My Very Good, Very Bad Dog

by Amy Newmark

  She paused, gave a rueful little laugh, and then said, “I’ve never forgiven him.”

  It was clear, though, that she was finding her time with Lucy well worth the wait. Lucy is a charming mix, with the velvet ears and sleek coat of a Labrador Retriever, the elegant posture and black-and-white markings of a Boston Terrier, and the endearing curved tail of a Spitz breed. The shelter from which Ellen adopted Lucy told her that Lucy had likely lived most of her life on the streets in the South. Lucy’s affection for Ellen is palpable, almost as if she can’t believe her good fortune in finding such a loving home. And Ellen’s delight in everything about Lucy is a joy to behold.

  Seeing them so happy together, day after day, I couldn’t help but think of Kenny, my younger son, who has also wanted a dog his whole life, but couldn’t because of my husband’s allergies. One of Kenny’s first three words was “dog.” His favorite toy as a baby was a Labrador Retriever stuffed animal. (It went everywhere with him for years — I don’t think there is a photo of him as a toddler that doesn’t include it.) He long considered Jenny, my sister’s chocolate Lab, his favorite cousin. He would talk about visiting her with the same enthusiasm that most kids his age reserved for a trip to Disneyland.

  He would ask for a dog for every Christmas and birthday, and my husband, Dan, and I would always gently turn him down. We’d explain that even if my husband could find a way to manage his allergies, Kenny would still have to wait until he was old enough to walk his puppy around the neighborhood by himself. When he was little, it seemed like the perfect solution. We didn’t need to break his precious heart by telling him “no” — we just had to encourage him to have patience.

  Before we knew it we had a persistent eleven-year-old who insisted that we make good on our promise. Kenny was well prepared to combat the allergy argument, providing us with a long list of hypoallergenic breeds. He also sent me a long text with all of his reasons for wanting a canine companion, ending the message with the simple words: “A dog would make me happy.”

  I received his message on a dreary morning after I saw Kenny off to school. As a fifth-grader on the cusp of entering middle school and adolescence, Kenny was chafing at any and all attempts to restrain his independence. It was a constant source of conflict between us.

  I thought about all the arguments we had had in the past month. He was increasingly moody and full of pre-teen angst. I thought about my own childhood, and how hard the middle school years were. By the time I reached high school, I knew a bit about myself, but the awkwardness of early adolescence had been almost unbearable.

  “A dog would make me happy.” The last line of his text haunted me for days while I pondered what to do. I was not sure that I wanted to add more tasks to my to-do list. But how could I deny Kenny the one thing that he had always wanted? Would he, like Ellen, have to wait until he was retired to have the dog of his dreams?

  Dan and I discussed the pros and cons endlessly. In addition to Dan’s allergies and all the work involved in taking care of a dog in New York City, we worried about the expense and the fact that we would likely own the dog for a decade or so after Kenny left for college. Just as I was becoming convinced that after all those years of stalling, we would have to tell Kenny “no” after all, I experienced an incident that completely changed my mind.

  One morning, I spotted Ellen and Lucy walking toward our apartment building about a half-block ahead of me. They leaned into each other as they strolled along. Every now and then, Lucy gently caressed Ellen’s leg with her Spitz tail. A bit of a breeze ruffled Lucy’s fur and she reacted with joy, leaping and jumping around. Even from the distance, I could see Ellen’s broad smile and hear her chuckle as she reached down to give Lucy a pat on the head. I knew then and there that I wanted that always-there, easygoing companionship for my son.

  Kenny, of course, was ecstatic. Yes, he would agree to take total responsibility for the dog, to feed it, walk it, train it, bathe it, and clean up after it. Yes, he would agree to our house rules for the dog: It wouldn’t be allowed on furniture or in the master bedroom; it would sleep in Kenny’s room; it would have to be trained to listen, not jump up, etc. Yes, he’d prove he was responsible by walking the neighbor’s dog every morning before school and every night before bed for a week. Yes, he’d read a book about dog training. Yes, he’d talk with an experienced dog owner to help him consider everything involved in owning a dog. Yes, yes, yes — whatever we wanted — yes.

