Dog Medicine

by Julie Barton

  “Well, here they are,” she said. There were no puppies that I could see. She winked and stuck two fingers in her mouth, belting out a window-shattering whistle. From around the house and out of the woods emerged three little orange puppies and one adult golden. The breeder told us that she’d already housebroken the puppies and trained them to come when called. The larger dogs were almost as red as Blarney, a maroon, Irish setter red. They romped up to her and she praised them, “Oh, you good little guys. How smart you are.” The puppies jumped on her and she kneed them off. It seemed harsh to me, but they didn’t seem to care. They rolled in the grass then righted themselves, eagerly sniffing the ground, peeing on tall weeds.

  “You don’t have a fence for them?” my mom asked. I bristled at her question. I loved that these dogs were roaming free. Their first taste of the world was one of freedom, not being caged.

  “Well, you know,” the woman said, “I was second-guessing this approach last week when all the dogs went missing and I had to hike down to Raccoon Creek just before dark and fish them all out of the water.” She laughed and bent over, grabbing one of the puppies and holding him in her arms until he squirmed away. “We crate them at night. Little rascals,” she said.

  My mom, still concerned, began asking her about Raccoon Creek, how far it was, and if the dogs had to cross any major roads before getting there. I dropped out of the conversation and wandered over to the dirt yard where the puppies were playing. One of the older dogs spotted me, came over and pressed her dark-red shoulder into my thigh. I bent down, put my face into her neck and inhaled. She smelled like soil and mint. “Hi,” I whispered. She stayed still, panting, appearing pleased.

  I stood up, watching the puppies. How would I ever choose? The chapter on how to choose the right puppy said there was the cradle test, the sound-sensitivity test, the touch-sensitivity test. The book said that emotion played a part in choosing a puppy, but that it was important to use knowledge and common sense before turning to emotion. I felt flooded with doubt. What if I chose wrong?

  As I fretted, I noticed that one of the puppies had spotted me from the edge of the woods. He walked over toward me, then paused, still watching me, before coming closer and sitting down at my feet. He looked up into my eyes, his own mud-brown eyes nestled under expressive little eyebrow nubs, his tiny chin hairs glowing in the light, his orange-red paws caked with mud. In that moment, of course, I knew. There he was. I hadn’t been forced to choose; I’d been chosen. I picked him up and he licked my nose. He smelled like dirt and metal and wet dog. My dog had found me.

  “This one,” I said, turning to my mom and the breeder. They were still chatting and didn’t hear me. I walked closer to them. “This is the one,” I said. I was sure, and that surge of confidence came as a jolt. It had been so long since I’d felt sure of anything. The puppy sat calmly in my arms, not squirming one bit, trusting me to hold the full weight of his body.

  “Great!” my mom said. She looked at the breeder as if to ask if this was okay. The breeder paused, looking confused, like maybe this puppy wasn’t actually available. Had they decided that this was the one they wanted to keep? In that split second, I was planning my getaway, which, were it to fail, gave way to an elaborate plan for a dark-of-night theft.

  “Oh, him,” she said. She put a finger on her lips. “What color is his collar?” I looked down.

  “Green,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. Good. Sure. Of course. He’s yours!” She laughed. “He looks just like his brother that we’re keeping. Thank goodness for color coding!” I laughed too, trying to hide my immense relief.

  He stayed in my arms while my mom wrote the check. I was aware that my mom was buying this dog for me, and made a mental note to pay her back as soon as I had another job. I let him back down on the ground to say good-bye to his parents and siblings, but he came back to me and looked up at me again. He seemed to want me, not them. It was hard to comprehend, but our meeting felt something like two magnets clacking together, two universes colliding, two hands clasping. I was absolutely sure that this was my dog and that I was meant to find him. Of course, I felt this groundswell of confidence, then immediately questioned it, nearly dismissing it. After all, it was official: I wasn’t right in the head.

