CHAPTER FOUR

Life Isn’t Always a Beach . . . but Sometimes It Is

I’m suspicious of people who don’t like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn’t like a person. —BILL MURRAY

AFTER A FEW WEEKS IN OUR HOME, Albie had made the entire house his own, except the basement; he would never venture into the subterranean depths. In so doing he had completed the long journey he’d been on, one that began in rural Louisiana in circumstances unknown to us. This sweet and earnest dog, once lost, and now found, had made his way to us thanks to a series of lucky breaks that elude so many others. While he was wandering alone he was sleeping outdoors or in whatever shelter he could find, and, after he’d been picked up by animal control in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, had spent five months sleeping on the concrete floor of a high-kill shelter. Now he was sleeping on a mattress with sheets and blankets and a family that adored him.

With each passing day, Albie became more and more “ours,” and we “his,” but we watched his interactions with other dogs and other people very carefully; we were, after all, on a steep learning curve about Albie in particular and dogs in general. We all want our dogs to be perfect—to interact with others, canine and human, predictably and nicely. But dogs, like people, don’t like everyone they meet and their behavior toward others can evolve over time.

As mild-mannered as he was, Albie still needed some basic training. When he came to us he didn’t know even the most basic of all commands, “Sit!” So we enrolled in a training class for beginners (that term applying to both the dogs and their people). There’s no reason a dog needs to learn to roll over on command, or to shake hands, as cute as that is, or to balance a treat on the end of its nose. But some basic training is needed to ensure a dog stays safe (“come”), doesn’t bother unsuspecting strangers (“stay”), or generally understands that some manners are required to live in harmony in a home populated by people (“sit”).

When we went to the first class I had all the same feelings I had when our kids started school: I wanted Albie to do well, to behave well, and, frankly, to not embarrass us, as that was something we were perfectly capable of doing all by ourselves. We wanted Albie to be a good student. We wanted him to succeed.

When he learned quickly, we felt like proud parents. When he peed on the classroom floor two minutes into the first class, we were mortified. He proved overall to be adept at learning basic commands, and was mostly gentle and sociable in class and at home. However, there was one type of person that made him uneasy and whose presence immediately provoked growling and fear in Albie: adolescent males, especially our younger son Noah’s friends. Given how friendly he was in general, we were perturbed by this strange behavior around teenage boys. It was our first realization that living with a dog wasn’t going to be one continuous Hallmark moment.

It would be easy to assume that he’d had a bad experience or suffered at the hands of one or more teenage boys in his past. But that’s not necessarily so. Our other rescue dog, Salina, came to us as a young puppy, and has always displayed a fear of small children. While writing my previous book, Rescue Road, I had the good fortune to meet the family in rural Louisiana whose dog had given birth to her. Yet, despite never having been around small children (and thus having no reason to be afraid of them), whenever she sees one, her body stiffens, the hair on her back stands up, and she starts, not growling exactly, but harrumphing.

One day, while walking Salina and Albie at Elm Bank, the preserve along the Charles River where I walked almost daily with Albie when he first arrived, we encountered a father with several small children. Salina launched into her usual routine.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “She’s afraid of children.”

“That’s okay,” replied the father. “So am I.”

Clearly, Albie and Salina each have innate fears or fearful instincts that we’ll never be able to understand or help them overcome, as we thought we would. We struggled—and continue years later to struggle—with this behavior and to make sense of the infinite amount of contradictory advice on how to manage it. Much as I hate to admit it, we haven’t succeeded in changing it. If anything, in Albie’s case, it’s gotten worse with time.

• • •

ONE OF THE STRESSORS of having a dog with such fears is that many people don’t understand. They’ll allow their children to run up to a dog on a leash, arms outstretched, expecting that picture-perfect interaction, and are surprised and sometimes even annoyed or angry when the dog doesn’t respond as they expect. Often, the not-so-subtle implication is that you haven’t properly trained or raised the dog.

