate with her TWELVE just-born puppies.
Nick and I were to meet the transport van at 6:15 the next morning. I barely slept. I’d stayed up too late drinking too much wine catching up with a dear friend I rarely saw who stopped by after book club. And then I lay in bed worrying that my alarm wouldn’t go off and wondering if Edith would be a friendly sort of dog or would she say, “No, you may not touch my puppies and get out of my crate,” when I reached in to move them to our car in only A FEW HOURS. Best not to sleep, just in case the alarm doesn’t go off . . .
As we drove to the meeting place in the dark, I rattled on to Nick about how I was worried Edith wouldn’t want me to touch the puppies and then how would we move them to the crate in our car and oh-my-gosh, why does this rescue trust me with things like this? He said, “She had twelve puppies. I think she’ll be like, please, take a few.”
Nick was more or less right, but only in the sense that Edith was fine with me touching her puppies. She still wanted to stay close to them, and fretted as I took her for a quick pee break while Nick moved the puppies. When Edith first climbed out of her crate, she brought tears to my eyes. She was SO skinny. Not skinny in like, she could use a sandwich, but skinny as in all of her bones were sticking out. I could count her individual ribs and her hip bones looked like horns on her back. The truly miraculous thing about this, beyond the fact that this girl was alive, was that she had grown TWELVE puppies and clearly, it had taken everything she had.
When we got home, Edith climbed in the whelping box and lay down with the puppies, and that’s pretty much all she did for three days. The puppies nursed 24/7. They all had little fat bellies and were growing steadily. I fed Edith every hour—really good dog food, fresh eggs, vanilla ice cream, and a powerful fat/protein recipe another foster sent me called Satin Balls.*
I monitored the pups constantly, checking that everyone was breathing, and moving the two tiny ones to the better milk fountains. I started thinking about their names. Like their mom, I wanted to name the pups after famous writers. There were so many great names to choose from—Twain, Dickens, Fitzgerald. I had some girl names picked out too—Eudora Welty, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott.
I asked Chris, my unofficial OPH mentor, to come over to verify that everyone looked good and help me weigh the pups so I would be able to tell if they were all growing. I picked up each pup and described it to Chris, who wrote down my descriptions. Then I put a different color whelping collar on each pup so we’d be able tell them apart. Other than the fact that there were five yellow and seven black pups, they looked a lot alike. I picked up the first one—girl! The next one—girl! The next one—girl! If I hadn’t been putting on whelping collars as I went, I’d have thought I was repeatedly picking up the same pup. It turned out that Edith gave birth to eleven girls and just one boy.
The puppies’ eyes and ears were still closed and they couldn’t support their weight, so they swam arou
nd on the towels in the box like seals on land or fat snakes with appendages. It was hard to tell if they weren’t aware that their siblings were also puppies or if they simply didn’t care, but they dragged themselves right over top of each other, stepping on heads or bellies and using whatever pup was handy for a pillow. If they woke up all alone, they’d begin mewling and blindly swimming around the box in their own version of newborn-pup Marco Polo until they found another soft body or the grand-prize—mama!
I posted pictures on the Facebook group I’d started for readers of my blog and past or potential adopters. The pups had many admirers and already several of them had adoption applications.
As the pups grew, the noises coming from the puppy box ranged from an eerily accurate R2-D2 imitation to a rap DJ scratching a record to rubber sneakers on a gym floor. There was also a lot of grunting and snuffling, and honestly, they reminded me of the sounds my own kids made while nursing. Sweetness. Puppies, puppies, puppies . . . there were no bad days when twelve newborn puppies lived in your kitchen.
And then there was Edith. She was simply beautiful, which boded well for the funny-looking, noodle-limbed guinea pigs that adored her. They were “cute” now in the way that all odd-looking, helpless babies are, but if they grew up to be half as pretty as Edith, we’d be in good shape. Edith had gained a small amount of weight, enough that it didn’t feel cruel to pet her, but not enough to make her look like she had any right to be nursing twelve puppies. Watching her care for them, nursing them, and giving them everything she should have been keeping for her own survival, was painful. So I tried to do everything I could to make it easier for her. I kept a thick layer of towels covering the thin carpeting that lined the box to make it softer on her bony body. I fed her five meals a day—concocting rich dishes of fat and protein to entice her to eat even more. I carried the water bowl to her whenever she was lying in an upright position so she didn’t have to climb out of the box for a drink. We walked very, very slowly around the yard for potty breaks.
Another Good Dog Page 24