I had a five-day-a-week walk that was a quick commute by freeway, the client paid promptly, and they rarely if ever canceled. Sure, their Christmas tip had been Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate, but their patronage was critical to keeping a roof over my head and the lights turned on.
They lived in the Piedmont hills in a beautiful two-story Craftsman atop a long flight of flagstone steps. Frank and Diane were the prototypical rail-thin man and fleshier woman. Her struggle with weight was allegedly due to a terrible car accident that left her with irreparable back damage, a cane, and an array of painkillers. Frank had a medicated glaze to him that was probably due to some prescription of his own. They had a daughter, Mia, for whom the dog was likely meant to be a companion. I suspected it was she who had been allowed to name the dog.
Tickles was a darling Tibetan terrier. She had inquisitive eyes, was quick to reward human company with a wag and a lick, and warmed to me immediately. With the wife’s back problems, regular dog walks (and apparently even getting up and down the stairs to the house) was becoming an impossibility, and the husband worked a full-time job outside of the house. Occasionally, he’d be home for one reason or another when I arrived, happening across him in the foyer or coming down the stairs looking rheumy-eyed and unsteady. I tried to be as brief and noncommittal with my greetings as possible and just get in and out and on my way with Tickles. His vacant stare gave me goose bumps.
Tickles had a dog run in the back of the house, kind of a glorified gutter where she could eat, drink, piss, shit, and work on the peanut butter kong that was thrown to her every morning after the humans had their breakfast. It was no wonder that our walks were not only the high point of her days, but that on the street she was barely manageable. She was tiny but still arguably a menace to any other canine (or cat or squirrel-like creature) that crossed her path. It was my job to exercise her to the point of exhaustion while training her to behave on-leash and learn how to control her aggression in the presence of other animals. I found that, in the six months or so that I walked her, Monday through Friday, between the hours of eleven and two, I failed on all counts.
I tried to teach her how to walk at a heel and not pull, and, when she caught a whiff of dog, to focus on me and maintain a sit, without flying into a whirling, snarling, slavering rage. It was somewhat comical to observe dogs three or eleven times her size reacting to her fits. Most of them were well mannered and responded with the canine equivalent of raised eyebrows and a discreet crossing-the-street avoidance. The owners often regarded me with some mixture of pity, distaste, or annoyance as though I had prompted her to act like such a maniac. “She’s not mine,” I wanted to call to them as they sauntered smugly away with their impeccably behaved companions. Cute as she was, her on-leash antics were downright embarrassing.
In spite of her dreadful behavior on our walks, I really loved Tickles one-on-one, and she was one of those rare certainties in my job. Monday through Friday, steady money, a regular check at the end of every month. This could not be more appreciated. I needed that little dog. And, it seemed, she needed me too. The little girl wasn’t old enough to take her out alone, and it didn’t look like Tickles was going to get much attention or exercise on the parents’ time.
In concert with Tickles’s regular visits, I’d been granted a brief reprieve from penny-pinching thanks to an extended pet-sitting gig for a cranky and extremely aged dachshund. It was a tricky job, requiring twice-daily visits at the very tippy top of one of Berkeley’s many hills, reachable only by a single twisty road. So remote was this house that it was the penultimate mailbox from the end of the road, where the concrete ended in some overgrowth and forced the driver to make a three-point turn and return the way he or she came.
This was the very first job that I invited Patrick along for, an opportunity for him to experience my work in person. I was so excited to drive up into the hills with him, right along the Oakland/ Berkeley border, and take in the view from the top together. Up, up we went, on the curving roads fraught with hairpin turns and no guardrails, no street lamps, and barely enough room for cars going in the opposite direction to squeeze by. The houses we passed were mostly the type with the unassuming garage up top at street level, belying the sprawling houses set into the hillside below.
The view of the bay and the city of San Francisco from the client’s front yard was unobstructed, the bridge looking like something from a child’s erector set, and all the houses in between were little spots of life and light on a canvas. It looked unreal from so high up and left me feeling exhilarated by the height and scope of the perspective. This euphoria was quickly extinguished, though, when I turned my attentions to the yard and house itself, and the dog lurking within.
