Another Good Dog

by Cara Sue Achterberg

  She threw herself into the task of reaching the chickens, using every ounce of her tiny beagle self to strain against her leash, her bark cut short by the pressure on her neck. When we finished unloading the hay, I allowed her to herd the chickens into a corner, the leash restricting her from actually touching them. (I was pretty sure she was interested in more than just playing with them.)

  Eventually I dragged her away, but as we walked down the hill, she assumed a certain swagger and couldn’t avert her gaze from the barn full of feathered bliss. Our little beagle was coming into her own, it seemed.

  A month had passed and she remained in our care. I checked her page on the rescue website regularly to update the pictures and see if she had any adoption applications. She was ready to find her forever home. Why wasn’t anyone choosing her?

  I worried we were getting spoiled by our first foster dog. Maybe the next one wouldn’t be as much fun or as smart. “Next one?” everyone wondered when I mentioned it. How could I explain that, yes, we had started this venture looking for our next dog, but as I grew to love Galina, I realized that there were more like her, thousands more, who would never make it out of the shelters.

  One night, Nick and I were watching college basketball. He was on the couch, and I was sitting on the floor in front of the couch working on a puzzle with one hand and stroking Galina’s back with the other. She let out a drowsy whimper and rolled over for me to rub her tummy.

  “You like doing this, don’t you?” Nick asked. I knew he was talking about fostering dogs. All our conversations revolved around the topic lately.

  “How could we not save more Galinas? There are so many other good dogs who deserve a second chance and will never get one. The least we can do is foster a few more. Maybe then we’ll adopt one.”

  “Right,” he said, but the way he said it wasn’t cynical, it was accepting. He knew me. We’d been married almost twenty years. He’d listened to my opinions and dreams and schemes, sometimes questioning, but rarely doubting. He might not be as convinced as I that we needed to rescue more dogs, but we were partners in this life, and if rescuing dogs was something I was determined to do, I knew he’d help me do it.

  Finally, we received word that Galina had an approved adopter! I read the email and discovered the adopter had been following the blog I’d begun writing about our foster adventures. She already loved Galina and was excited to adopt the “floppy-eared princess.” The emails flew back and forth. I answered questions and made plans for them to meet her.

  The day before Galina was to leave, I sat with her on the futon in my office, rubbing her ears and trying not to be teary. I wanted to say my goodbye now. I didn’t want to cry in front of the adopters. I’d always known she was leaving, but I hadn’t been able to picture it until a date was set.

  Every day that Galina was here, she had made me laugh. Her presence had been a wonderful distraction from all that was plaguing my mind and my heart. That winter my dream of being a novelist was finally coming true, but it wasn’t anything like I pictured it. There was so much work between the time I finally wrote The End, and when that book could be held in a stranger’s hand at the bookstore. For so many years I wrote and queried agents and publishers, receiving rejection after rejection. I took that frustration and channeled it into writing more. Eventually, I got used to the rejection notices and even stopped saving them—hitting delete the moment I saw the word “regret.”

  When I finally got a publication contract, I thought, This is it. I made it. But I hadn’t and I haven’t. Being a writer is rewarding in many, many ways, but definitely not financially. I was coming to terms with the fact that I’d put literally thousands of hours into reaching this point and in the end, it would feel great to say I’d been published, but it didn’t change the fact that we had three college educations to pay for, and my income wouldn’t even pay for the books they’d need to study at the school we couldn’t afford.

  It was March now, and Brady still hadn’t decided on a college. He had full scholarship offers to several big schools in the South and Southwest, but they were enormous universities that made these offers based solely on the fact that Brady was a National Merit Scholar. These schools were like small cities. They were known for football and partying rather than academics. One of them was currently in the news because of racial unrest and what looked like institutional bigotry. I couldn’t imagine my kid who grew up in our one stoplight town, played D&D on the weekends, and regularly lost his wallet and shoes, thriving or even surviving in a Big Ten atmosphere. Besides that, they didn’t have the program he wanted to study—creative writing. “You’d have to major in English. What would be the point?” I asked. “And you’d probably need a bike to ride to classes,” I threatened. Brady hadn’t been on a bike since he’d crashed one into a tree on a camping trip four years before.*

  “But it’s free,” he said. Which was a great point.

