Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family--and a Whole Town--about Hope and Happy Endings (7 page)

Michael turned back to the little dog inside the crate, pushing his fingers through the wire opening. Huck began licking Michael’s small fingers. “Good boy, Huck. Hello, Huckie. Good boy.”

A man in a blue uniform stepped forward and told me I had to sign some papers before we could leave. I managed to do so, despite the tears welling in my eyes. After I signed the papers, Rich picked up the crate. “Let’s take Huck home,” he said to Michael.

“I love him already,” Michael said, as he hugged me very tightly.

“I do, too, honey. I do, too,” I said.

And with that, our new family of four headed for the parking lot.

In the backseat of the car, Michael, with the crate next to him, talked to Huck all the way home. “Huck, wait ’til you see where you are going to live. You can sleep in my room.”

It was as though Michael had finally found the old friend he had been searching for all his life. He kept sticking his finger through the wire door, trying to get Huck, by now dehydrated and hungry, to take some food.

There was a lot more traffic going toward New York than there had been in the morning going the other way. We were stuck in the thick of it, crawling along the New Jersey Turnpike. Trying to follow Lisa’s exact instructions, we still had not taken Huck out of the crate. We had not yet been able to hold him, or, for that matter, get a really good look at him. Huck did not make a sound.

We finally pulled into the garage under our apartment building. Rich gingerly lifted the crate from the backseat, carried it upstairs to our apartment, and set it down on the floor in the living room. Michael sat right in front of it. I gave him an old towel to put across his lap.

I opened the door of the crate. Huck, still woozy from his plane ride, took a cautious step out. Michael tenderly picked him up in his arms and held him against himself.

“I love you, Huck,” Michael said. “You are such a good boy. You made it through the plane ride. You did it, Huck.”

I looked inside the crate and there, in the back of the crate, tied in a knot, was the white sock of Michael’s we had sent to Lisa weeks ago. It had to have been tough for this tiny creature, all five pounds of him, to weather the plane ride. He was stuck in the crate, alongside the baggage. It was so cold in the cargo hold of the plane that the airline did not want to take any responsibility for an animal being able to live through the trip. The carrier required the vet in Florida to sign papers saying the dog could survive in subfreezing weather.

In our apartment, when Huck emerged from the crate and into Michael’s waiting arms, he was wobbly and smelled as though he had either thrown up on himself, or urinated, or both. Lisa, in an effort to gussy Huck up, had doused him with some kind of perfume and put a red bow on his head.

I knew the first order of business was to get rid of the bow, get him in the bathtub, and clean him up. At that moment, not everyone in our family found Huck irresistible. In fact, Rich was disappointed. Privately he said to me: “I don’t really find him that appealing, but we got him for Michael, not for me, so if he’s happy with him, then I’m happy.”

Michael tried to get Huck to play a bit, trying to interest him in some of the toys we had bought, but Huck was still shaky, still exhausted from his journey north.

I suggested we give Huck a warm bath. Michael was game and wanted to get in the tub with Huck. We pulled out some of the shampoo Lisa had instructed us to buy. We took the bow out of Huck’s now matted hair; Michael put on a pair of shorts and got in the tub. I handed Huck to him, and we carefully soaped Huck up and rinsed him off with the handheld showerhead. Wet, Huck looked so tiny, so vulnerable, and so utterly adorable. I wrapped him in a towel. Michael stepped out of the tub and immediately took Huck into his arms.

Just then the phone rang. It was our neighbor, a member of Rocket’s family, Emily Simon, and her cousin, Caroline Bronston. They could not wait any longer to meet Huck. They wanted to come right over. Michael was only too happy to show Huck off. Minutes later, they were at our front door.

The girls squealed with delight. “He’s so cute,” they said in unison. The three kids sat on the floor with Huck, petting him, taking turns holding him, and trying to get him to chase a ball or eat a dog biscuit. But Huck was so exhausted, he was not responding all that much. He seemed more like a very old dog than a young puppy.