The front yard was a mystery to me, with wild, unrestrained plants, some dying and some overgrown into impenetrable thickets, accented by a rusting lawn chair or dulled, scratched garden globes. The front porch was cluttered with birdhouses, galoshes, assorted shovels, and countless cobwebby pots. It seemed to be perpetually gray and damp there. Despite the unblemished view from the edge of the property, the lot itself was heavily shaded by trees with low-hanging branches that made everything feel vaguely oppressive.
When we arrived for that first visit together, Patrick was quiet as I opened the heavy front door. He knew this client only as the reason I’d stolen away so early on recent mornings. I’d lean over him and rub his back, telling him I had to go, and he always grunted in response, claiming later that he’d never heard me and woke up thinking I’d snuck out on him.
The notion that I’d want to get away in favor of an old dachshund in an even older house made me smile inwardly. How desperately I hadn’t wanted to leave his side, even if it weren’t for this vicious little beast of an animal. I’d awake knowing that I was already late and she’d have made a mess somewhere in the house for me to clean up.
But this being a weekend, Patrick could come meet the reason for my hasty early morning departures. He had a softness for dachshunds, having grown up with them. There was Princess, their first, followed thereafter by Princess Two. This is beyond me, calling successive dogs by the same name. We were so gutted by the death of Biscuit that we couldn’t bear to ever have another dog; we had to switch species entirely, moving on to our cat, Seal. (She was a biter, too—the only biter I ever loved.) To have a second dog, and one named Biscuit Two, would have been unthinkable.
We entered. Sure enough, I could smell that she’d done it again. She was always hiding among the clutter when I arrived, in one of a few places: under the back corner of the massive oak table in the center of the room, or beneath the lamp table that I had to reach in order to have any light. I hoped every time, as I made my way carefully toward that lamp, that I didn’t step in a pile or a puddle of her mess, and I wondered for the umpteenth time why these people didn’t install a light switch—or at least plug in another lamp—next to the front door.
I told Patrick to wait for me by the front door, and I got to the lamp without incident. I turned the switch, and Bitsy was revealed, snarling up at me. She was a sixteen-year-old dachshund, purebred, her show name something absurd like Countess Beatrice von Fluffington IX, which I heard once and dismissed straightaway. Her owner called her Bitsy for short, which worked for me.
I couldn’t walk her until I located and cleaned up her mess, or messes. This was a trick, considering the living room was carpeted in a fraying, elaborately patterned rug, with flourishes and arabesques that perfectly masked a urine stain or a pile of dog shit. Luckily, this time she had soiled the hallway, which led to the downstairs bathroom. The planks were honey wood and contrasted helpfully with the pile of poop upon them. By this time, Patrick had ventured into the living room.
“Oh my god, what a mess,” he said softly, taking in the piles of books and papers that covered every surface. “Are they hoarders?”
“I have no idea. I try not to look too hard at what all is here and just focus on getting in and out without too much trouble,” I said, as I leaned over with my mitt of paper towels, wrapped four-layers thick around my hand. I grabbed her little goat-pellets of poop and shoved them in a Safeway bag, spraying down the site with Trader Joe’s all-purpose cleanser. I’d started to associate the pungent sage scent of the spray with this hellish job and stopped using it at my own house for its negative connotation.
With the shit all cleaned up, I started the dance of hooking Bitsy up to her leash. Holding a biscuit in front of her with one hand, I poised the leash clip with the other. She caught the scent of the treat, and, just as she was about to lunge at my biscuit hand with her sharp little teeth, I dropped it in front of her and attached the leash clip to the loop on her collar.
When I was successful, she’d fiercely gobble her treat before she realized she’d been hooked up to the leash, and I could get my hands well away from her mouth. But it didn’t always go so smoothly, and she’d clamp her mean little jaws around the fingers offering the treat, or else see my other hand in her peripheral vision and snap her angular head around to chomp down on that hand instead.
I hated biters. I couldn’t help but radiate anxiety when working with them, and I knew she could sense the tension coming off me. When I initially met with her owner for our consult, she’d laughed about Bitsy’s biting and her boyfriend’s indignation at being on the receiving end of so many painful nips. “She just prefers me,” she had said airily. I realized later—too late—that Bitsy had been so well-behaved on that visit because the owner was there. But with Mommy gone, all manners and any semblance of good behavior flew right out the window. I was comforted, however, to know that I wasn’t the only one she was biting. That poor, poor boyfriend.