Dogs, like people, have their fears and anxieties. You wouldn’t expect a child to necessarily be happy to have a big, enthusiastic dog run toward them and start licking their face. Similarly, you can’t expect a dog to necessarily be happy to have a child, or group of children, run toward them screaming and start putting their hands on the dog’s face and pulling its tail.

Nevertheless, Albie’s reaction to Noah’s friends was distressing. It was our home, too, after all, and we wanted all of our guests to feel safe and welcome. Their arrival at our house, a non-event before Albie, was now always fraught with tension. Every time they arrived, or came downstairs to raid the fridge or to leave, we had to be alert. We’d hold Albie by the collar and try and distract him with a treat or comfort him. He never nipped or bit anyone, but if we hadn’t been vigilant, who knows? And no matter what we tried—having the boys give him the treats, for example—he never overcame the fear. In fact, he even started to exhibit the same behavior around friends of ours he knew well and had even been affectionate with. They’d get up from the dinner table and he’d trot up behind them and bark and use his muzzle to nudge them. We’ve worked with trainers and tried various techniques to try to reverse the trend, to little avail.

Over time he has also become more unpredictable with other dogs. In the early days, the first two years or so, he would run off-leash at Elm Bank and I never worried about his interactions with other dogs. He’d bark with excitement sometimes, enjoyed games of chase and even some roughhousing, but never displayed aggression. That, too, changed.

During our second year with Albie, a new kid (a canine kid) arrived on the block—a Vizsla named Crosby. Vizslas are a lean, houndlike breed of Hungarian origin known for their high energy and speed. For whatever reason, Crosby and Albie, each perfectly sweet on his own, took an instant dislike to each other.

Albie had reached the point where we were comfortable with him off-leash in the front yard (except, of course, when Noah’s friends were expected to arrive). He rarely wandered far, though he sometimes chased squirrels through the neighbors’ yards. And he often went to visit our across-the-street neighbors, Seth and Linda, and their Bernese mountain dog, the ever-gentle Ivy. (Our tiny private way had virtually no car traffic.)

Crosby often wandered around off-leash. From their first meeting he and Albie were at loggerheads, and we had to be cautious about letting him off-leash thereafter. Each encounter was tense, to say the least, and, left untended, seemed poised to turn violent. Even when we took on-leash walks down the street, Crosby would appear and it was like trying to keep two enraged hockey players apart. We had to adjust. The picture I had of a perfectly behaved and gentle dog was proving unrealistically optimistic. What confounded me was that in most circumstances he was as sweet and gentle as could be. There just seemed to be these triggers.

Gradually, Albie’s reaction to other male dogs, not just Crosby, became more and more problematic. Sometimes encounters with other males went perfectly fine, but others involved growling, ears back, fur on the back raised—all signs of aggression or fear. I often found myself explaining from a distance that he sometimes didn’t do well with other male dogs. But invariably other dogs, off-leash, would come bounding right up to us only to have Albie growl and bark ominously. I found myself apologizing a lot; my entreaties that he was really a sweet dog probably sounded utterly unpersuasive. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the dogs Albie liked and disliked, with one exception. He didn’t like Vizslas, even if they weren’t Crosby. Every time he saw a Vizsla, male or female, the reaction was the same. I was astonished that he seemed able to recognize other dogs by breed, at least dogs of this particular breed.

Increasingly we had to keep him on his leash wherever we went, even as Salina ran free during our walks in the woods. I felt so badly for him. He was being deprived of what he loved most—running free through the trees and over the logs—and I couldn’t explain to him that he was, unfortunately, bringing it on himself.

When the trails seemed empty I would occasionally let him off his leash, but as soon as I saw a dog in the distance I’d call him back and leash him. Then, one day, we rounded a bend and before I knew it Albie was on top of a shy and harmless Vizsla walking with a man and a woman. It was the first and only time I’ve seen him actually attack another dog. The man quickly lifted Albie and tossed him aside, and before I could utter a word of apology he was berating me. He was angry, and justifiably so. But I wasn’t the irresponsible dog “owner” he accused me of being; I was aware and trying my best to head off volatile situations while trying to let Albie do what dogs love to do. In this one instance everything happened so quickly I was unable to prevent it.