  The school he really liked had offered him a decent scholarship. But to pay for the rest, Brady would have to take out a loan. He’d graduate nearly $100,000 in debt, which I knew all too well would be darn near impossible to pay off with his creative writing degree. The other option would be for Nick and me to pick up the difference. This would be equivalent to us buying a luxury car we never got to drive every year for four years. And then we’d have to find a genie in a bottle to pay for Addie’s college and hope that something changed or our government finally reined in the exorbitant price of college by the time Ian graduated high school in five years. Brady knew this too, so he was ready to try the free ride at the big school rather than go into debt or ask us to pay for the school where he wanted to be. We were in a tight spot. I wished I’d spent the last ten years working at one of the fast-food restaurants out by the interstate instead of squirreled away in my office writing stories.

  My heart was torn. I wanted my son to have the college experience I had. I wanted him to have four years following his passion and meeting friends he would keep for life, but at what cost?

  I went to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer and Galina followed me, a little beagle shadow. As I passed through the living room, I tried not to notice the layer of dust on the furniture or the dog hair coating our carpet. Years ago, after Addie was born, I’d decided to quit my job and stay home full-time. We let the housecleaning service go and I took up the job. I’m no Martha Stewart and my cleaning attitude has always been keep it clean enough to be healthy. That means there might be a few messes, but there isn’t mold growing anywhere.

  After Ian was born, I began doing freelance writing for regional papers and a few magazines while I secretly worked on a novel. Cleaning became even less of a priority. Now that I had a real publishing contract and a book deal, I had to write. It wasn’t just to keep my mind engaged so I didn’t go crazy from struggling with the directions for Legos or trying to match up the Polly Pocket shoes and purses. It was a job. A low-paying job, but a job nonetheless. Cleaning the house had devolved into shoving things in baskets and occasionally running the vacuum cleaner. If a houseguest loomed or I had to host book club, I would dust, clean a bathroom, and keep the lights dim or hold our meeting on the porch. Between my writing, Galina’s trail of destruction, and three teenagers disinclined to follow a chore chart their mother was unlikely to follow through on, the mess in the house was bad. Seriously bad. And it stressed me out.

  Galina had been a wonderful distraction from all of that—the deadlines, the decisions, the mess. Even now, with tears on my face at the thought of goodbye, I could laugh remembering the time she dragged a stuffed elephant from Ian’s room that was so big she couldn’t see where she was going so she wandered in circles bumping into the door frame, or the time I’d pulled off my sweatshirt and she’d attempted to carry it off, but instead it caused her to trip repeatedly as I chased her down.

  I called my OPH coordinator and got the scoop on the adoption contract. It was long. OPH’s contracts were meant to protect the dog for life. This was
a good thing. This was a good organization. I trusted them, and I trusted their process, so I knew the people coming for Galina would be more than qualified to take her home.

  Despite my present sadness, I was excited to meet Galina’s new family. I hoped they’d change her silly name. Maybe Princess Sugar Paws or Sweetie the Sock-Eater. Okay, maybe not those names, but a forever name for her forever home.

  The adoption was supposed to take place Saturday, but Friday afternoon I got an email that said Galina’s adopters had chosen another dog. At first I was relieved, and then I felt guilty that I was relieved, and then sad for Galina. And sad for us, too, since we’d all been coming to terms with saying goodbye and now we’d have to do it all over again when the next adopter appeared.

  Later that same evening, Nick, Brady, and I drove two hours to Susquehanna University, the school that Brady wanted to attend, for a presentation on their honors program. As the presentation dragged on, I checked my phone and saw that Galina had a new approved adopter! Could we meet her tomorrow? Lump in throat, I sent a quick note to the potential adopter.

