DOGTOBERFEST
NON-FICTION SHORT
I’ve wanted my own dog for as long as I can remember. My very own wee one to love me unconditionally. Preferably one I can pickup and squeeze. A little fuzz ball who smiles every time he sees me, snuggles with me at the drop of a hat, and likes to go everywhere with me by my side. Oh, and helps me with my trauma.
After promising me a dog in August over two years ago, a month I deemed Dogust, now is finally the time Cameron’s agreed to let me get a furry friend. I am employed, he is employed, he is a homeowner, I live in the home also, and it is October. Dogtoberfest 2017 seems to have a great ring to it as well.
Considering I’m somewhat allergic to dogs, and extremely allergic to vacuuming, we prefer our dog to be somewhat hypoallergenic. Also, we think we'd like a medium sized dog. Not a puppy. And finally, our mutt has to be from the shelter, because for us, it’s the only option that makes any sense.
So we’re at the Burbank Animal Shelter to find just that.
We're searching high and low to bring Dogtoberfest 2017 to completion with no success, we’re going to leave, when Cameron makes the discovery. “Lea, what about this one?” he asks.
This one. Seeing his face, his sad eyes, I know this is my pup. I have to get this dog and call him my own. My dawg. I just know it. He’s shaking furiously and hiding behind a smaller, more springy dog, who looks very similar.
“Excuse me, can you tell me more about, Jerry?” I ask the man passing by swiftly with a name tag on. Whoever named this dog Jerry has failed him.
“Oh, Jerry. Yeah. About him,” the man responds. I read his nametag further and see he's the Animal Shelter Veterinarian. Mr. Vet continues, “Yeah. Jerry’s a project dog. Afraid of his own shadow. Gonna take a lot of work. Victoria here should be a little easier to handle.” Victoria is the small female dog jumping off the bars, yapping loudly, as if Cameron and I look like the type to need an easier dog who’s going berserk.
“She seems sweet as well,” I say. I lie. Jerry’s my dog. Suddenly it’s Jerry or die. Why am I thinking like this? I don’t even know this dog!
I quickly deduce that while we don’t know this dog, he is most certainly not a Jerry. He’s listed on his cage as being a Spaniel mix, but to be fair, it seems apparent he’s also mixed with Poodle or Shih Tzu. He’s white with brown spots, and his eyes and ears have a mask of brown. It makes him look a little more unique, a little more handsome, well, aside from his messed up eye.
“What’s wrong with his eye?” I inquire.
“Yeah. He has a cherry-eye, that’s why it’s all red and inflamed. Not a serious problem, but it’ll take a surgery for the infection. I have to perform on him.”
“So, we can’t take him home now?”
“Nope. No can do. His release date isn’t for another three weeks.”
“But, what if we know we want him? Can we pay for him now and pick him up later?” I say. Having only consulted with Cameron in my mind, I'm hoping he’ll follow suit and understand where I’m coming from. Jerry was his suggestion, after all.
“No, nope. Nothing we can do. It’s first come, first serve here at the shelter. Jerry’s real popular, even though he’s a project.”
I'm already feeling defensive that he keeps calling my son a project. “Okay. Can we at least, like, meet with him today? Pet him outside?” I want to say outside of this puppy prison.
“Nope, no can do. He’s quarantined before and after surgery. And after the surgery, it’ll be awhile. You can meet and greet Victoria, though.”
It pains me deeply to hear I can’t sit with Jerry in whatever he’s going through, which looks like a lot. And Victoria, while cute, doesn’t seem like my dog.
Before turning down the offer, I remind myself Victoria was found with Jerry, abandoned at a Burger King parking lot along with four other dogs, so she’s a badass. In my mind, I can’t help but think of a Homeward Bound situation, except apparently home is BK, where they can all have it their way. I then make the decision that any friend of Jerry’s is a friend of mine. “Yes, we’d like to meet Victoria,” I say to Mr. Vet.
As soon as Mr. Vet plops Victoria at our feet, she’s running back and forth, from end to end of the dog run, refusing to acknowledge Cameron or my presence, while barking at the top of her lungs. It’s clear she’s been through some shit on the mean streets of Burbank. And as I feel for her, I am reminded of why I love dogs so much. You can project all of your thoughts and feelings on them because they can’t talk back.