  I carried him over to his mother, put him down next to her and he twirled in the dirt, chasing his tail or maybe it was a fly. His mama stood still, confident, sniffing something that seemed distant, a faraway scent carried on the breeze. Her eyes were half closed and glistening, her red feathers hung long, only the end of her tail wagged back and forth. I petted her gently down her rib cage, kissed her soft head, and whispered, “Thank you, mama.” She opened her mouth, panting, letting her tongue dangle to the side before trotting off toward the trees.

  I called the puppy back to me with a click of my tongue and he ran straight to me. The giddy charge of a dog responding to me, coming to me when I called, left me nearly dizzy with bliss.

  We said good-bye to the breeder and I held the puppy close to my chest. “Thank you, Mom,” I said, “for paying for him.” I couldn’t adequately express my gratitude. She watched me, pausing, probably because I actually appeared happy. It was as if the moment I picked him up, I felt lifted. Already I couldn’t fathom the thought of ever letting him go. I felt a perceptible shift the moment I met him. A reuniting. A lifting. A glimpse of hope.

  BUNKER HILL

  AFTERNOON, JUNE 26, 1996

  I didn’t use the towel; I just let the puppy lie in my lap. He showed no signs of distress or fear. He seemed content in our car, as if he considered this as good a place as any.

  His head was small, like the size of an apple. His fur was mottled red, dull and matte but soft as down. The fur didn’t sit down yet—it stood up, poked out—making him look mildly electrically shocked. He glanced at me, his eyes nearly bloodshot with what appeared to be fatigue. As we drove away from the farm, it seemed that the motion of the car or the warmth of my lap helped him remember that he was desperately, urgently tired. He was asleep within seconds, the full weight of him falling into me.

  I felt like crying, but this time, joyful tears. This beautiful, innocent little creature was mine, and he trusted me already. His warmth on my lap grounded me in a way I needed. I could feel myself pulling back to the earth, like a kite reeled in during a storm. It was the strangest moment, and I didn’t trust it. Surely within the hour, the sadness would return and load me with guilt for taking on such an enormous responsibility in my fragile mental state.

  I took his right paw and snuck in a sensitivity test, gently pinching in between his toes. According to the book, if he were to react, I might be in for a wild ride with an easily agitated pup. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he pushed his head into my abdomen, letting his big left paw drop down onto my thigh, as if he were offering a one-legged hug.

  His back was curled with his hind paws stretched, nearly touching his nose. I studied his ribs, dragging two fingers lightly down either side of his spine. We were on the freeway now, but I barely noticed. His dirty brown nose flared as he slept, as if he was cataloguing smells even while asleep. I watched him and fell completely, irretrievably, head-over-heels in love.

  Then I began to panic. Less than ten miles from the farm, the thoughts crept in. I had no income. I lived with my parents. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I didn’t know what city I would move to next, where I would live, or whether I could manage life with a dog. What the hell was I doing adopting a puppy? I couldn’t stop the thoughts. Then I put my hands on the puppy, stroked his fluffy orange fur, felt his velvety ears, and it was as if the thoughts were diffused bombs. The blackness fizzled when I touched this dog, and in their place appeared a quiet calm.

  “He’s beautiful, Julie,” my mom said, watching him snooze in my lap. She put her eyes back on the road, pushed her hair behind her ear, and smiled as she drove. The light was hitting her brown hair s
o that it shone almost golden, and I felt such gratitude for her get-it-done nature. She couldn’t talk to me about what was happening, but she knew me well enough to know what might help—even something as major as accepting a pooping, peeing, barking, chewing animal into her beautifully appointed home.

  Forty-five minutes later, we pulled up to the house and the puppy’s eyes opened when the car turned off. “Hi, baby,” I said in a gentle voice. I had an instant agenda. I wanted this dog to know he was safe with me. I wanted him to know that we had lucked out in finding each other, that I would do my best to give him a good life. I had a huge responsibility that I knew I could fulfill. I could do this. I could do it well. This confidence felt astonishing.

  “What are you going to name him?” my mom asked as she stepped out of the car.

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly, smiling at her. I held his cheek to mine, taking in his dirty-puppy smell. His tail wagged. “I love him. I just love him.”

