Little Boy Blue (31 page)
I tried a few times to carry him into the garage, holding him close and telling him in my most soothing, aloe-vera voice that nobody would ever hurt him again, but whenever I put him down to open the door to the Jeep, he pressed his belly flat against the concrete garage floor and made himself dead weight. When he realized that I would then pick him up off the floor and put him into the Jeep, anyway, he started dashing to hide under it, where I couldn’t reach him. Then he got smart enough to run around inside the house when he saw me grab his leash, so that I couldn’t pick him up to take him into the garage in the first place.
Our trainers at Top Dog told me that Blue’s level of fear was something they’d rarely seen. It was deeper than normal, even for a puppy who had not been properly exposed to cars early in life.
“The only way to break his bad association with cars is to create a new, happy association,” one trainer told me. “And there’s no easier way to create a happy association than by giving a puppy treats and food.”
Thus, twice a day for about three weeks, I created a treasure trail of treats across my den and into my garage—right before Blue’s breakfast and dinner times, when he was likely to be hungriest. And slowly but surely, he began to follow the trail, sucking up each treat like a Hoover on high speed and inching his way closer and closer to the garage. Once or twice, he looked up from his treats, realized how close he was to entering the garage, and fled back to the safety of the kitchen. But for the most part the plan was working, so the trainers had me take it up a notch.
Now that I could get Blue to the garage without fear, it was time to get him into the Jeep itself. I’d let him follow his trail of treats, and I’d be waiting at the end to scoop him into my arms. I’d then carry him across the garage and place him in the Jeep, where he would find his bowl full of dog food waiting on the seat. This confused him at first, but by the second or third day, it became a standard part of our daily routine. He no longer tucked his tail or flashed panicked eyes upon entering the garage. Around the middle of week two, he started walking across the garage and hopping up into the Jeep by himself, without me having to do anything but tell him “good boy” as he downed his breakfast and dinner.
Soon, all it took was a treat or two to get him ready for a ride, and then no food at all. Blue finally accepted that when he was with me, he was safe and good things would happen.
A lot of good things, actually, way bigger than him and me both.
The Days to Come
One of my favorite things about Blue is that he’s a snuggler. Floyd was a snuggler, and Stella was not. When Floyd died after sharing nearly sixteen years of my life, it wasn’t just the loss of his companionship that crushed me. It was also the loss of his warm ears and paws cuddled up against me on the sofa at night. While Stella always stuck to her spot on the ottoman, Blue took immediately to sitting in Floyd’s old seat next to me on the sofa, sometimes snuggling even closer. And to this day, Blue is funny about the way he does it. He likes to “air things out,” shall we say, flopping upside down with his head on my lap and his, well, you know, dangling in the breeze below the ceiling fan.
It’s these kinds of quirky characteristics that you remember when a dog you love dies. It’s these kinds of things that help you smile again. I’m not yet sure what memories will stay with me after Blue is gone, since he’s not even two years old as I write this. Hopefully, he has at least another decade worth of memories yet to make.
I do know Blue well enough already to know that there will be plenty of happy memories, like him winning the Puppy Olympiad at dog school. There will be some funny memories, like the day that he came barreling through the doggy door covered in mud and jumped with absolute glee into my arms, slathering me in the stuff along with his kisses. There will be countless inspiring memories, like all the times he has found just a little bit more confidence to say hello to new people while forgetting whatever human unkindness so frightened him in the past.
At the same time, I also know that my love for Blue will make his death just as difficult for me as Floyd’s was. The ride to the veterinarian with Floyd cradled in my arms, unable to hold up his own head, was unbearable. Floyd’s heart beating weakly against my thigh as the vet inserted the needle, and then the moment when I felt his heartbeat stop, was devastating. I could barely let go of Floyd’s lifeless body, I was crying so hard. The only saving grace was knowing that I had kept him as safe and made sure he had as good a life as I could until his very last breath, just as I now plan to do with my little boy Blue.
Floyd’s death was an actual act of euthanasia—helping a living creature to die with mercy, to end incurable pain and suffering. That’s what the word euthanasia means. Floyd was so old and frail that on the morning we finally made the hard decision to put him down, he could no longer stand without wobbling or drink more than a few sips of water from my fingertips. The deed barely took fifteen seconds from start to finish, and he didn’t appear to feel a thing beyond the comfort of my arms and the relief of no longer wheezing to get air into his dying lungs. It was the opposite of the gas chambers that kill so many dogs like Blue—inside buildings called shelters that are not in any way places of refuge. Too many of those dogs experience scary, painful asphyxiation punctuated by their bodies being shoveled into a pile of puppies at a garbage dump. The contrast is absolutely staggering. It takes my own breath away.
Just as paralyzing to me is the realization that, instead of working primarily to save the lives of healthy, adoptable puppies and dogs, so many people still have to fight to ensure that they at least die peacefully, without pain or torture. That certain regions of the United States continue to argue about gas chambers versus lethal injection, well, to me that’s just ridiculous. The conversation should long ago have moved on to how best we can find homes for dogs like Blue while enhancing spay and neuter operations—not remain stuck in the mire of the least-offensive way to kill them en masse.
