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

my area. I said it was fine. She said she’d brought the dog to a vet in her neighborhood who’d scanned and found a microchip and gave her the number of “some ranch” but she threw it away. She didn’t even call, because she KNEW this dog had been abused. He was panting and acting very anxious, but it was sweltering and she was nutty so I couldn’t really assess the situation. Having come from the gym I didn’t have any of my stuff with me—a leash, harness, or crate. She had some sort of wiry rope device attached to a scarf around his neck that she said I could keep. He wasn’t interested in her good-bye; in fact, when I took the rope from her, he just started running and running and every ten feet he would stop and have explosive diarrhea. I had one bag with me, and he must have gone forty times. Now I was going to have to figure out how to get him the hundred blocks back to my apartment. I called information for a pet taxi service but they had no one available to help me so I bought some water and sat in the shade for a minute. Mr. Man jumped at something and I cut my hand on his rope trying to subdue him. Blood started oozing down my arm and got on my shirt and legs and Mr. Man started crapping again. People looked at me like a bloody, sweaty woman in disgusting gym clothes with a crapping dog . . . which was accurate. I wanted to shout, “I’M AVERY FANCY LADY! I SHOP ONLY IN THE FINEST OUTLETS!” It was useless. I couldn’t scream, “Cut” or even “Help!” Help what? Help me plug this dog’s butt long enough for me to get him in an air-conditioned taxi! I called Paul, who was at work in Soho, and left him a message to call me. I waited and waited and as I was about to give up, whatever that meant, I looked straight ahead and saw Kettle of Fish, a bar owned by my husband’s friends Adrian and Patrick. I dragged Mr. Man up to the door and looked in. Paul and I had stopped there many times over the years. Adrian was never, ever there. Today she was standing by the door. Dressed in gauzy white, she was my angel. She gave Mr. Man a bowl of water, which he inhaled, and she refilled it two more times. She gave me some paper towels and a Band-Aid and somehow the cool dark bar had the effect of a dose of Pepto-Bismol because the Man stopped his eruptions. I wiped him up, carried him out the door, and hailed a cab. I held him tightly to me, praying to the God of humiliation to please not let him lose control in the cab. As if by a miracle, he made it up to my street. The minute we stepped out of the cab, he was going again, but I didn’t care. We were home.
    I came in and called Joy.
    “The eagle has landed,” I said. “And he has some pretty serious tummy trouble. Also, um, the woman I picked him up from . . . I believe is a ‘lady of the night.’”
    “Is that right?” Joy said. “Well, I could tell you when I talked to her she was higher than a kite.”
    We spoke a bit about the transport plans. Mr. Man had settled down and seemed to be very sweet so I agreed to keep him until someone could get him out to her in western Pennsylvania.
    “What about his name?” I said. “I don’t really want to call him ‘Mr. Man.’”
    “Well, I’d planned to call him Chip after Chipper Jones of the Braves,” she suggested.
    “Fine, I’ll call him Chip.” I thought the fact that she was giving him his name boded well for my getting him out of here. “Because he’s your foster.”
    She laughed warmly. “I’m looking forward to him.”
    “He is cute,” I said.
    “Awwww,” she said, her voice like honey. “Poor little darlin’.”
    I posted a message on the Yahoo! board letting everyone know what was happening. Paul came home from work and Violet came home from being with her babysitter and everyone was happy to see that Chip neither flew nor bit. He was sweet and mellow and deferential to Beatrice so we were all quite happy with him. I spoke to Sheryl the next day and recounted the story. I