A Dog Year

by Jon Katz

So I hemmed and hawed about adopting a border collie, especially one with more than the usual . . . issues. A part of me was drawn to the idea, but the rational part said: Stop! Danger ahead!

  Deanne was patient, persuasive, persistent without being pushy, a subtle line she walked with great skill. The better we got to know each other, the more effective her message. Devon, she said, was a special case in need of special handling. He was uncommonly bright, willful, and emotionally beat up. From my book, with its descriptions of Julius and Stanley and of my cabin in rural upstate New York—close to border collie nirvana—she suspected that I had a high tolerance for odd dog behavior. And Devon was, well, odd.

  After a few weeks of this back-and-forth, she put him on a plane and shipped him from Lubbock, Texas, eastward to his new life. On a balmy spring night, I stood outside the American Airlines baggage freight window in Terminal B.

  Waiting nervously, I recalled in particular the warning of breeder and author Larson. She was straightforward: “In border collies, the wild type or wolf temperament is common and seems to be genetically linked to the herding behavior. This means that many border collies make unstable pets, and some can be dangerous. Remember that these dogs were developed as sheep herders, and in the mountains and moors they did not need to be sociable with strangers. As a result, shy and sharp temperaments are fairly common.”

  In my thickly settled neighborhood only about fifteen miles west of New York City, you don’t encounter many mountains or moors. You don’t see many border collies, either.

  Doing my homework had only increased my trepidation. Border collies need vast spaces to roam, I read. They had insatiable energy; they’d go nuts living out the fate of many suburban family hounds: locked in crates or basements all day while the grown-ups worked; never properly trained, socialized, or exercised; growing increasingly neurotic while the kids, for whose sake the dogs were allegedly acquired, often wound up ignoring them.

  Border collies, I read further, sometimes mistook kids for sheep and nipped or bit them. They had peculiar habits, interests, needs, and mood swings. Working dogs in every sense of the word, diggers and foragers, they abhorred loneliness and inactivity and hated having nothing to do. If you didn’t give them something to keep them occupied, they would find something themselves.

  They often had trouble with other dogs, herding or chasing them. They obsessively pursued squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, cars, and trucks—that is to say, anything that moved quickly away from them. Always in pursuit of something mobile, they’d take off explosively when they found it, racing after it at blinding speeds. Once launched, few things—shrubbery, fences, traffic, shouts—could slow them down.

  Newark Airport is a sometimes overwhelming place, justly famous for its nearly continual mobs, traffic, congestion, and delays. Devon’s plane had been routed through Atlanta, and the airport monitors said that his flight would be late, though not how late. This had to be rough on any dog, let alone a wired-up border collie with a delicate psychological history. Poor guy. I pictured him in the dark hold, feeling the plane move, the crates and luggage vibrating as the deafening engine roared nearby. Terminal B was unlikely to be a welcoming destination, either.

  I had only the vaguest sense of what this dog looked like. I’d declined Deanne’s offer of a photograph, mostly because I didn’t want to make an adoption decision based on looks. That was a bad reason, I thought, to get a dog.

  Parts of his story were vague. He had never lived in a house much or, I gathered, had a single human to attach himself to. He’d been neutered only a couple of weeks earlier, by the owner, before she gave him back to Deanne. The usually routine surgery had gone badly: the vets couldn’t put him to sleep with the usual amount of anesthesia, so they increased the dosage, and then they almost couldn’t wake him up. He was iron-willed and smart.

  “Devon’s got some things to deal with,” Deanne told me. My understanding was that Devon had been raised for obedience competition, had fallen short in some way and been replaced. This wasn’t an uncommon fate in obedience show dogs, who aren’t raised to be pets. When they fail—and they know when they fail—they have no real purpose.

  So Devon had languished. “He needs somebody to connect to,” Deanne told me. “He’s discouraged.”

  She also told me I could change his name—it was a tad Martha Stewart for my taste—but I figured he’d have enough to adjust to.

  Border collie breeders are notoriously picky, since so many of their weird and energetic animals wind up abandoned or unwanted. I suspect they tend to look either for ranchers with hordes of sheep or stay-at-home oddballs—writers, for example—to take in the rejects.