Like me thinking, 'I get you Victoria, I do. I know how humans can be and I’m so sorry you had to go through this, this meaning whatever you’ve been through, feeling like you can never talk about it, because you’ve been silenced, so you scream, and when you scream, they think you’re crazy, they don’t understand and they don’t listen, and you just want someone to listen for once, so you can stop screaming and running all the time, it gets exhausting, I know, I get you, lady.' All that projecting aside, I also know I am not equipped to handle this little anxious soul. I want to rip off my own skin just being around her.
My match, in my heart, is that other messed up dog, Jerry, who’s messed up in a different way that I can relate to. I think, 'I get you Jerry, I do, I know why you’re shutdown, I know why you don’t want anyone to touch you, I know why you won’t make eye contact with humans and you only want to sleep in the corner by yourself all day and night, I know why you won’t make a noise, why you shake ferociously at the sight of a hand coming towards your body, why you close yourself off entirely from the world, and while I don’t know what you’ve been through, I know how humans can be and I’m so sorry you had to go through this. I want you to know with my whole heart I’m here for you, I want to help you heal as best I can, little one. I want to help you. I want to hear you. I want to protect you, because you deserve to be protected. You deserve all the love in the world.'
Mind monologue aside, this dog is definitely not mine to protect right now. Jerry is a prisoner of the state, and no bail has been set, so we can’t free him. Not until his release date. Not until next Saturday.
***
Cameron and I are here at the animal shelter at 8AM on a Saturday, waiting in ‘line’ for the doors to open. I actually shouldn't use the word line because there is no line. We are the line. We’ve strategized that it can’t hurt to be there when the employees open up the shelter at 9AM, right? Talk about dedication.
“I’m so nervous, Cameron. He’s in there right now, he must be so scared, I just want to get him.”
“I know, I know. We’re doing all we can.” Cameron attempts to calm me down through the rabid barks echoing in the background. Bark, bark, bark. My body jolts.
“How does Jerry get any sleep in there?” I ask.
“I don’t think he does,” Cameron responds.
This makes my heart even sadder. I think of how quiet my home is. I think of how I’ll let Jerry sleep as long as he’d like, as long as he needs.
As the time draws closer and closer to the 9AM mark, an actual line starts to form, and I wonder if that lingering smell of doodoo is coming from the shelter or my pants.
“Cameron, I can’t, I’m so nervous!”
“It’s okay, it’s fine, it’s going to be okay. Trust.”
Trust?! This dog I want terribly could be stolen in front of my very eyes and I’m just supposed to trust?!
The doors suddenly open and Cameron and I make sure to step through the doors first, because if that matters at all, we are here first, damnit.
“We’re here first!” I blurt out. The woman wearing a name tag that says 'Linda' on it looks less than thrilled.
“Everyone in, everyone in,” Linda screams over the barking. The two other couples gather close to the counter behind us.
“So, I assume you’re all here for dog number 4583948, in kennel twelve, right?” Linda bellows with judgment. Truly a lovely woman.
I clench my thighs tightly together and hope everyone here wants a parakeet or a gerbil.
“No! We’re here for a kitten,” one of the couples states. I breathe a sigh of relief, one couple down, one couple to go. But then they speak.
“Yes. We’re here for him,” the other couple says.
My mouth won’t move as Cameron raises his hand, “Us, too. We’re interested in Jerry.”
Good one, Cameron! Use his name! We’ve been here everyday this week. He should be ours already.
“Okay. Because there are two groups here, it goes to a raffle,” Linda says, seemingly reveling in the drama of it all.
A raffle? A goddamn raffle? Hello! This is my dog, people! I just know it and now I could lose my dog because of some fifty-fifty chance.
“Well, at least we have a fifty-fifty chance,” Cameron whispers to me. The perpetual optimist in times when I want to put a bullet in my head.
“It’s a coin toss, Cam, it doesn’t make me feel good.”
“Alright, here goes everything,” always reassuring Linda says and comes to us first, with a large plastic container of what looks to be all that remains from a family pack size of cheese puffs. She dumps two tickets in front of us on the table.
“Pick one or the other,” Linda demands.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. Cameron looks to me to choose. “I can’t do it, you choose,” I whisper to Cameron. He quickly picks the ticket on the right, rips it down the middle, and throws the other side into the cheese dust below.
“I got a good feeling about this,” Cameron says to me reassuringly.
Our competition takes the other ticket and throws their side into the cheese dust and I immediately grasp Cameron’s hand so tightly you’d think we were on the Titanic.
As Linda reaches in the cheese puff container to decide whether or not I get to take my dog home, I pray. It can't hurt.
I hold my breath as Linda’s mouth moves. Her voice sounds exactly like Charlie Brown’s teacher in my head,“The winner is bwah-bwah-bwah-bwah.”
