Wherever You Go, There They Are

by Annabelle Gurwitch

  “We have a neighbor who is homophobic but he loves dogs, so we get a kick out of the fact that in order to greet our dog, he has to yell, ‘Hi, Mary.’”* I rest my case. There is simply no kind of therapy that could knock the gay out of these guys. Electroshock therapy might rob them of their short-term memories, but Mark and Glenn would probably still be deliciously Mary.

  The question of whether these dogs are “family” seems moot; these pups are more like royal family. Glenn was awarded the dogs in his divorce, for which he engaged a pricey attorney who specializes in pet custody disputes.* There is little in the way of services and care Glenn and their new stepfather, Mark, haven’t lavished upon their boys—Mary is particularly keen on doggie acupuncture, at fifty dollars a pop—but even their parents have been shocked by the lengths they’ve gone to.

  “Lorna needed to wear adult diapers and we could only keep them on her with Glenn’s man Spanx. Getting her into them was daunting, but we did it. We also tried to find a rabbi to preside over a shiva for her when she died, but no rabbi would do it.* We would have paid anything. If we were younger, we’d have had kids, but we’re old-school gay. We’ve spent enough to send all of our dogs through private school in Los Angeles.” But when Mr. Mooney was experiencing vision problems and they consulted with a Beverly Hills canine ophthalmologist who offered to fit the dog with a false eye—you know, not so he could see better, but to look better—they couldn’t bring themselves to go that far. They had hit their limit.

  I admit that I too have gone to extreme measures and recall administering subcutaneous fluids three times a day to my cat Stinky when her kidneys started to fail. But, recently, I hit my limit, and I tell them the story of why my cats are not family members.

  We were contentedly allowing our cats, Anthony Perkins and Alexander Pushkin, to travel in and out of our home, at their leisure, through a cat door. That is, until they began chasing rodents inside, turning our house into a small animal killing field. The tipping point was when the cats invited a particularly stealthy varmint into our household and promptly lost interest when the clever scoundrel wedged itself inside the bench of our breakfast nook. We hired a humane pest control service to try to coax him out. Nada. We hired the exterminator with the plastic rat strapped on top of the truck to set decapitating traps. More nada. We could hear our new roomie scratching and scurrying beneath us as we gathered for meals. Still, we honored our Schengen policy. Then el ratón ate through the wiring in our refrigerator. Then he ate through the wiring in the washing machine. Long story to thousands of dollars spent on new kitchen appliances, we nailed the cat door shut. Sometimes the kitties get stuck outside for hours at a time, even entire nights. I wouldn’t do that to our son, who has brought equally questionable living beings into our home, but that’s the difference between him and the other two males living under our roof.

  I can’t say I’m surprised when Glenn and Mark announce that Mr. Mooney can speak actual words, but it does render me speechless. We lean forward, craning our necks, heads tilting slightly.

  “Hey, you? Heeeey, yoooouuu?” Slowly and deliberately, Mark speaks in the way you do when teaching children to sound out a new word.

  One of the reasons that it’s hard for some people to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution is that it’s difficult to picture the vast amount of time it takes for species to evolve. Numerous institutes of higher learning have taken to dramatizing the passage of time by unfurling rolls of toilet paper and marking landmark dates in the history of our planet on the individual squares—it’s called a Toilet Paper Geologic Timeline. A standard roll contains approximately four hundred squares. If square 400 represents the formation of Earth, five billion years ago, square 394 sees you at 65 million years ago, with the mass extinction of the dinosaurs; the first proto-humans appear 100,000 years ago, at the tip of the last square, square one; recorded human history begins. One millimeter from the end of square one. Yet so many of us are convinced that we might take part in the first interspecies chitchat that you can find videos similar to the scene we are playing out in Glenn and Mark’s house in thousands of videos on the Internet.* I nod and smile, but honestly, Mr. Mooney’s response sounds a lot like someone gargling salt water.