  It seemed that when I’d mentioned—during the interminable interviewing any potential border collie owner is subjected to—that Stanley liked to give my butt a nibble when he wanted me to throw his ball, that clinched something for Deanne. You had to have an unusual sense of humor, she said, to appreciate border collies. So Devon was en route. I’m still not entirely sure why I agreed.

  What would this do to Julius and Stanley, who had placid dog lives filled with chewbones, stuffed toy animals, strolls to the park, and regular retreats upstate, where Stanley loved to swim while Julius stared happily at the mountaintop at nothing in particular for hours? They enjoyed the finest hypoallergenic lite dog food; summer vacations on Cape Cod; four, sometimes five walks a day and round-the-clock companionship with each other. They’d returned these favors with nothing but love and loyalty.

  I had left them in the yard that night, where they could meet Devon. Given a bit of space, perhaps nobody would get territorial or testy.

  “Boys,” I’d announced solemnly, “I’m bringing another dog here, Devon. He might be a little wacky. Be patient.” Julius and Stanley looked at me fondly, both tails wagging. They were nothing if not patient.

  I had put a bowl and a jug of water in my minivan, along with a small bag of biscuits. I was holding a new blue leash and collar, to which I’d already attached a dog tag with Devon’s name and my phone numbers.

  I felt anxious, dubious, excited, strongly pulled toward something that made no sense. It was not much comfort to hear that Deanne had promised I could send the dog back to her if he couldn’t adapt.

  An hour after I arrived, the plane landed. Pacing nervously outside the freight office, I asked every five minutes or so if a dog was on board. I called Deanne on my cell phone to tell her that Devon had arrived. I called my wife, Paula, for reassurance; convinced that three dogs was at least one too many, she didn’t offer much. I called my daughter at college. “He’s almost here,” I announced. She sighed a familiar sigh. “Call back and let me know what he’s like.”

  A half-hour after touchdown—it was by now nine p.m.—I saw two baggage handlers pulling a large blue dog crate, dragging and bumping it noisily across the tiled floor. The plastic container was enormous, with air holes along the sides, and a metal grill over the front opening. An envelope taped on top held the dog’s travel and AKC papers. A blanket, the only vestige of his former life, was scrunched up against the door, along with an empty bowl, and shredded bits of newspaper lined the bottom.

  I couldn’t see much through the front grill, just flashes of black and white that seemed to circle frantically, like a pinwheel. He was throwing himself against the door and the sides. I winced at the loud bumping; he needed to get out of there.

  They pulled the crate alongside me. “Hey, Devon,” I said to the plastic. No response.

  I presented the required ID, signed the freight bill, and pulled the crate to a part of the baggage area where there was a bit of room.

  Newark Airport, almost always bedlam, was worse than usual that night because of bad-weather delays all over the East. Luggage was piled everywhere; cops screamed at idling drivers through the open doors; skycaps yelled for business; and the loudspeaker rattled off one flight after another as the jets roared overhead. Thousands of people poured through the doors and along the concourses.


  My van was parked a few hundred yards from the door. My plan was to reach into the crate and leash Devon, then walk him with one hand while I toted the crate in the other; we’d get away from this madness and save our bonding for the quieter, darker parking lot. Section 3A of the Terminal B short-term parking area didn’t exactly conjure up pastoral scenes from James Herriot, but it would have to do.

  Inside the crate, Devon was still pinwheeling. I’d yet to glimpse his face.

  “Devon,” I called. “Devon, I’m going to open the door, boy. It’s going to be okay.” I’ve always talked to my dogs, not because I imagine they understand my words, but so that they can pick up my tone or mood. It’s almost a reflex.

  The thumping and twirling stopped, and I saw a pair of wild, ink-dark eyes. They bespoke power and intensity, as well as terror. And no wonder. In the morning, home, in laid-back, sparsely populated Texas. Then to the airport, into a crate, onto a plane’s cargo hold. Takeoffs and landings, not once but twice. Holed up in the dark. Hours in the air. Unloaded down a ramp, driven across the airport’s dank runways, dragged across the floor of a tumultuous terminal, confronted with a large stranger calling his name.