I prompted Bitsy toward the front door and, placated by the treat, she followed. I led the way out onto the porch, down the steps, and into the snarl of a garden. I waited as long as it took for her to do her business, either in the garden or on the street. It was a certainty that if she didn’t do it in my presence, she’d do it in the house before I returned for the next visit. In the evenings, the house was pitch-black inside, and I ran a greater risk of putting my foot in it. Today she waited until we were out on the street in the sodden leaves by the side of the road to squat, piss, trundle a few steps, shit, and then kick, kick, kick her stumpy legs in an effort to cover it up. Did she kick inside the house as well when she shat on the rug? I wondered. Were there pellets lurking feet from the scene of the crime that I had yet to discover, propelled by a well-placed kick from her sharp little paw?
Back in the house, I still needed to feed Bitsy, which was another dangerous endeavor. She was fiercely food reactive, and, as soon as her bowl was filled, I could not even be in the room or she would snarl menacingly, even going so far as lunging at me at with her teeth bared. I demonstrated this for Patrick’s benefit, and he let out a short bark of disbelief.
“Let’s just go,” I said. I had screwed up and fed her before refilling her water bowl, but getting near that bowl was never going to happen now unless I waited until she was done eating. Even if I used my foot to maneuver the water bowl far enough away from her to pick it up, she would bite at my shoes until I surrendered and backed away. Crazy beast. She had enough water remaining in her bowl that I could wait to refill it when I returned.
“Ready?” I asked. He nodded, a bemused look on his face.
I went back to turn off the light.
“Why don’t you just leave it on? Then you don’t have to stumble around in the dark tonight,” he said.
I chuckled to myself. “Client’s orders,” I said. “They like to save energy.”
“And you honor that? At the risk of walking into furniture or stepping in dog shit?”
I shrugged. It hadn’t occurred to me not to honor it. I said I would, so I did. My comfort and the convenience or practicality of the clients’ requests weren’t really factored; they asked, and I acted accordingly. “Well, yeah. I mean, what if they found out that I left it on?”
“Yeah, what if they did? Are they gonna fire you? From never coming here to clean up shit and get bitten by their dog?”
“Maybe!”
“And would that be so bad?” He looked back into the kitchen in Bitsy’s direction and, seeming to know she was being derided, she bared her teeth right back.
I hesitated with my hand on the switch.
“No, actually that would be the best-case scenario.”
So many things could go wrong with the animals or their owners’ houses that were entirely out of my control; I didn’t see the need to tempt fate by intentionally going against orders. Even if I reviled the mean little mongrel I was charged with watching, or I thought the clients themselves were rude or unreasonable, I had zero desire to be found in the wrong in any way at all. Or worse, to be responsible for some greater catastrophe that could have been avoided had I followed all instructions to the letter.
Many months prior, I’d taken on a cat-sitting client—not one with great long-term promise, as their regular pet sitter was unavailable and I was effectively a sub. They had seven cats, a mix of indoor only, indoor/outdoor, and exclusively outdoor. I took extensive notes on which cats were equipped with the special magnetic collar that triggered the raccoon-proof cat door, minding when they usually came inside and where their food bowls were so I could keep track of whether they’d returned and eaten throughout the week. At my introduction, I didn’t actually lay eyes on all seven cats, as some were off gallivanting in the great outdoors. But I had physical descriptions and names to go by, and the owners felt confident I’d have no problems keeping track.
But I never did see one of the cats, and its whereabouts gave me no end of anxiety. I emailed the clients about it, letting them know I was concerned, and that it didn’t appear that Missing Kitty had either returned or eaten at all. Where was this mystery cat? Had she ever existed? Was this a test to see if I was paying attention?
Upon their return, they hadn’t spotted her either. They were terse with me (and that’s a generous word) when I gave back their keys and picked up payment, and—while I didn’t expect them to—they never employed me again. I wondered what in the world could I have done differently to prevent a cat I’d never seen in my life from never showing up or coming home?