  It would be hard to say whether I bonded with Glenn and Mark’s dogs, but I felt unmistakably moved by the capacity for love I witnessed. “Could I feel unconditional love for a dog if I wasn’t so fond of his owner?” I ask the guys. Glenn and Mark tell me they adopted their dogs from a rescue group called the Brittany Foundation and they urge me to go and visit.

  I’ve never visited one of these organizations; I’ve always been a bit dubious of the priorities of animal-rescue types. I know these folks have only the best intentions when they post on social media: Found an adorable terrier on the corner of Highland and Hollywood Boulevard, no tags! House trained, loves treats, and so sweet, needs a forever home.

  But, just once, I’d love to see this: Found a homeless vet on the corner of Highland and Hollywood Boulevard, tags! Not exactly housebroken, loves opioids, and so sweet, needs a forever home.

  Not only do they have an open house coming up, there is one volunteer spot that’s available, so they invite me to participate in their annual A Day in Their Paws fund-raiser.

  4. STRAIGHT OUTTA KENNEL

  The instant I post on social media that I am spending the day at a dog rescue, messages appear from people I never hear from. They write: I love you and YOU ARE MY HERO.

  I’ve supported a lot of worthy causes, including a stint escorting women into Planned Parenthood clinics. People get shot doing that, but nothing I’ve ever done has garnered a response so affirming of my saintliness. I explain that volunteers commit to spending the day cooped up inside the individual kennels with the “residents”—their word, not mine—during which time the foundation is open to the public. The public is invited to pledge money to “liberate”—their word, not mine—the volunteers at the rate of a dollar per minute of freedom from the kennels. Pledges start rolling in.

  The sanctuary is located off a freeway north of Lake Casitas, which is an hour north of Los Angeles, where the sea of Priuses trickles down to a stream of four-wheel-drive SUVs.* It makes sense that a place housing sixty dogs at any given time would be off the beaten path, but I start to wonder if I’ve been snookered into some kind of black-market organ-harvesting scheme. Surely most of the people who would willingly spend a day cooped up in a dog kennel must be single and childless? I phone my husband for what might be our last communication with both my kidneys intact as I turn off into a dirt gulch. “If you don’t hear from me in four hours . . .” I say, about to give him the address, when my phone service cuts out. The high desert winds propel a large tumbleweed into my windshield and I’m about to turn around and pack it in when I spot a ranch-style hacienda on a rocky plateau just ahead.

  Entering the rambling structure that serves as both the foundation’s headquarters and the home of Nancy, its founder, it seems unlikely that I’ll encounter bathtubs filled with ice. Well-worn chintz couches and doggie beds fill the living room. A long corridor leading to the bathroom and bedrooms is lined with Nancy’s ancestors in antique frames. “Photos of my humans,” she allows, but points out that hanging directly opposite are her other family members, ancestral dogs, in the same antique frames. There are black-and-white photos, yellowed with age; some of the pooches are posed in the same formal settings as human matriarchs and patriarchs.

  The bake sale offerings are an indication that these folks are not vegan, hemp-wearing, anti-wool-and-leather, PETA animal advocates. Luncheon meats in neat white-bread sandwiches are set out for the volunteers.

  I’m also wrong about the pool of volunteers; not all of them are childless, but there is a common theme of “I prefer dogs to people.” I ask LeeAnn in what way she prefers them. “A dog has never lied to me,” she says with a finality that makes further inquiry seem ill advised.
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br />   Before heading outside to my kennel, I visit the garage, where racks of doggie outfits are hanging for sale. There are the ubiquitous (knitted sweater vests, raincoats) and the more niche (leather coats with chain mail), and then there’s the sexy Santa suit. It’s strappy, and the red felt halter top has an underwire push-up bra built in. The skirt is adorned with S & M–type sharp metal spikes. Now, how’s a pooch gonna roll over and get his stomach scratched in that getup? A close inspection reveals it’s not a one-off, handmade item. The stitching is uniform and professional, clearly factory made. How many were made this year? How many sold? Has someone mistakenly put a human costume on the rack? That would be worse, because that would mean it was made for a child. I try to banish the thought from my brain as Yvonne leads me to my kennel.