My hopes that Albie would get beyond whatever was leading to his increased anxiety, especially around other male dogs, were dashed. Since the change in behavior roughly coincided with Salina’s arrival, we thought perhaps he was being protective of her, but we don’t really know.

We now have strategies for managing these encounters, but Albie is no longer allowed the freedom he once had. Now, when we walk in the woods, and almost always on the beach, Albie is leashed. This was especially sad when we returned to South Carolina for an extended midwinter stay for the third time in early 2016.

Much as we’d like it to be, living with a dog (rescue or not) isn’t going to be one continuous Hallmark moment.

Albie loves the snow, but we hate it, so we had started escaping. On our first two trips Albie was free to run on the beach, and did he ever run. He has never seemed as free as he did running on that beach. Every morning and afternoon a gaggle of people and dogs gather on the beach in front of where we stay and the dogs have a ball. It’s a big, happy play group. But when we returned in early 2016, we couldn’t let Albie join the gang as he had previously. He just got too amped up and we didn’t think we could trust him. Judy would take Salina to play with the group while I walked Albie, on-leash, elsewhere.

There were times when our kids were little and suffered from some slight or temporary ostracism from their peers and we would try to cheer them up by having some special “mommy-and-daddy” time. We’d try to distract them from their hurt by pretending it was just as much fun watching a movie with us or going out for ice cream, but we knew better and, frankly, so did they. That’s precisely how I felt when Albie and I walked alone while all the other dogs were having a field day at the beach. I don’t know if he missed being at the beach with the group—whether as we walked he had an image of all these other dogs frolicking together—but I certainly did, and I wished he could have been part of it.

But there were also moments when I felt elated for Albie at the beach. Since we are in South Carolina during the off-season, we often have long stretches of beach to ourselves. When we do, we still let Albie off-leash and take great pleasure in watching him and Salina exult in their freedom.

One day we saw a dolphin making its way along the beach about twenty yards from shore. Albie spotted it, too, and he took off running to keep up. Salina followed. He couldn’t hear us calling him over the sounds of the waves, but he was likely too far into his obsession with the chase to respond even if he could hear us. Soon he and Salina were a few hundred yards ahead of us on a stretch of sandbar separated from the beach by about twenty feet of water. When Salina broke toward the beach to run back to us she plunged into the water and we saw immediately that it was quite deep. But we knew she could swim. At the lake in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, near the cottage we used to own she was always swimming after tossed sticks as Albie watched goofily from the shore and barked at her. As Albie followed Salina in hot pursuit across the sandbar, everything seemed to suddenly go into slow motion. Albie, for the first time in our life with him, was unwittingly about to plunge into water over his head. I saw him go under and was prepared to go in after him. We were still a good distance away and I started to run. It probably took all of three seconds but it seemed an eternity until his head emerged and he swam to shore. We’d never seen him swim before and haven’t since, but I felt like a proud daddy when he did. “I knew you could do it!”

We always suspected that if he had to he could swim—all dogs can, we thought—but still we felt overjoyed for him, a joy way out of proportion to the occasion. So much of what we feel around dogs seems irrational and out of proportion, and that’s one of the things I love about having dogs. I never imagined when we decided to adopt a dog how intensely I would project my own feelings onto their emotional lives. I doubt, for example, that Albie experienced our walks while Salina was romping with the other dogs on the beach the way either of the kids would have experienced it, as an outcast—I surely felt worse than he did about it—nor did I realize how proud and happy I’d feel when they succeeded.

