Little Boy Blue
Copyright © 2012 by Kim Kavin.
Foreword copyright © 2012 by Jim Gorant.
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.
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Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.
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Hauppauge, NY 11788
Some names have been changed in this book to protect the privacy of the individual/organization involved.
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6526-9
eISBN: 978-1-4380-8350-6
First eBook Publication: September 2012
Library of Congress Catalog Card No: 2012012685
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Kavin, Kim.
Little boy Blue : a puppy’s rescue from death row and his owner’s journey for truth / by Kim Kavin; forward by Jim Gorant.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7641-6526-9
1. Dog rescue—United States. 2. Animal shelters—United States. 3. Euthanasia of animals—United States. I. Title.
HV4746.K38 2012
636.08'32—dc23 2012012685
For the ones who can still be saved.
“Our values are defined by what we will tolerate when it is done to
others.”
—William Greider
“Nothing is inevitable unless our inaction makes it so.”
—Ronald Regan
Contents
The Reality of a Childhood Dream
As Many, and as Fast as They Can
Foreword
The first time I walked in on my wife I think we were both a little embarrassed. I had arrived home early from work and stepped into the kitchen without making much of an entrance. When she finally heard me, she turned quickly, a shocked look in her eyes and a forced smile on her face. She used her body to shield the computer screen from view, and I had the creepy feeling that I’d just walked in on someone surreptitiously surfing for porn.
I had, although there was a twist. This was doggy porn. The URL on the browswer was that of
Petfinder.com
and on the screen was a full-body shot of a coquettish little Labradoodle who looked back over her shoulder with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Isn’t she cute?” Karin said, and I nodded in a way that signaled assent without commitment. “Wait,” she said. “Look at this one,” and began navigating across the site with an ease that made it clear she’d been at this for a while and it wasn’t her first time. At that moment one thing became abundantly clear: We were getting a dog.
The possibility didn’t exactly come as a surprise. It had been a topic of conversation around our house—sometimes relentlessly so—for going on two years. Upon turning nine, our daughter had embarked upon an all-out campaign to bring a little furry enthusiasm to our family. The program consisted of continual asking, alternating promises of both doggy upkeep and household diligence, bartering, pleading, stomping, and the occasional moment of used-car-lot dissonance when she would look across the table and say, “Okay, what’s it gonna take to make this happen?”
When we had recovered from the image of our little girl some day hawking Gremlins and Pacers in a gravel lot next to a strip mall, Karin and I could empathize. We loved dogs. We’d each had them growing up, and part of us wanted to get one now. Part of us didn’t.
We both have busy jobs, we live in an old house that requires a lot of attention, and our two children have active lives that demand our participation. It’s a great life (no complaints here), but it’s a pretty fast-spinning carousel of train schedules, car pools, pickups, dropoffs, laundry, dinner, practices, games, Home Depot runs, doctor, dentist and orthodontist appointments, book reports, and so on.
As much as we liked the idea of a dog, we knew the reality of it would only add to the insanity. The kids insisted that they would take care of everything, walking and feeding and cleaning up the poop in the yard. Friends of ours suggested that it would teach them responsibility. We weren’t buying that. For starters, we’d both been on the other side of that exchange. We’d made those promises as kids and the dogs that our parents had bought us suffered at our lack of follow-through. We knew that if we got a dog, we were taking the responsibility. If the kids helped out great, but we weren’t going to count on it.
Our conversations on the topic always led to a place where we agreed it would be nice but probably not smart. “If you really wanted to, I would do it,” Karin would say. To which I would say the same thing. And there the issue sat.
Except for one thing. At the end of 2008 I wrote a story for
Sports Illustrated
, the magazine for which I work, about the dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s fighting operation. The story wound up on the cover, and I was soon approached about turning it into a book. I finished the manuscript in January 2010 and let Karin read it before turning it in. The book,
The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick’s
Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption
, exposed the brutality of dog fighting but was largely an account of resilience and compassion that highlighted the connection between dogs and people.
It was shortly after Karin read the rough draft that I started to catch her looking at dog listings online. Our daughter’s campaign hadn’t abated, and sometimes I’d come home and find the two of them sitting in front of the computer together looking through the listings. “Have I shown you the pictures of Fluffy— or Lucky or Baby or Stumpy?”—became a regular question around our house. Somehow, though, our debates about the topic led to the same conclusion.
Until they didn’t.
Finally, in early spring Karin admitted what had already become increasingly clear to me: She wanted a dog. After the book I had written there was no doubt we would get a rescue. But if my research and talks with so many in the animal-rescue community taught me anything, it was that most adoptions go wrong at the start, because people either set their heart on a breed that isn’t right for them or they devote one day to the job and come home with the first dog that touches their heart.
For us, the process wasn’t about finding
a dog
, but about finding
the dog
—which meant the one that was the best fit for our family. We made up a list of ideal attributes: adult, housebroken, low- to medium-energy level, and ideally a non- or low-shedding breed. And while we didn’t want a big dog, we didn’t want one of those bedroom slippers with legs, either. I felt a bit like the Goldilocks of dog rescue, but I figured that was better than being Little Red Riding Hood.
We started looking in earnest. We attended adoption days at pet stores within a thirty-mile radius. We visited shelters. We continued to comb Petfinder, filling out applications and sending e-mails about dogs that seemed like they might be right for us. We came close a few times, but for one reason or another we couldn’t make a connection. With our daughter heading off to camp and a family vacation to follow, we suspended our search for the summer.
In September, my book came out and became a
New York
Times
best seller. The flurry of interviews that came along with the success inevitably included the question: “So what type of dog do you have?” An awkward pause followed while I explained that we didn’t have a dog, but we were working on it.
About a month later we identified a spunky-looking Schnauzer mix at a rescue called For the Love of Dogs about an hour away in Westchester County, New York. He had a lot of the qualities we were looking for, although at six he was a little old. Karin and I filled out the online forms, and after we’d been approved we drove up to visit.
His name was Chester, and he was gray and black, about twenty-five pounds and one of his bottom teeth stuck out, so that even when he closed his mouth the fang poked out between his lips. The snaggletooth made him look like a rough-and-tumble street urchin, and that seemed to go with his personality. On his walk he charged ahead, pulling on the leash, huffing and grunting at the restraint. He rolled on the ground as if he were John Belushi doing the Gator in
Animal House
. He pawed at the earth like an angry bull. We liked his spirit but wondered if he was a bit too much.
We went home. We thought about it. We loaded the kids in the car and went back a second time. They loved him, and watching him with them I could see that he was friendly and energetic, but also responsive and patient. After one more visit, we adopted him.