1

Your Name Is Brio!

HE LOOKED AT ME HEAD-ON, STRAIGHT IN THE EYE. No guilt. No fear. Just: Here I am. You called? On an early spring day, at a mere nine months old, there was a self-possession about him that made one take notice. I had indeed been calling him for quite some time, screaming in New York City's Central Park, convinced that I would never see him again. Now I was dripping wet. As I'd walked backward in panic, calling for him, there was suddenly no ground beneath my feet. I had stepped into the abyss—actually over the rim of a pond, fortunately not too deep. It was humiliating.

Someone I knew recognized me: “Oh my goodness, that was you! I thought a homeless person had jumped into the pond to take a bath!” she said. Then too there was the truth of the matter: I literally and figuratively had jumped off the edge into unknown territory and found myself with no ground beneath my feet. I'd wanted a dog. I hadn't expected it to be like this. It wasn't working out as planned. On this fresh cool morning, with the promise of beginnings in the air, my soaked jeans and sodden sneakers spoke more of disappointment and doubt.

There's no question that most people have an easier time connecting with their dog than I did initially. The storied bond between human and dog seemed just that to me at the time: storied, out of reach. I felt I didn't know this being who shared (sometimes invaded) my life. I'm now convinced that even if I didn't know him, Brio had known me from the start.

Since time immemorial, dogs have held the title of “man's best friend,” a fitting moniker for their loyal and protective disposition toward their human companions. Researchers now believe that the dog-human relationship began tens of thousands of years ago. Genetic evidence indicates a link as long as 145,000 years ago between the wolf and a kind of wolf-dog—the ones who would go on to evolve into pure dogs. Perhaps wolves started hanging around humans to scavenge for food. Perhaps they became hunting companions. We can imagine our ancestors around a fire, sharing a meal they had secured with the help of their canine companions.

We also have archaeological evidence of the respect those ancestors felt for companions of another species. Zooarchaeologists and evolutionary biologists have found prehistoric dog burial sites. One dog skull had a mammoth bone in its mouth, indicating some kind of ritual paying homage to a hunting companion. Recently archaeologists found dogs buried twenty-five hundred years ago in ancient Ashkelon, a city half an hour from Tel Aviv. The dogs' bodies had been placed on their sides with legs flexed and tails carefully tucked around their hind legs.¹ There is also the recent finding of a fourteen-thousand-year-old burial site in Germany that featured a dog who had been buried with humans, together with evidence that the dog had been domesticated and cared for.²

Perhaps the early humans rejected the wolves they didn't like and accepted those they did—the ones who were easier to live with. Perhaps this kind of natural selection led to the evolution of the domesticated dog, a dog born to connect with human beings.

In truth, I had expected a connection, but not really a partnership. When I entertained the notion of getting a puppy, I had a vision of adorable cuddly standard poodles curling into my lap, allowing me to soothe them. This would bring out my soft, nurturing side—something I needed. The puppy I'd get would be calm and help soothe me too. Actually, I thought more about being soothed than soothing. After all, dogs were supposed to bring unconditional love, no judgment, no argument. I realize now that I wanted a dog for the wrong reasons, with mistaken expectations.

This puppy did indeed meet my gaze, but it was often to say, I have a better idea or Are you sure about that? His stare was steady, unblinking. Fifteen years later I would seek that stare, even in spirit. Fifteen years later I would know the strength of the connection I had with this dog in physical reality, and even in the realm of the invisible. But right now I was anchored in that “real” material world, governed by my five senses. A dog was a dog, and I was a human who knew little about the being who had entered my life. And yet—there was something about him that I could feel even then, although I could not fathom it.

It was a point in my life that called for honesty. I could not evade looking at my situation: a long-standing relationship with a man had ended badly. He said I was his soul mate, and now he was marrying someone else. Whom could I trust? I had no prospect by this time of having children. My father died young when I was in college. My mother, nearing ninety, was in a nursing home, becoming more mentally distant every day. When I looked at the world I saw other people in relationships, with someone. I walked alone. I didn't want to walk alone anymore.