The room gets blurry. I can hear my own breath. We’ve lost. That can’t be our number, it just can’t be.
That’s when Cameron yells, “That’s us, that’s us!”
I start crying and I can’t stop crying. I’m shaking. My dog. I get my dog. My little baby.
Linda looks at me like I need to get a grip. Then she says to our former competition, waving her hands around, “But feel free to stick around, if it doesn’t work out with them, you know, you can adopt him after.”
What does that mean, if it doesn’t work out? Is this a formal interview? Can this Linda or the shelter deem us inadequate doggy parents, or something? Is that a thing?
And as the Animal Shelter Officer, with a gun and handcuffs on his belt in full uniform, takes us into the meet-and-greet room, I don’t know who’s shaking more, Jerry, me, or Cameron.
That is until Officer Gasenica hands me Jerry to hold in my lap. That’s when I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jerry is shaking more than me. Way more. He’s a Jell-O mold in an earthquake, and I’m not sure what’s holding him together, but it definitely ain’t me. This wasn’t exactly how I thought our first meeting would go with my future son.
He shakes and squirms, shakes and squirms, trying to wriggle free of my grip, burrowing underneath my arms desperately trying to escape to the ground. I know I said I get you, you don’t trust anyone, but I didn’t mean me! I was hoping somehow I would be different. I was hoping you would like me. You clearly hate me, Jerry.
I look to get Cameron to hold Jerry, but he has more fear in his eyes than me. He’s never had a dog before and he doesn’t want Gasenica to deem us unfit parents. He assumes by hanging in the background, we’ll get our boy. I’m getting weary at this point.
“Should I let him down?” I cry out to Gasenica like a total newb, releasing Jerry into the room like a bewildered mother.
“Um. No. I mean, unless you never want to see him again,” Gasenica replies without an ounce of humor.
Oh God. Gasenica goes into the corner and snatches Jerry out of the corner and brings him back in my lap. I have been terrified, sure, but I have never held, fully felt, the physicality of absolute terror. The tremors released when you’re somewhere, with someone, you don’t trust.
I look at Jerry again, speaking to him with my mind. ‘Please, I need you to chill. I am trying to get you out of here. I want to save you! I want to take you to a better place, I’m here to help, my intentions are honorable, I’m so sorry your family abandoned you and then bad stuff happened. I’-
In the middle of my attempted mind-control, Jerry makes a big leap like a hyena and tries to go back to the corner. I won’t allow it. Instead, I ask myself this: Can I take care of this dog? Because his fear scares me. He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t even like me. And here I thought I would come in and save the day and feel so goddamn good about myself. That’s how it works with a rescue, right? But now I'm wondering if I'm even equipped to help this dog?
A voice from inside me resounds, a booming ‘Yes’. In my heart, in my gut, without a doubt, the time is now and this is my dog. For better, for worse, no matter what, he is my dog and I love him with my whole heart.
Gasenica eventually asks me if we’d like to keep Jerry.
“Yes, forever,” I say.
“Great. If it doesn’t work out, what city do you live in? Because we’d like Jerry to come back here, ya know, if something doesn’t.”
“We’re not returning him,” I respond.
“Okay, great. You have two weeks though, if you wanted to, no questions asked.”
“We’re not returning him,” Cameron says this time.
We pay $64.00 smackaroos for our very own mutt, who is now playing the part of Elvis singing ‘All Shook Up’. We even get a free microchip, picture frame, leash, harness, and coupon book. I attach Jerry’s leash to his new harness like we’re gonna bust out of this joint looking like a happy family ready for our photo-op, and Gasenica lets me know my wishful thinking, while endearing, won’t work. If our little Elvis 'has left the building’, it’ll be because I wrangle him out.
So I do just that. I throw Jerry up into my arms, cradling his shaky bones out, like my baby.
We change his name from Jerry to Yoshi. Our sweet little Yoshi. My brother Glenn, who I call Glennjamin, loves Nintendo and since we used to play together, it’s a shout-out to him. And Yoshi is like, the best sidekick of all-time. Plus, Yoshi means Joseph in Japanese and that’s Cameron’s dad’s name. So really, everyone wins, especially Yoshi. Especially me.
Leaving with Yoshi, I feel expected elation and, also, unexpected fear. Absolute terror. But it's not coming off of Yosh this time. This terror is coming from me. Emanating through my bones. He's been through so much, my little pup. He's never had anyone to protect him. To truly love him unconditionally. I don’t want to let him down. I don’t ever want to let my baby down.
***