  I knew they would be the perfect parents for Galina when in response to my honest warning about Galina’s chewing habits, the adopter wrote, “We know about the chewing. Our previous beagle mix chewed through our home. I don’t own a pair of flip-flops without teeth marks in them!”

  The new adopters arrived Saturday morning with Galina’s new furbrother, Gimli, a Chihuahua about the same size as Galina with crazy Taco Bell–dog ears. The couple worried Gimli would be protective and aggressive with Galina, but she won him over in mere minutes. That’s my girl, I thought. Galina warmed up to her adopters even faster. When she met new people, Galina would generally hang back, shy and unsure, until she got to know them. Not with these two. It was almost like she recognized them. Hey, it’s Mom and Dad! She trotted happily along beside her new dad when I gave him her leash.

  Before they left, Ian selected one of Galina’s stuffed animals from the pile in her crate and her favorite sock that had not yet been completely unraveled and gave them to her new family.

  After she was gone, I kept thinking of things I should have told them. Sometimes when you walked her, she’d duck from loud cars and then spring after them when they passed. I did remember to warn them that she loved to eviscerate toilet paper rolls.

  All that day, as I sorted what was left of her toys between salvageable or not, I held in the tears. That night I watched basketball with no little snuggle muffin to make it worth my while. At bedtime, there were no late-night dog-chasing-dog shenanigans. No laps around the living room; Gracie went to bed uneventfully.

  The next day was no easier. I missed the happy little whimpers Galina made when I opened her crate in the morning as she crawled out like a soldier under fire to lay as a little fur ball of ecstasy at my feet—so happy to see me, she couldn’t even stand up. Gracie began napping in the abandoned crate.

  A few days later, we got our first report. Strider, the dog formerly known as Galina, was happy as a little clam in her new digs with her forever family. Her new mommy sent a video of her rolling in the leaves of her new yard and dragging her furbrother, Gimli, by his leash down a tiled hallway. Galina looked happy. She’d found her forever family. She’d made it out of that shelter where she could have died. Where she very likely would have died. I still had a lump in my throat at the thought of her, but no tears because I realized her leaving meant we could now save another dog.

  Nick watched the video over my shoulder. “Look what you did,” he said.

  “Look what we did,” I corrected him.

  *Living on the steep side of a hollow in the hills of Pennsylvania does not lend itself to bike riding. Add to that the windy, narrow, shoulder-less roads in our town. Sadly, none of my kids are very proficient or confident on a bicycle. The only chance they have to ride is when we cart their bikes along on vacation each summer, and two summers before Brady had crashed his bike into a tree. He hadn’t been on one since.

  TWO

  A Foster Puppy!

  With Galina launched, we pored over the listing of the next batch of dogs coming up on transport. Among the many options I spotted a brown-and-white puppy with folded-over ears. “Look!” I exclaimed, calling Nick and Ian to come look at the website. “She’s as cute as Gracie was when she was little!”*

  “You want another Gracie?” asked Nick.

  “She’s not another Gracie, she’s another Gracie-as-a-puppy. Don’t you remember how adorable she was?” I figured this adorable puppy would stay with us for two weeks, and then she’d get adopted lickety-split, before I was tasked with attempting to train her. To be fair to Gracie, her lack of manners was as much my fault as hers. When we’d brought her home, I’d been the busy mom of three active kids, working several part-time jobs, attempting to write a novel, and grow all our food. I had no business adopting a puppy. I certainly hadn’t put in the time to train her.

  “We’ll take Wheat Penny,” I emailed Mindy, my foster coordinator. And then we all got very excited—a puppy! How much fun will that be?

  Mindy emailed back. “Great! I’ve attached the Puppy Guidelines.”

  Wait? There are Puppy Guidelines?

  As I read the puppy foster guidelines from OPH, a small panic set in. Sheesh! This wasn’t going to be easy. When I explained to Nick that we would have to keep Wheat Penny quarantined inside our house and she wouldn’t even be able to go outside to pee, he was worried. When I told him she had to stay in an area of the house that we could potentially treat with bleach, he blanched.† When I told him this might go on for as long as nine days, he asked, “What’s the return policy? Couldn’t we put this one back and chose a different one—preferably a dog?”