So against all logic and reason, I still turned off the light in Bitsy’s living room, and we exited the house silently, the only sound the bolt of the big door sliding into place as I locked it. But Patrick’s point wasn’t lost on me. This anxiety I had over screwing up permeated every moment I spent with the animals anymore and seemed to cancel out any joy I derived from their company. Somewhere along the way, my baseline confidence that everything would be all right, so long as I tried my hardest to provide the best care possible for these often-complicated creatures, had been lost.
I didn’t ever take care of Bitsy again after those aggravating two weeks, and not because I’d screwed up in any discernible way, or even because I refused the offer, but because she died a short four months later. She was, after all, extremely aged; it was bound to happen, and sooner rather than later.
I also didn’t take Patrick on another job, not because he didn’t ask, but because I’d glimpsed my work from his perspective for that short half hour and I didn’t feel the need to expose either of us to that feeling again. At least not for a very long while.
It seemed increasingly apparent to me that I was unable to address my own fundamental needs simultaneous to those of the pets I spent my days, and so many nights, caring for. Following our visit with the biting dachshund, I feared Patrick had spotted my inability to manage the two—fulfillment for me, contentment for them—and that he saw this as a failure. Feeling deeply unsettled, and like my vulnerabilities had been laid bare, I finally asked him if I was right in my assessment.
“You’re making a mountain out of a messy house and a mean dachshund,” he said. “That dog was completely unloveable, and you’re great.” He kissed my forehead as though to reinforce his statement.
His innocuous comment regarding the lights in Bitsy’s house—such a simple suggestion to make my life easier—had been just that. But it had prompted me to question whether I could find a way to compromise that didn’t compromise the integrity of my work; to ask which was ultimately more important, my happiness or the dogs’.
More than ever, I longed for the changes that grad school might afford me: the chance to work toward my own betterment, to address some of my own needs over those of the pets I was tending to. In very concrete terms, going back to school included the enticement of a student health insurance plan, which meant getting back on antidepressants. The prospect of scholarships to help with cost of living, and the greatly reduced laundry and sunscreen requirements didn’t hurt, either. This would be good for mind, body, and wallet. Even as my desire to continue my studies intensified, I was starting to give up on the likelihood that any grad school was going to admit me. I had given my colleagues ample warning that this was a possibility, and one woman I contracted for was even interested in buying my client list. As the weeks wore on, though, my chances of admittance were dwindling.
Saint Mary’s had been in touch, and—thanks in part, I’m sure, to my snoozing through the class visit—I’d been demoted from the wait list to the non-acceptance list. I can’t say I was surprised; I’d suspected that my inexcusable in-class napping would be the killing blow to any future between me and Saint Mary’s, and I wouldn’t be forgiving myself for it any time soon.
I was bracing myself for a big decision ahead: either restructure my business model to compete for group-walk clients, or find a new job that didn’t involve me getting pooped on or bitten or sleeping with dogs instead of this handsome man I was trying not to scare off.
To further complicate this imminent reckoning, I received a panicked email that Tickles had disappeared. Her gate was open, and she was missing. The immediate theory put forth by Diane was that some hooligan had opened the gate in one of those random malicious acts without motivation. (A one-armed man did it!) But did this hooligan steal her, too, or just release her? I wondered. She was, after all, a purebred dog. Dognapping didn’t seem to be part of the leading conspiracy theory, though. Diane was convinced that between canvassing the neighborhood and searching area shelters, we’d find her. “We,” meaning, of course, her and me, together.
I sent out an urgent message to the email list of fellow dog walkers, attaching a photo of the dog and a description of the situation. A few extremely kind (or bored) members wrote back and said they’d help post fliers. So on a Wednesday afternoon, during the hour that I would normally be walking with Tickles, I was tracing our various routes posting flyers bearing her image, head cocked to the side, eyes seeming to say, “Find me! Bring me home!” in a most heart-wrenching manner. I was sure we’d find her. It was only a matter of time and a question of determination, and I had both. If I lost her as a regular walk, my business and bank balance were both all but doomed.
The weekend came, with no word. No calls, no sightings, no nothing. I was not only baffled but was also starting to face the reality that that $100 a week, $400 bucks monthly, had disappeared right along with Tickles’s furry little heft. I was in a bit of a panic.