  Dan did some online research about hypoallergenic breeds. He decided we should get a Goldendoodle and set about finding one. Within a few weeks, we had a new member of the family, whom Kenny named Jenkins.

  The change in Kenny was dramatic. Everyone, from his teachers to the doormen in our apartment building, remarked that since we got Jenkins, Kenny seemed to stand taller, smile brighter and, yes, be happier. He worked hard to train Jenkins, patiently cleaning up when the puppy had an accident, and setting limits regarding what is okay to chew (dog toys) and what isn’t (Mom’s favorite high heels).

  Toward the end of our first summer with Jenkins, I happened to catch a glimpse of Kenny and his dog walking side-by-side on their way home from the park. Jenkins loped along on still-too-big-for-him puppy paws, feathery tail straight up and wagging happily. Kenny beamed with pride as a passerby complimented him on his adorable, well-behaved buddy. Boy and dog exhibited exactly the kind of relationship that I had hoped they would have: loyal, faithful, best friends.

  ~Victoria Otto Franzese

  Saved by the Dog

  Fun fact: Small dogs like Chihuahuas, Maltese and Shih Tzus are often referred to as “toy dogs.”

  I’d always been an intense neat freak. When people wanted to enter my room, I would force them to wash their hands and put on hand sanitizer. Oh, and my famous book problem: I had started my own little library and I love books, but I wasn’t very good about sharing them. If my brother asked to borrow a book, I’d have him wash his hands four times and put on my favorite lotion. Also, I prohibited food around my books because I didn’t want crumbs stuck between book pages.

  When my friends came over, I wouldn’t let them in my room because I didn’t know what they had touched before coming over. Eventually, I prohibited everyone from entering my room. I took many showers and constantly washed my hands.

  I wouldn’t play with my brother because he was “dirty.” My mom said my obsession with cleanliness was abnormal. My dad just shook his head and said it would pass. But it didn’t pass. I was caught in my own little world, terrified of the myriad bacteria around me.

  Then, after two years of this, along came Teeny, a Chihuahua–Shih Tzu mix with a lovely coat of black, velvety fur, as well as white paws and a white nose. She was playful, energetic and adorable. On the one hand, I was extremely happy, but on the other, I was horrified and disgusted. A dog was a bacteria machine, always slobbering and shedding. Whenever Teeny started licking me, I’d panic and get mad. She was covering me with bacteria! I loved petting her, but I taught her not to kiss me, even though she found that confusing as no one else prohibited it.

  We brought Teeny along with us to my aunt’s house for her first Thanksgiving. She jumped all over my aunt’s family with kisses and joy. I was jealous of the affection that Teeny was giving my cousins, and jealous of her playfulness around them. Teeny jumped and played with my cousins more in one evening than she ever had with me. That evening was a long one, and I remember every little bit of it.

  After that Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to retrain Teeny. I tried everything. I sat down on my knees and begged her to come to me. I held treats on my lap hoping she would sit there. I even imitated my cousin’s voice calling for her. At first, Teeny hesitated, but slowly she started paying more attention to me, and the feeling of acceptance was beyond amazing. Little by little, Teeny started becoming more comfortable with me. I realized she had been scared of me.

  I stopped thinking of Teeny as a “bacteria machine” and realized that she was a true tre
asure. It took a while, but my obsession with cleanliness disappeared.

  I hadn’t realized how mean and rude I must have been to my mom, dad and brother. I felt so guilty. What kind of daughter was I? How could a big sister be so mean? What kind of friend wouldn’t let her friends into her room? What did my parents think of me? I wondered how I could show them I no longer cared about bacteria and dirt.

  I decided to act as I did with my dog. Little by little, I grew more and more open-minded with my family. I no longer complained when they entered my room. I made no more remarks about washing hands or using hand sanitizer. My mother no longer commented on my “mental illness,” and my brother and I built a great brother-sister relationship. My father, in his corner, even smiled at the progress I made.