There had been a trigger for this self-confrontation. A few months before, I was jolted into the realization that there should be more to my life than work. I was in a serious car accident during a film shoot in Nevada. The SUV rolled over three times on a dirt road. It was like being tumbled in a wave, but the wave was all metal—sharp parts and crashing. I had a seat belt on and I luckily survived with only a concussion. But any assumptions that I had plenty of time to change my life had literally been knocked out of me. Afterward, I wanted to feel connected to something.

I'd been a lonely child—an only child. I had no siblings. People remarked that I didn't talk very much in social company. I felt somehow apart. My father was often absent, traveling for work. My mother was overprotective. She'd lost a daughter in still birth before she had me. Throughout my early childhood we were very comfortable financially. In that sense I was secure. I also felt great pressure, however, to live up to a family that was filled with very accomplished and, in some cases, famous people. It was clear that there were high expectations for me.

I remember that I felt a need—not defined or even conscious at the time—to hold myself separate, to try to set my own course. But that meant a kind of self-isolation. I had good friends, but as I recall I never shared my deepest fears and most private thoughts with them. In fact, my most intimate connections with living beings were with animals. They were my salvation. We had a Siamese cat when I was growing up. When I felt I couldn't talk to anyone else, or when I went to bed at night—sometimes alone in the house with a babysitter when my parents were out—it was Maki the cat who was my confidant and comforter. He lay on the bed. I talked to him and put my hand on him.

I also remembered the joy I'd felt with animals as a child. I felt it first with the family cats, and then later with other people's dogs. I also felt it riding my horse. I wanted to feel that joy again, now in the present moment, when all around me was repetition and routine. With animals, I felt centered; I felt like myself—my true self.

That's when I realized I wanted to get a dog. I had the idea that they shared one's life. They went out with you and met people. They connected you with the world. So I started obsessively researching breeders. I'd settled on standard poodles because I'd known a family friend's poodles as a child.

But the idea of getting a dog was completely impractical. I was middle-aged. While my personal life may have looked like a failure, my professional life was a resounding success. I was at the height of my career as an award-winning television documentary and news producer. I traveled constantly across the country and around the world. When friends and colleagues heard I was thinking of getting a dog they raised their eyebrows at me and told me, “Don't do it.” They begged me to understand that a dog required time and commitment, neither of which I had at the moment. Most of my friends thought I was crazy. Actually, so did I.

No doubt people also thought that my personality—at least what had become the exterior of my personality—was not exactly a custom fit with dog ownership. I suspect people were more worried about the dog than about me. I had a reputation for toughness in my professional life and coldness personally. At work, I was demanding of myself and of the people who worked with me. I lacked patience. I lacked tact. I brooked no foolishness. I didn't deal with people very well. I didn't communicate well. So what in the world made me think I could communicate with a dog?

There's no doubt about it. The dog decision made no sense at all, but still, I was bound and determined. Perhaps it was my destiny that pushed me into the choice in order to transform my life. Or maybe it was my intuitive voice—with which I had never connected prior to Brio's existence—that whispered, Do it.

I launched into the dog purchase as I would have into a television story, gathering information, weighing options. Deep down, I was terrified. When I sat alone in my small apartment at night I could not imagine having a puppy running around in there. How could I think? How could I work? I had never made a commitment to another living being apart from my mother for whose care I was now responsible. But a dog? I would be responsible 24/7. The puppy would be totally dependent on me even if I hired help. I couldn't even imagine the stress of feeling the presence of the puppy in my apartment constantly, leaving paw prints on the floor and drool marks on the couch. How could I go out? How could I have a social life? I did indeed ask myself those questions. But then I'd try to shut down that voice in my head and press on with the puppy search.

It was finally some sense of fate, I suppose, that moved me a step ahead. I'd seen a female poodle strutting down the road on Martha's Vineyard, where I go, when possible, to breathe the sea air and hear the ocean. Something about that dog's attitude appealed to me. She looked like she enjoyed her world. So I asked for her breeder's name and called down to Virginia that day. It turned out the breeder had a new litter born on the birthday of a dear friend of mine. It seemed like the stars were aligned—even though at the time I didn't believe in that sort of thing.