Diane informed me that she had told Mia that Tickles was at the vet. She didn’t tell her she was missing. Apparently she felt this worry was too much for an eight-year-old to handle, or perhaps she was avoiding an unnecessary upset if the dog could be found and the incident forgotten. I worried for this little girl, with her physically incapacitated mother, her mentally incapacitated father, and now her friendly little companion missing. She didn’t even know yet! I was tempted to go over to the house, pull the little girl aside, and give her a quick but gentle life lesson on love and loss.
Then Tickles was found. She had been scooped up by a responsible citizen and taken to the Berkeley Humane Society. Diane called me in tears, overjoyed that the dog had been found and was unharmed. I, too, was overjoyed and breathed a huge sigh of relief. The terrier was safe, and so was that income.
That was on a Saturday. On Sunday, Diane called again, once more in tears. When she brought Tickles home, “back from the vet,” to Mia’s understandable delight, Frank declared that the dog could not stay.
He then confessed, out of range of his daughter’s hearing, I hope, that he was the one who had let Tickles out. Instead of having explained calmly and rationally that the dog was too much of a burden and they would have to find another home for her, he’d crept out in the middle of the night and unlatched her gate, hoping that the rest would take care of itself.
His poor wife. She tried to collect herself on the other end of the line, but she couldn’t seem to stop repeating the facts, mostly for her own benefit. She couldn’t figure out how she was going to explain this to her daughter. Or forgive her husband for his callousness and cowardice, his deceit, and his shocking cruelty to both family and animal. I was with her on all counts.
For my part, I was beyond fury. I felt exhausted to my very core and could hardly fathom that this was the explanation for the past week’s suspense and community effort to locate Tickles and bring her home. How, I wondered, could anyone ever safeguard against this kind of insane scenario? Baffled as I was by this unexpected turn of events, I redoubled my efforts, now to find Tickles a new home, instead of just to find her at all. With some bribery in the form of free walks and some convincing that she was the best and cutest and most loveable and perfectly sized dog, I was able to work out a temporary fix with a friend and nearby neighbor who had been wanting a dog.
So now, not only was I out many hundreds of dollars, I was also out a walk slot that would still go to Tickles, with no monetary benefit to me.
This didn’t last for long. I kept up my end of the bargain, walking her every day, but Tickles was not a fit for this home. My friend and her fiancé didn’t take too well to Tickles’s barking; her assertive terrier nature, and her manic aggression toward all other fauna; or her general need for feeding, cleaning, love, and attention. They hadn’t actually wanted a dog, but maybe a stuffed animal or wind-up toy.
This time, my friend led the charge in finding Tickles a more-permanent home; she was that motivated to offload this pitiably displaced dog. A few interested parties came and met Tickles, and my friend ultimately sent her home with a woman who lived on a farm in Orinda. On the day she came to pick up Tickles, she brought her daughter along, as well as a bouquet of flowers as thanks for this precious, purebred, and entirely free pet she was taking home. She was also in tears, so happy was she to have found a dog just like their little Maisey, may she rest in peace. I hoped with all my heart that Tickles would be happy on the farm, and that she would fill the terrier-shaped void in these people’s lives.
I still wonder what in the world Mia’s parents ever told her, and how many years down the road she would learn the bizarre truth about her father’s betrayal. That family had seemed on shaky ground enough with the dog, but I had a hard time imagining how they’d be able to move beyond the unfortunate series of events leading to the permanent loss of their pet.
Ian’s and my lease on our shared apartment was ending, and he’d declared that he was moving to San Francisco. Not knowing where I might move and with whom, if anyone, and what job, if any, might pay for this next rental, I started packing up our apartment.
Though I liked to daydream about my future with Patrick, I knew that it did not realistically include moving in together within the next month or so. He already lived with three other guys and had recently declared that it felt too soon for me to meet his parents. They had been in town and had taken him out to a dinner at which his sister and brother-in-law were present, while I was not. I appreciated his forthrightness, and even kind of believed him when he explained that it was less that he wasn’t ready for them to meet me and more that he wasn’t prepared for me to meet them. He wanted to keep me to himself for just a bit longer. Either way, whether this was the truth or not, moving into a love nest with him was off the table for the present.