  Yvonne, who’s in her fifties, is a mortgage banker, single, child-free, who devotes time each weekend to the dogs. She’d like to phase out of banking and hand make soap, which she’s learned to do on DIY Internet sites. She’s selling her first batch today, which is why I am able to step in and take her place.

  We pass row after row of kennels manned by volunteers quietly communing with their kennelmates. My new haunt is at the far end of the row of adjoining pens. Because I’m the newbie, it’s like I’ve been assigned the seat on the plane directly in front of the bathroom. At some point during the day, every sitter will stroll past to make deposits in the poop cans in front of my kennel.

  Kennel housing varies by the size of the dog. I’m in a condo, eight feet by twelve feet, but the big dogs get bungalows, ten feet by twelve feet, which is approximately the size of my college dorm room. Each pen has an igloo with soft bedding inside and an army-style doggie cot. The accommodations are comfy if Spartan, with cooling misters for hot days and a perfectly unobstructed view of the mountains surrounding us. It jogs a memory of the first apartment I looked at in New York in 1981. It was a basement room with a dirt floor. There were tiny windows, air vents, really, that treated you to a spectacular view of shoe leather and authentic West Village detritus. Price tag: nine hundred dollars a month in 1981 dollars. The super took in my stunned expression, shook his head, and muttered, “Location, location, location.” We’re under a big sky in the open air and the sun is shining directly upon us, so as locations go, there are worse spots to be a human or canine in this world.

  Bright Eyes and Simba, my kennelmates, were rescued from a hoarder’s apartment along with two hundred other dogs. It was so crowded they were burrowing into the walls. An additional forty dead animals were discovered when the police came in. Not having socialized with humans early enough in their lives, these tiny dogs with big sad eyes will never be placed. They’ve been at the foundation for fourteen years. Simba’s legs bow slightly and he’s got the same kind of arthritis in his joints as me. I am rooting for him as he attempts, over and over, to jump the two inches to reach his camp bed. I reach out to help, but he yelps, recoiling from my touch, and withdraws into the igloo.

  Having had no experience with feral dogs, I assumed the term implied a ferocity of sorts and imagined I was risking being torn to pieces by them. I’ve confused feral and rabid. “With a lot of patience,” Yvonne tells me, “they might come to you.” She’s known as the Hot Dog Lady around the joint. When Mr. Bojangles arrived, she held hot dogs in her hand outside his igloo for five hours each Saturday and Sunday for four months until he developed enough trust to come out and take them from her. She leaves me alone with the dogs as I reflect on how five hours is four hours and fifty-five minutes longer than the amount of time I ever waited for my son, as an infant, to eat applesauce from a spoon, and that Yvonne is really well suited for long hours of stirring soap over a hot stove.

  After hearing of Simba and Bright Eyes’s plight, I am filled with purpose and the good feeling that comes with being of service. We are doing important work here. I am also ready to go home. I check my watch. Exactly twenty-nine minutes have passed.

  Visitors begin arriving at the foundation and stop by my kennel. They draw close as the dogs, with their wounded fragility, pull at their heartstrings, but most drift off quickly because Simba and Bright Eyes don’t want to interact and everybody wants to be with the friendly dogs.* Possessed by the desire to make my dogs more popular, I turn into a carnival barker, hitting those headlines hard. “Hoarder! Two hundred dogs! Can’t be adopted! Here for life!” A woman steps close, fixes me with watery eyes, grabs hold of my hand through the chain link, and says, “Thank you so much for what you’re doing.” I feel like a fraud. She doesn’t know I’m not a regular volunteer and I know what I must do.

  I’ve been given a bag of treats for the dogs. I was told that the day after these open houses the dogs get diarrhea because the sitters offer them too many snacks, so I will need to be prudent, but I’m determined to give Hot Dog Lady a run for her money. I hold a few biscuits out in my hand. Simba edges forward but I have to drop them on the ground before he’ll take them. Bright Eyes doesn’t even try. This standoff continues for at least an hour. Finally, Simba lurches toward me. Grabbing at the bite-sized morsel with his teeth, he accidentally licks me in the process. I’m so excited that I yell out, “Simba ate from my hand!” which sends the dogs cowering into the corner of the kennel. Still, I depart elated but also terrified. Is this how it starts? Is a lick the gateway fluid exchange that leads to Photoshopping your dog’s fur? Next stop: hot dog ladydom.