But all of this made me realize that dogs, like children, have their challenges and some children, and some dogs, are easier than others. Life isn’t a beach all the time for any of us, so we have to savor and celebrate the moments when it is and push through the tough times when it’s not. And just as we don’t surrender our children when things veer off course or become challenging, the commitment to a dog, especially one that had to beat long odds just to make it home, ought to run just as deep. There are times when circumstances may make it necessary to rehome or surrender a dog, but it should never be a matter of convenience. A dog that has known deprivation, hunger, abuse, neglect, or the loneliness of a high-kill shelter deserves every chance to succeed. Unless they are a danger, or you are incapable of providing properly for them for some reason, you just don’t give up on them. Ever.

• • •

CONSIDER, FOR EXAMPLE, Amy and Ken Lovett of Troy, New York, who adopted a Lab mix, Guinness (fifteen years old when we spoke in the summer of 2016), when she was just a three-month-old puppy.

“She didn’t know how to be a puppy and we didn’t know how to care for a puppy,” Amy told me. When Guinness was three they felt she needed a companion. “When we visited friends with a dog she acted like a dog. She just seemed so much better when she was around other dogs.”

So the Lovetts went on PetFinder, a Web site many rescue organizations use to post profiles of their adoptable pets, and found Bo, an adult of indeterminate breed that Amy described as looking like a dog put together by committee. They arranged with Bo’s foster for Guinness and Bo to meet before making the commitment. The two dogs were smitten and Bo also took to Amy right away. But Bo lived only a year and a half before lymphoma forced the Lovetts to put him down. Other dogs followed, including Tennyson, adopted at about age four when Guinness was five, and when Tennyson died, Bart, a rescue from Houston who arrived in early 2015. Though Bart underwent heartworm treatment in Houston, it proved unsuccessful and the Lovetts had to treat him a second time. Treatment can last weeks and the dogs have to be kept calm and quiet at home throughout—a real challenge.

“Bart would faint on exertion,” Amy told me. “It was a tough road . . . but it’s like with children and family: you just can’t give up on them. Even if they aren’t a model of what you’d expect, you learn to live with them as they are.”

There have been other tough roads for the Lovetts and their dogs, too. Tennyson had an illness that caused him to lose control over his bowels and the Lovetts spent a year cleaning up after him. Now that Guinness is old, she, too, is unable to control her bladder and her bowels. The vet bills have been formidable. When Guinness was younger and the only dog in the household, she used to run away for hours, often returning after rolling in something disgusting. But the Lovetts never quit on any of their dogs.

For the Lovetts’ young daughters, Zoe and Emmery, the journey has been full of lessons as well. When Zoe turned seven she told her parents she didn’t want gifts for herself, and for two years in a row she got a wish list from a local Humane Society and asked her friends to buy items on the list for the society. And when Tennyson died the girls knew they had “an opening” for another rescue dog.

“They know we are doing something special and helpful in the world,” said Amy. “They know, for example, that Bo was found by the side of a road. It gives them a lot of perspective. They also have an adopted cousin, a boy, so the concept of rescue and adoption isn’t foreign to them.” And they know that dogs, like people, aren’t perfect but that you love them just the same.

• • •

SEVERAL YEARS AGO Heather Fuqua got yet another call from dog rescuer Keri Toth. A woman heard her neighbor threaten to shoot a three-month-old puppy, since named Emily, a sheltie/collie mix, and she called Keri. Keri enlisted Heather to help and they went out to the house and saw the puppy sitting at the edge of the woods.

Dogs, like people, aren’t perfect all the time. Life isn’t a beach all the time for any of us. So we must savor and celebrate the moments when it is and push through the tough times when it’s not. Most importantly, we must never give up on them.

“We had to coax her to come out of the woods,” Heather recalled. “She was sick and flea-infested and it took six months to get her healthy. I didn’t intend to keep her. I loved on her, but she was scared to death of everybody. I told Keri she’s too scared to be adopted out. It took months to get her to come willingly out of her crate.

“She’s so sweet and loving, but still so scared,” Heather added. “I don’t know what her previous owner did to her, but the only man she’ll have anything to do with is my son, and it’s six years later. I just wouldn’t give up on her.”

