The Night I Lost a Dog
Hope can be hard to come by. Perhaps that is just the effect of middle class ennui or 21st century nihilism. Regardless, the constant remains: Life is hard and can often feel overwhelmingly bleak.
So, when those hopeful moments arise, it is important to take account of them, to cherish them and store them away for when things seem their darkest. This is a story of one such moment, one which I recall whenever I feel lost and frustrated with the state of the world.
I owned an old dog. He was slow and weak and often smelled like stale Doritos, for some reason, but I loved him. When we had adopted him, he was already old. The kennel staff couldn’t say just how old, but if you looked at him, with his scraggly fur and frame so thin that you could literally count his ribs, you wouldn’t argue the fact. He was old.
We adopted him anyway, even though we hadn’t gone into the store with the intention of getting a dog that day. It wasn’t a choice so much as a compulsion. I knelt by his cage, he waddled over on hips that cracked and pushed his head against the bars. I scratched his ears. That was that.
The dog’s weight got better quickly. He had been malnourished, that was clear enough, but what we learned after the first few weeks at home was that our new (old) dog maybe wasn’t quite as close to the end of his rope as everyone thought. Months turned to years and his tail wagged more and more each day. I don’t like to aggrandize pet ownership, but I’m confident in saying that we had given this small, old dog a new lease on life.
And so time went on and we all lived together happily. Being dog owners, we naturally found ourselves in pet stores often. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a pet store knows that, inevitably, you will be drawn by the siren song of begging puppies to the adoption center. Once there, you’ll find yourself playing with other animals that don’t have homes of their own, locked in kennels and looking out at you with those impossibly wide, pleading eyes of theirs.
Eventually, you cave.
We already had one dog, why not another? He had brought joy into our lives and we had helped to add a few years onto his, so why not get a younger dog who also needed a home and keep it rolling?
So we did — kind of.
It’s important to note that we were not living in what anyone would call a palatial estate at the time. We weren’t exactly in a hovel, but our one bedroom apartment was already full near to bursting. Taking in a new pet wasn’t as simple as hopping down to the shelter, signing a paper and bringing it home with a bow between its ears.
But there were other options and we did want another dog. We opted for fostering and after a number of phone calls and meetings over coffee (it’s a process, believe me), we were ready to welcome a new pup into our tiny home.
The dog in question was also a “rescue”, pulled from a kill shelter and spared that fate. She was, however, still skittish and jumpy and clearly bearing the scars from years of (at best) neglect and (at worst and far more likely) abuse.
We scheduled the dates for which we’d foster the dog, sort of a trial run for ownership to get this new pup acclimated with our current one and make sure we were all a good fit together should we decide to move forward. Unfortunately, the available dates fell on a weekend, which was bad for my schedule, being a waiter at the time. Worse, my girlfriend was also called out of town on business.
I was alone.
I switched shifts with a friend the first night, taking the early slot so I could get home to the dogs before it got too late. When I returned, reeking of sweat and garlic, I found two wet noses waiting for me, one old and tired and lazy, the other chaotic and jumping on every piece of furniture we owned (which wasn’t a lot). I learned that night that this new dog dealt with stress by chewing — everything. She was also very, very fast and I had to quickly block the front door any time I came or went to keep her from bolting out onto the street.
The first night passed with two dogs and myself sharing a bed.
The next night, Saturday, I couldn’t take the later shift. We were already short staffed. I was the closer, so that meant I wouldn’t be home until close to 11. It was a long shift, but it finished, as all things do eventually, and I made my way back home to the pups.
I found a war zone waiting for me. The new dog had chewed through every blanket, every pillow, every wayward magazine or book that she could get her teeth on. I told her, “No.” I didn’t yell it, but I said it firmly, hoping I was teaching her, not scaring her.
Her tail went between her legs and I felt like an ogre. I moved to pet her, extending my hand like an olive branch. She backed away. She had been skittish all weekend, but whatever had happened while I was at work that night (we had a very loud neighbor, so I had some idea) really upset her. I went to grab the leash, hoping a walk outside the cramped walls of my apartment would help sooth this trembling dog.
The leashes were by the door, which is the only explanation I can think of for what I did next. If you own a dog and take nothing else from this story, let it be this: Leash your dog before you open your door if it’s prone to running.
I, regretfully, did not have that thought. I turned the knob, nails skittered across linoleum and, in a crystallized moment, I smashed my knees together in an attempt to block the small partition of open doorway before this new dog — who I was fostering, charged to care for — could escape. She was too fast or I was too slow. My knees nipped the tip of her tail and then she was gone, out into the night.
I immediately chased after her, bounding down a flight of stairs with such abandon that it’s still remarkable to me that I didn’t break my neck. I had taken my shoes off — a nightly ritual I greatly anticipated after every shift — and was now barefoot, running down the streets of Santa Monica half an hour before midnight, screeching a name I had just given to a dog desperately into the night air.
I searched for nearly an hour, until, quite abruptly, the image of my open front door popped into my mind. I also, in that moment, remembered for the first time since I jumped the stairs of my apartment that I had another dog at home. I ran back.
When I rounded the corner, ashamed and defeated and worried to the point that my stomach actually churned, I found my old, sweet dog waiting for me, laying at the foot of the stairs patiently. He stood when he heard me and waddled over to reassure me, in that silent way that dogs do.
I took him back up, kissed him and then headed back out. Until 3 a.m. I searched for the lost dog. Eventually, I gave up. There was nothing else I could do.
I crawled back into bed, feeling lower than I ever have, and slept a few miserable hours of broken sleep. The next day, I spoke with the foster shelter and told them the news. I was sick. They were understanding and offered to help look for the dog. I said, sure, not really believing it could make any difference. In the meantime, I walked to a local copy shop and printed page after page after page of “Lost Dog” posters, things I had really only thought existed in films and television.
I spent more than six hours that day postering my neighborhood, vainly trying to do something, anything, to help find a dog I knew could never be found. When I came back home, my feet were sore and my eyes were dry from crying.
My phone rang. It was the shelter. They hadn’t found the dog either.
My phone rang again. My girlfriend. She was beside herself, apologizing for being out of town as if any of this was in some way her fault. I loved her in that moment intensely.
When my phone rang a third time, I didn’t recognize the number.
I answered. It was a woman’s voice. She said an impossible series of words.
“I found your dog.”
That couldn’t be. This was Los Angeles, a massive urban sprawl, and I had loosed a small, scared dog into its maw in the dark of night. She had to be dozens of miles away by now, if we were lucky. God forbid if a car had not seen her . . .
“I found your dog,” the woman on the phone repeated. She went on to describe her. Gray fur. Lean, greyhound curves. Pointed face.
This woman had seen my posters and apparently stumbled across my dog, curled up behind a bush not a mile from my front door.
I still didn’t believe her.
I didn’t believe her when I agreed to meet, either.
I didn’t believe her as I locked my door and headed down the stairs I had leapt over the night before.
I didn’t believe her as I walked across an uneven sidewalk to the parking lot of some nearby business complex we agreed to meet at.
I didn’t believe her as I rounded that corner and saw her, holding my dog in a tight bundle against her chest.
I still don’t know if I believed it when I took my dog back from her, when she nuzzled her snout beneath my chin and I hugged her and sobbed and repeated the words “Thank you, thank you” until I was hoarse.
I know that I believe it now, though. Because hope is real and it is powerful. Even when you’re hopeless.
Maybe especially so.