  “They have these rules for a reason,” I told him. “It’ll be fine.”

  I spoke those words, but in fact I feared this experience might derail our entire foster career before it was off the ground. Because puppies coming from unknown origins with questionable vaccination histories can carry dangerous and hard-to-kill viruses, OPH took the Puppy Guidelines very seriously.

  Silly name, resemblance to Gracie, and crazy quarantine requirements aside, Wheat Penny was an adorable seven-month-old, fifteen-pound beagle/spaniel mix, and we were all excited to meet her. We would set her up in our guest bathroom (tile floor) for her quarantine period. A friend gave us puppy pads, and I lined the tub with blankets as a cozy little bedroom for her. I asked a few questions to clarify the seriousness of the quarantine rules, and was informed by OPH’s medical coordinator, Jen, that they weren’t at all “bendy.” She also told me that because Wheat Penny was an older puppy, it was entirely possible that she’d already had a few vaccinations. Jen gave me her word that as soon as she had that information, she’d spring Wheat Penny. (Fingers crossed, candles lit, juju sent.)

  The transport was again a late evening drop. This time Nick wouldn’t be able to accompany me as he was returning from a business trip that night. No problem. I could do this solo. I’d set up the crate again in the back of our Honda Pilot. What were the odds of another flat tire?

  Friday afternoon, Brady returned from school and reported that the Honda was making a weird sound.

  “What kind of sound?” I asked.

  “A not-good flopping sound.”

  I checked the tires. They looked fine. I took the car for a spin. Definitely a not-good-flopping sound. Now what? The Pilot was our only car large enough to hold the dog crate. Wheat Penny looked small in the pictures, but I wasn’t convinced she would fit in our cat carrier and didn’t really want to jam her into it after her long ride up from South Carolina. Instead, I recruited Addie to come with me for the pickup. She could hold Wheat Penny on her lap for the ride home.

  Addie was enthusiastic about the adventure. “We’re picking up a puppy late at night in the parking lot of a bowling alley?” she asked, eyebrows raised and a smile spreading across her face. She donned all black clothing for the trip and planned to Snapch
at (what?) the entire thing.

  We arrived at the parking lot and I told Addie we had to wait for an unmarked white van to arrive, she grinned. “Seriously?”

  It was about sixty degrees warmer for this transport than the last, but the scene was much the same. Friendly strangers gathered around an SUV where more friendly strangers handed out dog food, treats, toys, and towels. I made small talk while Addie remained in the car and took more pictures reporting our activities on Snapchat.

  When the van doors opened, Wheat Penny’s joyful little face was the first I saw, and Gina, who had once again driven the transport van, quickly unloaded her for me. Wheat Penny didn’t have a collar, just a band like the ones you get at a music festival or bar that show you’re old enough to drink. I put the collar on her that I’d brought (which could have circled her tiny neck twice) and carried her to the car. She was a squirming bundle of happiness, attempting to leap out of my arms toward every person we passed as we made our way across the dark parking lot. Per the puppy guidelines no one was allowed to touch her but us and she wasn’t allowed to touch the ground. Addie walked beside me and took pictures and narrated our progress to Snapchat-land.

  I settled‡ Wheat Penny on Addie’s lap where she proceeded to squirm, chew Addie’s fingers or phone, and/or lick Addie’s face for the entire thirty-minute drive home. By the time we reached home, Addie was no longer Snapchatting. “Stop it!” she told Wheat Penny who shivered with excitement and attempted to climb over Addie’s shoulder. “Make her stop!” she told me as Wheat Penny chewed on her arm and pawed at her hair.

  Nick was home when we arrived and helped me move Wheat Penny into her new digs in the bathroom. Addie vanished.

  “She is ridiculously cute,” he admitted.

  “I know,” I said and smiled, watching her do laps around the tiny bathroom space, pausing occasionally to cover us in puppy kisses.