You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness by Julie Klam

toys
    • six bottles of shampoo
    • five brushes and combs
    • a case of treats
    • a huge cloth box that had been hand-painted “Toy Box”
    • clothes: a white tank with a BeDazzled “S” (the puppy’s name was Sophie); three pairs of flannel pajamas (top and bottoms) with baby ducks, rattles, and blocks printed on them; four hooded sweatshirts, two with sparkles, two without (for working out, I guess); a red T-shirt with embroidered and beaded hearts, a pink T-shirt that said, “Does this shirt make me look fat?”, a red T-shirt that said, “Princess” (the “i” was dotted with a heart), a pink T-shirt that said, “Little Miss Tiny”; some dressier sweaters.
    The outfits. The outfits! How on earth do you go from a person who spends hundreds of dollars at posh Manhattan pet shops on clothes and grooming items to a person who leaves a dog at a shelter? Not even looking into rehoming! The whole thing is so puzzling. I remembered getting an engraved birth announcement from a couple who’d bought a dog. Six months later I saw them and asked them about the “baby.” “Oh,” the wife said, “we gave her to my uncle. She chewed everything and messed all over the floor!”
    A puppy that chewed on things and wasn’t housebroken? Why didn’t you put it on a chain gang? It was mind-boggling, but not something that infuriated me, until I was the one taking in these castoffs. We’re not talking about a family who has to give up a dog because of allergies or discovering upon the birth of a child that the dog is aggressive, or someone who has to move to an elder care facility. I’m just thinking of people who put more effort into researching the aspects of owning a car than what it takes to have a dog.
     
     
     
     
    AFTER THAT Paul and I agreed that our family was not up to the job of fostering dogs. We couldn’t take that kind of risk. There were still many ways I could help the rescue organization, and before long I was assigned my first home check, then my second, then my third, and on.
    Pretty much everyone who wanted to adopt a Boston terrier in Manhattan lived in a fifth-floor walk-up, or so it seemed to me. I would arrive at these apartments breathless and say, “You do know”—huffing and puffing—“that Boston terriers’ legs”—gag—“are very, very short”—catching breath—“don’t you?” I didn’t discount them for that, unless they were looking to adopt a senior dog, in which case I still didn’t want to reject them. It’s a very unique position, sizing up someone to possibly adopt one of our guys. As I’d ride the subway to 135th Street or St. Marks Place, I’d think about the process adoptive parents go through before being allowed to adopt a child, while the people who got pregnant themselves were under no such scrutiny. In the case of our Bostons, we were the guardians and they were our charges. We couldn’t be responsible for backyard breeders or pet shop sellers not investigating the homes, but we could do it and at least we knew we were placing our rescues in homes where we’d be comfortable placing our own dogs.
    Most people tried very hard. You could see they’d cleaned up and they listened carefully to questions. One woman opened the door, never looking at me, and led me to the living room, where she kept her eyes glued to the Animal Planet channel. It wasn’t an act to show me she was an animal lover. She was just very weird. But a lot of excellent pet owners were not necessarily people I wanted to hang out with. I sort of liked to think of myself as a moderate, between the crazy animal people and the people who saw pets as disposable. The home checks I did in the city were vastly different from the ones in rural areas, because New York apartments generally didn’t have fenced-in yards. Many people who look to rescue a dog have had one before and know what it involves. And they’re attracted to a breed for a reason. As an apartment dweller with Boston