I had a plan. I would get a female poodle. Everyone said they were easier to have in the city. A male could mark in the house and run away after a girl in the park. Females were smaller, lighter, easier to handle. The first visit to the breeder cemented the plan.

So—I find myself on the floor of a roomy Virginia farmhouse, surrounded by a litter of small, very loud and squirming, scrambling puppies. Just off the plane from New York, I'm following the breeder's suggestion to get down on their level and see which one of these tiny creatures I'm drawn to. They're only a month old, not even looking like fully formed puppies. “Are you sure it's not too early to tell about their personalities?” I ask the breeder, Lynn.

“Not at all,” she says, pointing out how some puppies hang back shyly while some push their way to the mother, bullying their siblings. The mayhem on the floor feels like the other side of the looking glass, a place that's the reverse image of my normally controlled, orderly, and outwardly unsentimental approach to life. One puppy in particular is doing everything possible to get me to notice him, but I am playing no favorites, trying to make a reasoned decision about which—if any—of the littermates will fit into my world.

The feisty puppy is putting on a spectacular exhibition, trotting up and down, up and down. He runs and waves his paw at me, runs off again, and then comes back waving. True, I say to myself, he is charismatic. There's something compelling about his energy and exuberance. But I feel overwhelmed. There's a very loud voice in my head asking: What am I doing? A dog like this is not meant for me. I'm not exactly sure that any dog is meant for me. I am surprised at the near terror and indecision I am feeling. I'm not used to feeling hesitant. I'm a professional woman, accustomed to pressure, comfortable making big decisions. But suddenly, confronted with these puppies, I'm filled with doubt and fear. All the reasons that made me think I wanted a dog in the first place seem ridiculous to me now.

“Apparently he's picked you instead of vice versa,” the breeder says of the feisty puppy. “He's the pick of the litter, though,” she cautions. “My co-breeder may end up taking him.”

Frankly I'm relieved, though I don't tell her that. My plan is to get a female anyway.

“Oh that's okay,” I say, pushing the boy puppy off my lap. “He's much too much for me. What about that quiet little girl over there in the corner?”

Lynn looks a bit disappointed in me and gently remarks that often boy poodles are “sweeter” than the girls, who she says can be “manipulative.” But she accepts my deposit on the beautiful girl puppy who catches my fancy. I'm to come back in a few weeks when the puppies are old enough to go to their new homes.

I thought that would probably be the last I saw of the exuberant boy. I'd made my plans for the girl. But there were apparently other designs in motion. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was already in the hands of something larger than myself.

A few weeks later, I got a call from the breeder. The exuberant black boy puppy had indeed been the pick of the litter. The co-breeder had wanted him, but one of his testicles had not “fallen,” making him unsuitable for breeding. So the co-breeder decided to take the charming black female instead. Only one puppy was left. Yes, of course. It was the feisty black puppy who had picked me from the beginning! Here was my first lesson among many that I would learn from my dog about the power of letting go and surrendering to the flow of the universe.

So back I went to the breeder, and there I was, face-to-face with the black puppy. He stared me right in the eyes—there was an enchanting familiarity in his gaze, almost as if I had looked into his eyes on many past occasions. His expression seemed to say, It's up to you. What are you going to do? He wasn't pleading. He certainly didn't seem sorry for himself, being the last puppy left. He just looked, acknowledging me, and waited. Somehow in that moment, I found myself unable to say no to him. It would not be the last time.

So I made the decision to take him as soon as I got back from a trip overseas. The day came. As I took him in my arms for the first time, it felt like a dream. I couldn't tell if it was a good dream or a nightmare though, because I just didn't feel like myself. I was going through the motions but in a trancelike state. It seemed I was watching someone else, some stranger getting his or her first dog. Through this daze, I heard the breeder's friend—who'd brought the puppy to meet me at National Airport in Washington—say with tears in her eyes: “Give him a good life. He's special.” Finally back on terra firma in New York City, I hailed a cab and careened through the traffic toward home. It was a sweltering September day with inadequate air conditioning in the taxi. The open windows blew gusts of hot air. I dripped with sweat and stress.