That first night, we did exactly what Lisa had told us to do. We put Huck and one of his new toys in his crate, attached a water bottle to the crate, and said, “Good night, Huck.” We had set it all up in Michael’s room. Rich and I hugged and kissed Michael, said good night to him, too, and closed the bedroom door behind us. I wasn’t sure what would happen next. I assumed that in no time, Huck would start barking or whining.

Ten minutes after Rich and I left Michael’s room and collapsed on our bed, Michael appeared at our door. “I don’t think I can sleep with Huck in my room,” he said. “He makes too much noise when he drinks from his water bottle.”

I suppose Michael was so used to having his own room and having utter quiet when he went to bed that the presence of another being, let alone one who was slurping water, would take some getting used to. I thought that feeling would pass in a few days as Huck and Michael became inseparable. It did.

But that first night, we put Huck’s crate in the kitchen and turned on a radio. He was perfectly quiet until about three o’clock in the morning when he started barking. As I am sure has been so for every other mother who suddenly finds herself with a puppy, being roused from sleep that way felt an awful lot like the 3:00
A.M
. feeding of my child’s infancy.

I managed to find my slippers and robe and I stumbled into the kitchen. I felt so sorry for Huck in his crate, barking. Lisa had instructed us to tap on the top of the crate and say, “Quiet, quiet,” and then walk away.
But what if he needs to go?
I thought. I followed Lisa’s instructions, left Huck in the crate, and went back to bed.

Just as my head hit the pillow, Huck barked again. I put on my slippers again, left the bathrobe behind, and, with Lisa’s voice in my ear, went back into the kitchen, tapped the top of the crate and said, “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” and went back to bed, this time unable to sleep. I was waiting for the next round of barking.

It took another hour and Huck barked again. This time barefooted, I stumbled into the kitchen and opened the door of the crate. Huck came out and relieved himself on the paper we had put down on the floor. He turned around and walked back into his crate.

Tired as I was, I had to laugh. “Huck, Lisa was right, you are smart. I ought to listen to you,” I said. As I turned down the kitchen light, I realized I had already started doing what so many animal lovers do with their pets. I was talking to Huck as though he were a person with complete comprehension of what I was saying. As time wore on, the talking got much worse. I was only surprised that Huck didn’t talk back.

The next day, Huck seemed fully recovered from the plane ride and fully adjusted to his new surroundings. His personality started to emerge. He was lively and engaging and incredibly cute. He was always ready for fun. All of the new dog toys got a pretty good workout. Huck was cuddly and quite generous with face licks. He was an unusual combination of sweet and naughty. He wasn’t the least bit aggressive and was an insatiable affection hound. He’d instantly roll over on his back for just about anyone who looked like they’d stand there and rub his belly.

On that day, Rich’s heart began to melt. Huck stood and watched him shave. When Rich sat on a rocking chair in the living room, Huck went over and put his head on Rich’s lap, waiting for Rich’s affectionate touch. It took no time before Rich was calling him “Huckie boy” and roaring with laughter when Huck gave Rich’s face a bath of licks. A day earlier Rich was dubious about Huck’s appeal. Now he was smitten.

Rich had fallen hard for Huck and Huck for Rich. The first time Rich was out of town for an extended period, Huck pulled at a gray T-shirt Rich had left on his desk chair until he was able to get it free. Huck then trotted off with it to his own bed, put it down, and lay on top of it.

Michael became the envy of friends whose parents had not yet caved in on getting a dog. Jesse, the son of Susan Finkelstein, the woman who kept telling me a dog might be the one thing our kids would have to do without, said he wanted to get the identical dog and name him Tom, so the boys, friends since nursery school, would have dogs named Huck and Tom, a fuller tribute to Mark Twain’s vision of boyhood. Another buddy asked his parents for a dog, but the resistance was great, so they started talking about getting a rabbit.