  I knelt, pulled up the latch on the crate, and the gate slammed open into my face. Before I could move, a blur shot past me and into the crowd, its force knocking me off my heels onto my back. Devon was out of sight before I could scramble to my feet. A flurry of shrieks and shouts behind me told which way he’d headed.

  It took me, two baggage handlers, and three very unhappy Port Authority police officers nearly half an hour to track and corral Devon as he ricocheted through the jammed terminal, scaring travelers out of their wits as he dashed in panic. He had no bearings, no reference points or instincts but flight.

  The PA officers were not dog lovers, it turned out. “Hey, he’s a champion border collie,” I pleaded as one got on his radio to alert Newark’s animal-control team.

  “We aren’t dogcatchers,” he said. But he wasn’t totally unsympathetic either, and they agreed that we would try to restrain Devon before calling in the doggie SWAT unit. They warned, however, that they wouldn’t be held responsible if he nipped some kid, or if an old woman got knocked over. “I’ve seen dogs a lot less excited than that one bite people,” one muttered.

  Any mishaps would be on my head. And the officer wasn’t wrong. A panicked dog in a strange place could be dangerous. What if someone grabbed him? But the thought of Devon locked up in a shelter made my stomach drop. So we set off after him.

  He sprinted from one baggage carousel to another, then back again. He seemed to be desperately looking for some running room, or perhaps a familiar sight. He couldn’t find either.

  Whenever we’d get close, he’d turn and bolt, vanishing into the crowds. My nightmare was that he’d dash out one of the doorways into the vast parking lots, which stretched out forever, bounded by teeming highways. Devon could easily get hit—or, if he made it through, he might disappear into the acres of meadows, refineries, truck bays, and warehouses that surround the airport. I shouted his name. It didn’t slow him a whit.

  Occasionally, he’d wheel back toward us. A few brave and sympathetic travelers even called out and reached for him, but he turned, barked, and snarled. Parents grabbed their kids. The cops had lost patience.

  But eventually we seemed to have driven him more or less into a corner near a Hertz counter, a cop on either side behind me. I was out front, moving slowly toward him.

  I knelt in front of him, leaving a few yards between us. It was my first good look at him. Devon was a beautiful creature, sleek and black with a needle nose, a narrow white blaze on his forehead, a white chest. He was skinny, his fur matted, and he was hunched over after hours in the crate. I could see pale stains along his face, probably from panicky spittle during the trip. His eyes were inexpressibly deep, enchanting, and sad.

  He was panting heavily, spent and frightened, probably dehydrated. I had to get him under control, or he’d end up in a Port Authority kennel or, worse, loping along a highway.

  Eye contact was critical with border collies. All the books said so; it was the way they dominated livestock. Perhaps Devon would respond. At the least, a moment’s pause in his race might give me a chance to grab him. I could see him gauging the distance between me, the officers to my rear and a small crowd of people, whom I suspected were concerned dog types, forming a raggedy semicircle behind the police.

  He was an obedience dog, supposedly. “Devon. Stay. Devon. Stay,” I kept repeating, a quiet chant. “I’m your new friend. I’m the guy. It’s okay now. It’s okay. Stay. We’re going to go home.” I kept my voice soothing and even, hoping the repetition would calm him. I was panting, too, and sweating.

  I pulled a dog biscuit out of my pants pocket. His darting eyes focused on me, then glanced at the biscuit. I put it on the ground and nudged it toward him. He ignored it, looking almost disdainful. Could I possibly think he could be bought off that cheaply? He seemed offended.

  And I could see him calculating, calculating, calculating. Can I run for it? Can I get past this jerk and all these people? A baggage carousel sputtering into motion caught his eye for a moment. Was that a possible escape route? Then, as if he’d suddenly grown resigned, his posture relaxed a bit. Maybe he had figured out that the terminal led nowhere he wanted to go. I inched forward on my knees slowly, talking quietly, feeling like a hostage negotiator. This was now a major scene. My anxiety was enhanced by acute embarrassment.