I was in the bathroom preparing for a day like any other when I missed a call. I’d heard the ring from my perch upon the toilet and figured it was either a client canceling or positing a special request, or else my parents checking in on how things were going. In either case, I could call them back.
When I checked my phone, however, the missed call came from a new number, one not saved in my contacts. I opened my voice mail.
Perhaps it was the unfamiliar voice or sheer disbelief that was impeding my brain’s ability to translate the words I was hearing into any semblance of meaning, but I had to listen to the message a full three times before flipping my phone shut and letting out a strangled squeal.
According to the professor who had phoned, I’d been enthusiastically admitted to the graduate creative writing program at Mills College, right down the highway in Oakland, and she was extremely excited to speak to me about it. But not, I’m certain, as excited as I was.
Things happened very quickly after that phone call. I, of course, called to accept and, thereafter, began applying for loans and financial aid opportunities. I started looking at apartments near campus and investigating part-time jobs that might help subsidize living costs and whatever tuition wasn’t covered by student loans.
I decided, easily and definitively, that despite what my clients and colleagues said, I could not—would not—continue walking dogs simultaneous to getting my degree. Of course, as soon as I started sharing the news of my acceptance with my immediate dog-walking community, offers started pouring in. To run the business side of a colleague’s operation. To continue on with a few select clients at better pay. To take a part-time job at a newly opened doggie day care.
I had to laugh at the irony. Where was this bounty a mere month ago? Nevertheless, I felt convinced that my number one priority had to be school and my studies. That door had opened, and I needed to close this one firmly and for good.
My mom came out to help me apartment hunt, and we signed the lease on an idyllic little studio a mile from the school. It was an in-law unit that backed up to an organic garden maintained by my new landlords. The deposit in hand, they said I could move in just as soon as I was ready.
My professional sendoff was unexpectedly sentimental. As focused as I’d been on extricating myself from the mess of my chosen profession, I’d overlooked the fondness my clients might feel for me, their animal nanny, fairy godmother to all their pets’ many and obscure needs.
The greyhounds’ owners gave me pillowcases screen-printed with pictures of Flannel’s and Salvador’s disembodied heads. The shelties’ mom gave me a bottle of Beano and Discus–branded wine, the label a photo of the dogs looking wistful, their fur windblown. On my last day of walking Foxy, the owners left a note with a box of chocolate, reminding me that their offer of continued employment stood should I ever change my mind. The grandest gesture, by far and away, was the Montblanc pen engraved with my name that my colleagues at the pet-sitters’ association chipped in to buy me in thanks for my services as secretary.
Random as many of these gifts were, they were such fitting tokens of my time as an animal nanny. Each represented in its own weird way the significance of earning my colleagues’ and clients’—and their beloved pets’—trust, symbolizing the rare privilege of being allowed to participate in the terrifically unique and always deeply personal relationship between parent and fur baby. However outlandish or uncomfortable the details had gotten, it had been an honor.
Still, after two years of making my own issues and priorities secondary to those of the dogs and birds and cats and their owners that I’d catered to, I was looking forward to an entirely different life landscape. The challenges I might face in grad school, living on my own, and pursuing this relationship with Patrick would likely feature far less fur and fewer feathers, not as much getting locked out of places, and (hopefully) not as many creative approaches to shit collection. Whatever the demands, however devious and unexpected the obstacles, I was ready. I had, after all, done my own self-employment taxes. Twice. Surely that alone prepared me for the worst life might throw my way.
On my final day of dog walking, after I’d returned all the clients’ keys and hung up the last leash, I uncorked the bottle of Beano and Discus wine. We raised our glasses, Patrick and I, to what I was leaving behind, and all that lay ahead.
A fellow dog walker I’d contracted for bought my client list after all, employing some formula for walks per week over rate I charged by length of patronage or some such method to determine the price. It was a humble amount, but that sum, coupled with Ian’s and my recently returned and divided security deposit, was enough for a plane ticket.
Patrick had had a change of heart, and, instead of inviting me to a family dinner, he’d asked me to join him and roughly thirty of his relatives for a family reunion in Tuscany. A better way to celebrate the end of one era and the beginning of another, and to spend the spoils of two years’ work, I couldn’t imagine.
So I said yes.