  I am still getting props on social media days later and I start fantasizing about inviting Simba and Bright Eyes to live with us. My time at the rescue has affirmed what screenwriters and novelists understand: when you know someone’s backstory, even an animal’s, it elicits compassion. And when someone exhibits empathy for animals, we’re really rooting for them.

  In September of 2015, news of the Syrian couple, the al-Kadris, who crossed the Mediterranean with their kitten in tow captured almost as much of the public’s attention as the family who lost their son on the treacherous journey to Greece. After all, they loved their darling kitten, Zaytouna—“Olive”—so much that they must be good people. Lest we forget, Lenin was famously a cat lover. Not one report speculated that they’d put the cat’s life in danger or might have used precious resources that could have helped another refugee make the crossing. Update: little Olive was quarantined and reunited with his owners, who felt certain that the cat recognized them instantly.* I find that hard to believe. I’ll see one of our cats across the street from our house less than ten minutes after he left my lap, call out to him, and he’ll look right through me. But I hope, for Moner and Nadia al-Kadri’s sake, that it is true.*

  Three things happen in quick succession.

  First, Mia the Chihuahua’s mommy, Lauren, stops by my home wearing the newest addition to her family, her infant human daughter, Tara, in a baby sling. I take an embarrassing amount of pleasure in holding little Tara and teasing Lauren about having traded her Outward Hound for a BabyBjörn.

  Then Glenn’s beloved Mary dies. I call to make sure he shouldn’t be put on suicide watch.

  “This was a tough one. Just don’t tell me Mary is waiting for me at that fucking Rainbow Bridge.”

  I’ve lived my entire life unaware of the Rainbow Bridge until this moment. Glenn explains that it’s a mythical place described in a popular pet-grief poem. To summarize: It’s a place where “pets who have been especially close to someone” go when they die. They are happily enjoying all the food they want and playing, but “there is just one thing missing: us. They wait there to be reunited with us so we can cross over the Rainbow Bridge together.”

  It’s hard to make sense of the conundrum that is the Rainbow Bridge. Is there some other place for those pets we haven’t been especially close to? Or do all the pets we’ve had during our entire lifetime wind up there? As a child, I had turtles, Bagels and Lox, that smelled funny and I’d be happy never to see them again. What’s under the Rainbow Bridge? Also, who gets to decide who crosse
s the bridge with whom? Last year, we got a call from a family down the street. Anthony Perkins, who has figured out how to take off his collar, was showing up at their home for a second breakfast and late lunch so often that they assumed he was their cat, until he turned up one day wearing his collar. We live so close by that when the big earthquake finally hits, it could take us all out at the same time. Who gets to cross that Rainbow Bridge with Perkins? What if I live until I’m a hundred? Will I be leaving all of my deceased pets in a state of suspended unhappiness? How selfish of me. I should stop washing my hands. What about those forty dead dogs from the hoarder’s apartment? They deserve a Rainbow fucking Causeway!

  “It’s a pet purgatory animal-geddon!” Glenn adds, and I’m so glad that though he’s got a broken heart, he’s still got his talking dog, Mr. Mooney, and his sense of humor.

  That same week, Gia’s Bailey leaves the building. The day Bailey dies is November 13, 2015, and as news of the massacre in Paris begins to make its way around the world, there are condolences on Gia’s social media that include speculative musings on whether it feels worse to lose a dog or to lose 130 people in Paris. One person writes, “Maybe Bailey died to escort all those souls in Paris to heaven.”

  Dear Gia,

  Isn’t it unbelievable that in this 24/7-news-cycle world we’re so overloaded with catastrophes that we’ve lost the ability to distinguish between the global tragedy of terrorism and the very real but still minor-in-comparison unfortunate death of your doggie?

  No. No one wants to hear that at this time.