• • •

SOME PEOPLE GO INTO AN ADOPTION knowing they are choosing a tough road, that there will be big obstacles to overcome, and that life with that dog isn’t always going to be a beach. And some of them bring a special understanding to the task based on their own life experiences, good and bad.

I interviewed Ericka Kofkin of Jacksonville, Florida, by e-mail because she is deaf. Ericka has two rescue dogs, Avery and Zosia, both pit bull mixes, and a rescue cat, Abby Grace, who has a form of feline cerebral palsy. Ericka was supposed to be a foster for Abby Grace but multiple efforts to place her in a forever home failed. According to Ericka she’s “extremely mean to anyone who isn’t me.”

Zosia, the most recent arrival, came to Ericka through a Jacksonville-based rescue called Pit Sisters.

“Zosia was found lying beside some railroad tracks with both back legs completely severed,” Ericka wrote to me. “I was told it was horrific, bloody, and she was in extraordinary pain.”

Ericka and one of the Pit Sisters, Jennifer Deane, are friends. Jen needed a name for the wounded dog and Ericka suggested Zosia. “So I was involved in her new life right from the beginning,” Ericka told me. And the minute they met, Ericka knew they belonged together.

“She appears to have been trained,” Ericka wrote. “She arrived house trained and knows ‘down.’ I suspect she also knew ‘sit’ and ‘shake’ because she reacts when I tell Avery to sit, even though without back legs Zosia can’t actually do it. I asked her to ‘shake,’ and she attempted to lift a paw, but again, with only two legs she couldn’t balance enough for a proper shake. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t even noticed her legs are gone.

“Having a bipedal dog has been much more difficult than I anticipated,” Ericka continued. “I get tired carrying her around sometimes. In the beginning, I struggled endlessly with her wheelchair. One day we were both so frustrated we just sat down in the front yard and had a good cry. Most doggie wheelchairs are designed for dogs with paralyzed hind legs. The legs are still there and provide counterbalance to the cart. Since Zizi [Ericka’s nickname for Zosia] doesn’t have any back legs, the carts aren’t that comfortable for her, even though they are adjusted properly. There’s a company that makes special carts for dogs without back legs, but I can’t afford to get her one, and that makes me feel incompetent as her human.

“Zizi doesn’t really get along with my cat,” Ericka continued. “Avery and Abby Grace [the cat] love each other; it’s beyond words really, just extremely intimate and sweet. Since Zizi can’t handle being around Abby Grace, I have to lock Abby Grace in the bathroom or the dog kennel when Zizi is out of her crate. Avery likes Zizi, but Avery gets upset when I take the cat away. I am optimistic that everyone will adjust eventually. Avery and I went to watch fireworks for the Fourth of July and Zizi escaped from her kennel. The cat was angry, but all in one piece when we returned. I’m not sure how long they were out unsupervised together, but it does give me hope that Zizi’s behavior towards Abby Grace comes from a place of curiosity or play rather than a commitment to eating her.

“Zizi tries my patience often,” Ericka added. “When I take her out for a ‘quick pee’ (as opposed to a walk), I don’t put her in the cart. It’s too much work and she is in fact quite ambulatory without it, but she isn’t that fast. If I’m hungry or running late for work, or have a big project I need to work on, or know that one of the others needs something inside, I can get a little grumbly at her slow progress, but then I turn around to check on her and see how hard she’s working and all the effort in her little face and instantly melt. If I squat down and talk to her, she gives two ears up and does her best to ‘run’ to me. It’s so precious and she always acts like I’m giving her the greatest gift in the world.”

Few would argue that she isn’t. Love and patience are the greatest gifts you can give to a rescue dog, especially when times get tough. And you just don’t give up on them no matter how tough the times.

Teagan Sparhawk and her potcake rescues
(from left, Tia, Freckles, Simba, and Melina)