  Teeny taught me a valuable lesson about acceptance. By reaching out to her, I overcame my obsession and learned how to reach out to everyone who matters in my life.

  ~Laura Yoon

  Little White Dog

  Fun fact: Dogs have forty-two teeth: two pairs of canine teeth, six pairs of incisors, and the rest are molars.

  “Should we even be thinking about getting a dog right now?” I asked my eager fiancé as we drove to the shelter that hot July morning. “The wedding’s nearly five months away, and we still have so much to do for that and the house. I still have to move, and you’ll be alone with the dog most of that time. Then we’re headed to Hawaii, and we’ll have to find someone to dog-sit. It would be easier if we waited until after Christmas, or even spring.”

  Stephen hadn’t grown up with dogs as I had, and I had a feeling he didn’t really understand the amount of work they could be.

  “That’s exactly why we should get a dog,” he countered. “I’ll be alone until you move, so I’ll be lonely. Dogs relieve stress, so it will actually help with all the things we have to do. It’ll help us relax, you know? I’ve already looked at the shelter online and made a list of dogs that would be good.”

  A half-hour later, I closed the door of the small-dog room, muffling the high-pitched cacophony our presence had set off. I crossed to the desk, staffed by a volunteer. “Could we meet that little white dog, please?” I asked. “The one in the bottom corner by the door.”

  She looked at me blankly, trying to pull the dog’s information from memory. I persisted. “It looks like she only has one eye.”

  That one eye had locked on mine as Stephen left the room, passing a message: “I am your dog. I don’t like this noise any more than he does. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Oh, oh, Chippewa,” she said. “Yes, I’ll get someone to bring her out to you.”

  We sat at a picnic table in the dusty driveway of the shelter, watching our little white dog walk out to us. The shelter said she was a Beagle-Lab mix. Her ears and tail turned out to be biscuit-colored now that I saw them in the light.

  The shelter worker handed me the lead, and Stephen patted the bench. The little white dog knew what that meant. She hopped up and sat between us, drinking in the attention. Not only was her left eye atrophied, but her teeth were mostly nubs.

  Now that she was in the fresh air with us, the little white dog was cheerful and energetic. She raced to the end of the driveway and back, Stephen trotting beside her to keep up.

  “She’s probably at least ten,” I said. “She has one eye and bad teeth. What are those bumps on her face and head?”

  Stephen leaned down and patted her gently. “Buckshot, I think.” He looked disgusted. “Someone shot her in the face. That’s probably what happened to her eye.”

  Our own eyes met. “It doesn’t matter,” one of us said. “This is our dog.”

  It’s a cliché to say that the dog rescued us, but it’s true. We renamed her “Hildy,” short for Hildegard, a name Stephen had chosen for a dog years before. We bought her everything an old dog could want. We took her to the vet, who ran a panel of tests and sent us home with pills for her thyroid disorder and a heart condition and told us she probably didn’t hear well. He also said her tiny nubs of teeth were weakened by poor nutrition and ground down by attempts to gnaw on hard things like rocks and cans to fill her hungry tummy. They also could have been ground down if she had been kept in a cage by a puppy-mill operator.

  We took her back later that year for minor surgery to remove the buckshot that was drifting close to her good eye.

  Meanwhile, our newlywed dreams fell apart. Our wedding was beautiful, but afterward we were alone in a small town in the Midwest, seven hundred miles away from family and friends and our East Coast homes. We were young, we were miserable, and we blamed each other.

  But Hildy united us. She loved both of us, and we both loved her. We were stuck together and forced to make our marriage work because neither of us was willing to leave her. Hildy was our constant, our friend even when we were not friends to each other.

  At last, three years after we adopted Hildy, we were able to move, not home to the East Coast, but at least to a city that was more our speed, and into jobs that were a better fit. We rented a small house that Hildy loved because she could sit in one place and see most of it. There weren’t any stairs to challenge her arthritis. She loved going for short walks four times a day around the block, and people in the neighborhood came to recognize her and us. Despite her new diagnosis of Cushing’s disease, it was a happy year for all of us. Stephen and I found our way back to the relationship we had had before, the one we were now so glad we hadn’t given up on.