Huck shadowed Michael all over the apartment. When Michael came home from school each day, Huck ecstatically licked his face. While Michael did his homework Huck slept at his feet. When Michael sat and watched TV or played a video game, Huck squeezed into the chair alongside him. When Michael went outside, Huck waited by the front door.

It was easy to see why Lisa referred to Huck as her “little love bug.” He was always looking for someone to stroke his head or his back or rub his belly. He liked to be touched. The moment any of us sat down in a chair, Huck would come dashing over, sit at that person’s feet, and rest his head on the sitter’s knee, waiting to have his head stroked, waiting to lick a hand.

Huck’s unrestrained devotion reminded me of a dog captured in a painting that hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In
Young Man and Woman in an Inn
by the Dutch painter Frans Hals, a man and woman are reveling at the doorway of an inn. A dog is resting his head in the reveler’s hand, content to just be with the man. That was Huck’s spirit, too, blissful when he had a lap to sit on or a human hand on which to rest his head.

Huck also loved to play. I had more patience for fetch than either Rich or Michael, something that Huck figured out immediately. One morning, while Rich and Michael were out at Michael’s basketball game, I was home with Huck, trying to use the time to get a few housecleaning chores taken care of before they returned. Huck was determined to let me know that chores were not really a good idea, that it was really time for the two of us to play ball.

He picked up his favorite orange soft plastic ball and started following me around the apartment until I was still. He dropped the ball at my feet and looked up at me, waiting for me to pick it up and throw it. He’d scamper after it and then bring it back, laying it at my feet again, waiting. After a few back and forths, I tried to bring the game to an end. But Huck was just warming up. He started dropping the ball at my feet, looking up at me, and barking, as if to say, “Come on, let’s play some more.”

When I didn’t respond, he tried other ways to draw me back into the game. I was making our bed when Huck’s orange ball came rolling out from underneath it, stopping just at my feet. Huck was lying in wait under the bed until I was close enough, and then, with his nose, sent the ball out to deliver his message. Huck was nothing if not persistent. He fit right into our family.

Huck was ever a people watcher. He’d stand and watch me load dishes into the dishwasher, hoping for a stray scrap of just about anything. He’d stand and watch Michael pack books into his school backpack; he’d watch Rich put his shoes in the closet.

When Huck came to live with us, he was only four months old, full of all the unbridled mischief of a puppy. He’d chase the vacuum, and take all the socks out of the laundry basket, spreading them around the living room floor. He loved to disrupt. Michael would sit down to play the piano, and Huck would wander underneath it, walking in and out and between Michael’s legs, making it impossible for Michael to play on. Huck was confused by television and barked at the set whenever a dog was on. He had come to love cream cheese, more than any other treat. All we had to do was say “cream cheese,” and Huck would come running.

We were all pretty eager to take Huck for a walk, but there was still a hurdle. Lisa had said we’d need clearance from the vet before we could take Huck outdoors.

The Simons had been our guide on all things involving Huck. There was no question we’d take their advice on vets, too. We took Huck in a taxicab to see Jon Miller, a neighborhood veterinarian with a fun and quirky manner.

“Well, well, whose dog is he?” Dr. Miller asked, as Michael gingerly put Huck up on the examining table.

“He’s mine!” Michael said proudly.

After looking in Huck’s ears and eyes, taking his temperature, listening to his heart, manipulating his limbs, examining every part of Huck, and then showing Michael how to clean Huck’s eyes, Dr. Miller pronounced Huck “perfect.” He said we could take Huck for a walk the following morning. And then he added: “I like the name.”

We were now ready to take Huck out onto city streets. Our first adventure would be to the Seventy-ninth Street and East End Avenue bus stop, where Michael boarded the city bus for school.

Michael bounded out of bed early that day, eager to walk with his new puppy. We left at about 7:30. I put the collar around Huck’s tiny neck and Michael attached the leash. Novices that we were, Rich and I each inspected and reinspected the collar to make sure the fit was right.