“We'll be alright, everything is fine, we're going to have a great life together,” I said to the puppy, who was peering at me through the narrow openings of his travel crate. He lay with his front paws spread in front him; his puppy eyes, visible under a full head of black curls, gazing not quite at me but at something out in space perhaps. He clearly had his own thoughts, and I wondered if he knew he was riding home with a very anxious human who believed she had stepped beyond the bounds of reason. He did not seem anxious himself, merely detached—reserving judgment about his situation.

At last we arrived at my apartment in a New York City high-rise. I let the puppy out of his crate and put him into the pen I had created in the kitchen. It was lined with paper in anticipation of his arrival. I tried to imagine how this little dog must have felt on his flight from Virginia, locked in a cage, thrust among bags and boxes, ears hammered by noise, struggling to use his sense of smell to decipher the chaos around him. I imagined him paralyzed with fear, traumatized for life. And now this strange small space, penned in a tiny kitchen with newspapers all over the floor—so far from the glorious Virginia farm where he'd been born. I offered him water and waited for him to relieve himself in the place I'd provided. I waited. And nothing happened. Neither of us knew what to do next. I sat down on the floor. He collapsed in my lap, and I did what all panicked first-time parents do—I called in a professional.

“Lynn, we're home,” I said to the breeder, but there definitely was no relief in my voice.

“How is he?” Lynn asked in her gentle southern voice.

“He's fallen asleep in my lap,” I told her with a tone of utter exhaustion and helplessness.

“That's good, it's a sign he's started to bond with you,” Lynn reassured me, and although my legs were going numb from his weight, and I wanted nothing more in that moment than to have a shower and then go out for dinner with a friend, I felt encouraged. Bonding was something I had expected from this new endeavor, and here this puppy was already fulfilling expectations.

Then suddenly my new possession—as I thought of him—got up from my lap, walked in the opposite direction of the newspaper, and let loose everything that he had been holding in for hours on the plane, all over my kitchen floor. I stood there paralyzed, unsure what to do beyond grabbing the newspapers and soaking everything up. My fight-or-flight response took over and I picked up the phone and dialed the breeder.

“Lynn?” I croaked into the phone that I held with one hand as I struggled with the mess.

“Yes, how's it going?” Lynn asked, not revealing a hint of impatience or the exasperation she surely must have been feeling at that moment.

“I'm really not sure I can do this. You said I could bring him back, right? I just don't think I can manage this. It's too much,” I said, and in that moment, I felt exasperated with myself.

Lynn was indeed a professional. She expressed no surprise or objection. Perhaps she'd heard this before and knew that after the first twenty-four hours there would be no way that puppy was coming back. He was just too irresistible. Or perhaps she knew better than me that we were actually a perfect match.

“Certainly,” Lynn said placidly, “you can bring him back. But why don't you give it a week or so? See how things go. Give you both a chance to get to know each other.”

“Alright,” I said and looked at the puppy, who looked right back at me, not at all embarrassed about the havoc he had just wreaked in my fastidiously arranged kitchen. And that's when I decided yes—it was time for this puppy to learn his name. After all, how were we going to communicate with each other unless I named him?

“Your name is Brio,” I told him, and loved the way it sounded coming out of my mouth. “Do you like your name, Brio? Brio?” Brio seemed unimpressed and began to doze off again in my lap. “It's a musical term in Italian. It means ‘enthusiasm, vigor, vivacity, verve.' That's you, Brio.” Maybe it was the tone of my voice, but Brio looked at me with what seemed like acknowledgment. Apparently I had chosen a name he approved of.

The name had come to me weeks before, perhaps even before I had made the final decision to take him. There were many classical musicians in my family, and it seemed to make sense to gift my dog with a name that was musical. I may not have realized when I chose the name exactly how suitable it would be.

Yet at some level it spoke to a spirit, an energy that I sought myself. I wanted to have brio. From the start, I was asking this dog to change me. What a huge demand. How little I understood what I was really asking.