  In June, a year after our move, Hildy’s health declined sharply. Her vet suspected bone cancer. Despite her illness, she was cheerful until the last walk she took into the emergency vet clinic early on a Sunday morning, when it was time to let her go. The night before, we lay on the floor beside her bed, petting her and trying to tell her what she meant to us.

  “You saved us,” I whispered. “You saved our marriage. Thank you so much. Thank you for loving us when we couldn’t love each other. We love you, little white dog.”

  After Hildy died, I started writing again, something I had given up on in those dark, mostly miserable years when I felt my life had gone horribly wrong in every way except for the little white dog at my feet. I felt Hildy would want me to.

  My first novel was published four years after Hildy’s death, two weeks after the birth of our first child.

  The dedication reads, “In memory of Hildy, who saved my life in the wilderness.”

  ~Courtney McKinney-Whitaker

  The Gift of a Caring Companion

  Fun fact: Studies have shown that the unconditional love of a dog can help people feel less depressed.

  Back in high school, I had a hard time fitting in and felt really lonely. It was getting harder and harder to hold back my tears every day when I came home from school. I didn’t know if the tears were of relief that the day was done, or of sadness that I had to get up and go back to a place full of bullies and people who didn’t like me.

  One day, I came home in tears and ran upstairs to my bedroom. I couldn’t stop crying. I sat on my floor and started ripping pages from my diary. I can’t believe I liked him, I thought. I had liked this boy for a long time and had actually been feeling pretty happy lately, but that day he had said he could never like someone like me. I was crushed.

  I finished ripping the pages out of my diary and continued sobbing when I felt something brush against my leg. I looked up and saw Myla staring at me with a tilted head and a wagging tail. I scrunched up my face and began crying hysterically. Myla’s tail stopped. She backed away a little bit and tilted her head to the other side. Her eyes grew wide. Then she started whimpering.

  I curled my legs up to my stomach and hugged them with my arms. Myla nudged her head between my legs, put her paws up on my chest and sniffed my face. She had never done this before! She was a pretty placid dog who usually sat on the couch and unenthusiastically watched the cars go by. I knew she cared about me but I was shocked when she put her paws on me, sniffed my face, and licked my tears aw
ay. It was as if she was replacing a caring parent at that moment.

  I patted her head, and her tail started wagging again. I laughed at her funny little tail trying to wag as fast as it could. She then started chasing it, and as I watched her, I forgot what I was so sad about. I took a moment to catch my breath and lifted myself up off the floor. Myla followed me to the bathroom where I washed my tear-stained face. I flicked some water at her, and she sneezed. Her tail never stopped wagging.

  Myla followed me around the house until late into the evening. Every time I would sniff or make a sound, she would cock her head and look at me like a worried mother, as if to confirm that I was okay.

  That night, as I crawled into bed, exhausted from the day’s events, I realized how thankful I was for Myla. I had gotten her for Christmas the year before just as I had entered high school. I went through many emotional ups and downs throughout high school — as most people do — and came home to my favourite little pooch who would follow me up to my room and insist on comforting me the only way she knew how: with doggy kisses and tail wags.

  Myla comforted me with her puppy compassion until someone else needed her. Two years after I started university, my mom told me her friend was lonely after being widowed. It broke my heart. I knew that Myla would be a perfect addition to her household, with her easygoing nature and huggable coat of fur.

  It was really hard to give Myla away, but I will never forget the look on that lady’s face when I gave her a new companion. Her big smile and happy tears made me feel like I did the right thing.

  After caring for me for so long, it was time for Myla to care for a widow who just needed someone to talk to and feed. I think I gave the best gift one could ever give. From an emotional high-school life to a widow’s bedside, Myla served her purpose as a caring and friendly presence in times of need. My darling Myla proved to me that dogs make not only the best pets, but also some of the best friends, teachers, and caregivers we’ll ever know.