  I took him to our back yard where he walked around, sniffed, peed, and burst out with a spontaneous fit of running in circles, racing to me, then dodging me at the last minute. I was laughing. A few weeks from the day my dad forced me to walk down the driveway, I was sitting outside in the grass, laughing with a little red puppy. He was so full of life and joy. I’d begun taking the medication a week before, and though I couldn’t feel a difference yet, perhaps this hope hinted at some kind of change.

  My mom let Cinder outside. She was eleven now, and not at all amused at the sight of a puppy in her yard. The puppy lunged toward her and she cowered, then turned and trotted back inside through the doggie door. We laughed as the puppy watched the house with great interest, as if wondering how on earth the old black dog had disappeared into a wall.

  “What about Max?” I said. “Does he look like a Max?”

  “Sure,” my mom said.

  “No, he needs something meaningful. What about Sundance? Sunny for short?”

  “I don’t know if he looks like a Sunny,” my mom said.

  “What was your first dog’s name?” I asked.

  “Well, let’s see. That was Bunker Hill. The beagle.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “Oh,” she said. “He was hit by a car. He was the best dog. We had him in law school. He was Cornell Law School Class of 1970’s unofficial mascot.”

  “Bunker Hill,” I said. I watched as the puppy stepped on the end of a stick then startled when the other end popped up. Again, I laughed. The sound of my own laughter struck me as beautiful, a thought I’d never had. Then this thought: Don’t get egotistical. You’re so full of yourself.

  After a while, I said, “I think that’s it. Bunker Hill. Bunker. Bunker!” I called in a high voice. I patted the grass with my hands. He trotted over to me, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. He sat down at my feet.

  “Did you see that?” I asked my mom.

  “I think he likes that name,” she said.

  I nodded and my mom told me she was going inside to get some laundry done. I turned back to my puppy. “Bunker Hill,” I said, aloud. “Bunker. Bunk.” I liked the name, and I loved that it paid homage to my mom and dad, to the beginning of their lives together. Creating such a tradition imbued a wild hope in me. In the last few months, my parents had saved my life. My mom hadn’t told me to stop crying and pull it together when I called disoriented and sobbing from New York. My dad wanted to understand. He wanted to know what was wrong and how he could help. They believed me when I told them how acutely I was suffering, and they rescued me when I was, conceivably, old enough to rescue myself. Naming this puppy Bunker felt like a way of communicating that I felt forever indebted to their patience, forgiveness, and devotion.

  I had a feeling that the name could also be an homage to the battle I was fighting within. So I went to the living room and pulled out our encyclopedia, the thirty-volume tome to which I’d referred countlessly throughout my primary school years, its edges bound with crinkly gold. The “B” volume said that the Battle of Bunker Hill was an epic clash fought during the Revolutionary War in which the Colonials lost to the British, but the British suffered 800 wounded soldiers and over 200 dead. The still meager colonial forces began to hope that, despite the loss, they might actually be able to someday defeat their overwhelming enemy. So the colonial forces retreated and regrouped, emerging stronger, more confident. Even though they were small compared to their foe, this battle gave them hope that one day they would prevail. I closed the encyclopedia. Bunker Hill. The name was perfect.

  We went back outside and Bunker ran to me, then plopped down in the grass, pressing his back to my leg. He pushed against me and rolled over. I felt like I’d known him my entire life—like we were twins reunited after being separated at birth. I lay down next to him and looked at the sky, the white clouds sailing by above. The earth beneath me felt cool, wet, soft, regenerative. I put my hand on his chest and he wiggled, then looked at me upside-down with his forehead squished in the grass. I thought of all of those meditative days as a child outside, with the trees and animals and fresh air. And at that moment it occurred to me that perhaps with him by my side, I could try again at independence. I could try another city. I had no idea which one, but I felt optimistic that it could happen. That optimism felt like a miracle.

  The moon on June 26, 1996, the day Bunker came into my life, was 68 percent full and waxing. Moment by moment, it grew bigger and brighter. Bunker and I found each other when the moon was half full, the light half returned. We would begin the process of growing and healing together right alongside the moon: brighter each day, little by little.