  “Stay,” I said, raising my palm, firming my voice. “Stay, Devon. It’s okay.” He seemed mildly amused now, and began concentrating on me, taking me in, pondering my technique, tilting his head curiously as I gestured. He was definitely listening to me, sizing me up.

  I got closer, close enough to reach behind his ear and scratch him gently. He let me. The cops began to back away. Then some kid shouted, and Devon started, looking wild again. But I scratched him again, and patted his shoulders. I felt for his collar and slipped the leash onto the metal ring. He didn’t resist or run, he just kept staring at me.

  The leash seemed to settle him down, as if he finally understood what he was supposed to do, which was to go with me. The officers, muttering, looked relieved and went off to do something more important. At least nobody had been bitten or hurt.

  By now, a number of people in the crowd were murmuring about how beautiful Devon was, clucking sympathetically when I loudly announced that he’d come all the way from Texas, that this was his first time on a plane, the first time he’d met me. And he was beautiful, this dervish who weighed, I guessed, somewhere between forty and fifty pounds.

  I held the leash on my left, and Devon walked along hesitantly as I pulled the crate behind us. He wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Heel,” I tried, to no particular effect. But he wasn’t trying to escape. For the moment, I was all he had.

  We walked outside past the rows and rows of cars until we reached the van. At first he lurched one way, then the other, then settled into trotting along beside me, turning as I did, the mark of a trained dog. Maybe I just didn’t know the right commands.

  I unlocked the van’s rear door, pushed in the huge crate, then came around to the side, still holding the leash. A powerful curiosity was taking over a bit from the terror. Devon was noticing everything, reacting to every sound, to the lights, buses, and people. His eyes seemed astonishingly expressive and alert.

  I pulled out the jug and bowl and poured him some water. He slurped it up greedily. Then I crouched next to him on the pavement. It was a surreal encounter in the ugly yellow safety light, with cars pouring past us in a stream, but Devon didn’t shy away. I handed him another biscuit, which he inhaled. Then two more.

  I reached over slowly and scratched the top of his head; his ears came up for the first time. Every thirty seconds or so, a jet would blast overhead and Devon would shake a bit, but after two or three takeoffs, he got used to it.

  “Devon, lis
ten to me, pal,” I said, trying again. “It’s going to be okay.” He gazed up at me, and at the sky above us, and looked utterly lost and defeated. I kept scratching him and handing over biscuits, which he kept eating. He was making up his mind about me, as I was about him.

  “Look, we’re going to get into the car now. We’re going to go home,” I told him. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I work at home, I’ll stay with you, I’ll give you lots of walks, lots of food, lots of patience. I’ll take good care of you. Let’s try it, okay?” I held out my hand, and he licked it, once, very gently.

  I opened the door and Devon jumped up onto the front seat as if he’d done it a million times. I lowered the front window a bit—he stuck his nose out. Curiosity was my ally here; from inside the van, the airport was more fascinating than terrifying—though when we got to the parking-lot cashier’s booth, he jumped onto the floor and hid.

  Then he jumped back up, looking at me, then out the window. The wheels were turning: Who is this guy? What is this place? Where are we going?

  “It’s okay,” I kept saying. “It’s all right.” Sometimes he appeared to believe me.

  Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into my driveway. The Labs came lumbering over to the fence, tails wagging. Devon’s head went down, his ears folded, and the three touched noses cautiously. Julius looked at me with regret and concern. Stanley, the slightly more dominant of the two, looked skeptical.

  I decided to take Devon for a short walk before introducing him to Paula and the house. Partway down the block, he was walking alongside me so easily, his nose to the ground sniffing the pavement, that I relaxed a bit for the first time that night. My tree-lined suburban street seemed serene compared to Newark Airport.

  An ill-advised reverie: with a sharp jerk of the leash from my hand, Devon was gone. I spun around in all directions and saw no trace of him—until I happened to glance at a passing minivan and saw him perched on the roof as it drove slowly down the street. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Dogs don’t fly.