  DAY ONE

  JUNE 27, 1996

  Bunker’s first night was restless. I followed the book’s emphatic instruction and locked him in the crate next to my bed for the night. He whined at first but quieted when I lay down next to him. I pushed my hand through the crate’s bars to pet him. He licked my fingers, gnawed on them a bit, then circled twice and lay down with a thud.

  In the middle of the night, he began to whimper. I pulled myself out of bed and took him outside to pee, craning my neck to study the night sky. The sky in summer darkness pulsed with stars, the chorus of crickets an echoing beat. I was drowsy, but also aware that I was happy at that moment to be awake, to actually witness the sparkling light of stars in all the blackness.

  I returned to my room in a sleepy daze. I led Bunker back to the crate and talked to him in a low, soothing voice. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.” He pulled back when he saw the crate, not wanting to re-enter, so I crawled in as far as I could go, my legs still hanging out, and patted the bottom of the crate. He followed me inside, licked my face and sniffed my ears, giving me chills.

  Finally he curled up with his warm back against my chest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, tucking his nose further into the fluffy towels that lined the crate. It occurred to me as I gently stroked his side that this was the first time in recent memory that I was reassuring another living thing. And, miraculously, I knew in that moment that I was more than capable of caring for him. I felt enormously driven to create a space for Bunker that felt safe, free of all worry, fear, and anxiety. For the first time in a long time, I felt as if I had a purpose.

  I couldn’t imagine treating myself kindly, with gentle understanding. But I could, without question, do that for my dog. Perhaps part of what began to save me was that I started creating this sacred, safe space where he and I met. In this space, there was no ridicule. There was no doubt or loneliness. There was no sorrow or anger. It was just pure, beautiful being. It was us looking at the world with wide-eyed, forever hopeful puppy wonder.

  I put my nose near his back, smelled his fur, tried to memorize the curve of his spine, the rise and fall of his breath. After a while, when he was limp with deep sleep, I scooted out, then locked the crate as quietly as I could and fell back into bed, asleep in sec
onds.

  Since leaving New York, I’d slept until noon most days. There was no reason to wake up. Sleep was one of the only ways to dampen the sadness. It was 6:45 a.m. when I heard several high-pitched barks emanating from the crate. I opened my eyes and saw Bunker’s face, felt his breath on my cheek. As soon as he saw me stir, he stood up, wagging his tail so hard that the metal crate rocked back and forth, jangling with sound. He poked his nose out of the crate’s wires, his eyes locked on mine. I laughed, smiled, and said a slow, sleepy “Hi, Bunk.”

  I stretched, pointing my toes, which dangled off the too-small twin bed. Every morning of my life, I had woken up longing to sleep more, wanting to disappear. I sat up. The sun shone bright through my bedroom’s blinds and I pulled them up slightly to let some of the light flood the room. Then this thought: I want to get out of bed.

  It struck me that this must be how not-depressed people feel when they wake up: They feel okay, no dread, ready to start the day. It wasn’t until the awful waking dread was gone that I realized that it had been there as long as I could remember. The fact that it had lifted meant that there was a chance I could get better.

  I opened Bunker’s crate and led him outside to the yard, standing in my bare feet and pajamas, telling him to go potty. When he did, I bent down, praised him, and let him lick my cheek before he ran back into the yard, his paws wet with morning dew. I watched him play, the warm orange summer sun rising, shining through the trunks of the trees. He sniffed a spot, then flipped over to roll in it. I walked over to him to see what he was rolling in—hopefully not a dead rodent. He stood up and sniffed again and I noticed an earthworm writhing above the soil. “You like worms, huh?” I asked, and he flopped down, neck first, on the slimy little creature. I smiled and walked back to the patio.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my mom at the family room window, watching me. Not only was I awake, I was in the back yard laughing and smiling. She didn’t wave or acknowledge me, just grinned and turned back into the family room, coffee clutched in her hand.