I recognize that to a lot of folks, I’m one of “those people” when it comes to dogs. I know that I don’t treat my own like animals. I spoil them rotten and let them sleep in my bed and ask them to give me kisses on my face. They are my family. I would step in front of a moving car to protect my dogs, or to save my parents’ dog, or to guard my sister’s dog, just the same way I would for my parents or my sister themselves. For me, it would be instinctual. I’d have shattered ankles and elbows from oncoming traffic before my brain fully engaged, and even after my synapses fired, they’d never register the message “it’s only a dog.” If anyone ever tried to hurt Blue again, they would most definitely have to deal with me first. And man, would they have to shed blood and break bones to even try to get past me.
I’ve noticed my protective instincts growing even stronger with Blue than with any other dog I’ve known. It’s because of his personality, which is so loving and sweet once he knows a person, but so cautious and timid until he feels safe. Dogs don’t bury the traumas of their childhoods deep down in their souls the way people do, letting them fester and ooze out later in life with cruelty or violence toward others. Dogs instead wear their histories on their faces and in their movements every day. Whenever Blue sees a stranger and crouches instead of wagging his tail immediately, his personal life story is on display. The details of his journey become almost irrelevant. The desire to soothe him is as natural to me as the impulse to seek shelter from a powerful storm.
What gives me the most hope for all the great shelter dogs like him is not just the inspiring number of volunteers now working nationwide to help as many pooches as possible, but the fact that so many everyday people who meet Blue—people who know nothing of gas chambers or transports—are visibly moved by his character. They may not be as nuts as I am in their love for dogs, but their own natural instinct is to show him kindness and love, too. Blue has an innate quality that just plain brings out the best in people. If he’s friendly and happy when he meets them, then they’re friendly and happy in response. If he’s a little shy and reserved at first, then they calm their personality a notch or two to put him at ease. If for some reason a person spooks him—most often a man carrying a walking stick, umbrella, or cane—then the person typically stops moving altogether and looks to me for guidance.
“He’s very sweet and loving,” I say to those people, “but he’s a little cautious around people because of whatever happened to him before he came to live with me.”
Almost every time, the person will sigh with disgust, say something like, “What the heck is wrong with some people?” and crouch down to Blue’s level so he can sniff and say hello. If the person is physically able, he will gently place his walking stick or cane behind his back, so Blue no longer has to even look at it. “See that?” the person usually says to Blue as the entire world shrinks away and leaves only the trusting gaze between them. “Nobody is going to hurt you here, fella. You have my personal word on that.”
One of the best ways to help a puppy learn confidence is to put him into situations where he is likely to meet friendly people. The more people who pet him and show him love, the more likely he is to trust humans in the future. I thus was happy to take Blue with me on the day that I went to cheer a friend in a triathlon in a cute little New Jersey enclave called Tuckerton. It’s a small borough in Ocean County that is best known for being home to Tuckerton Seaport, a living-history museum that tells the story of the region’s clamming and boating heritage. While most people think of places like nearby Atlantic City as being the real New Jersey—filled with flash- ing and tacky lights, rowdy teenagers causing trouble on the boardwalk, and the occasional mobster humming a Bruce Springsteen tune in between visits to the kinds of strip clubs made famous on
The Sopranos
—I know places like Tuckerton to be the true backbone of my home state. It’s a quiet little place that gets inundated during the summer months by tourists from New York City and beyond, but that most of the year is brought to life by everyday working people who spend their afternoons reveling in their good fortune to have such a picturesque view of the Atlantic Ocean. Tuckerton is Americana as painted by nature in seaside style, with the endless tide washing away yesterday’s footprints and offering a new canvas beneath every sunrise.
We traveled there so that I could cheer at the finish line when my friend completed his first triathlon. I was excited about the day, but horribly nervous about the two-hour drive south along the Garden State Parkway. Blue was still wrestling with his fear of cars, and though my friend offered to drive, we would be inside my Jeep. I knew that Blue would be sitting on my lap in the passenger seat throughout the entire ride, and that if he got carsick as usual, it would be all over my pants.
As it turned out, my belly was more nervous than Blue’s. I spent the first fifteen or so miles of the drive petting him gently and telling him that he was a good boy so constantly that my voice sounded like Muzak being piped into an elevator at a health spa. Around mile thirty, I caught myself watching him as he stared at the cars ahead of us through the windshield, cocking his noggin occasionally when he heard a horn or a radio blaring. By mile sixty, he was napping on my lap, his six-month-old head cradled into my elbow for a pillow. We might as well have been snuggling on his favorite cushion at home, he was so content.
The triathlon course in Tuckerton is right alongside the beach, so the first thing I did when we arrived was take Blue for a walk on the sand. While other dogs tend to barrel into the lapping surf like a Big Kahuna on Maui, Blue, always so cautious with new things, took his time figuring out the ways of the water. He’d try to sniff the salty stuff when it flooded toward him, and then he would yip and yelp when it receded. It was as if the tides were taunting him the way a big bully keeps a shiny toy out of a smaller child’s grasp. Blue delighted in chasing the waves for a few minutes, not quite finding the courage to wade in deep enough to swim, but absolutely thrilled to be part of the fun. It seemed he was going to feel right at home in New Jersey, after all.
I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as sand crabs in Person County, North Carolina, which is landlocked just shy of two hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The odds are thus good that this day was the first time Blue ever encountered the critters, which would explain why the scent of them just below the surface made him explode with excitement. These crustaceans are no bigger than the average human thumb, and they spend much of their time buried just deep enough to camouflage themselves safely in the sand, but not so deep that they’ll miss out on whatever nourishment the tide washes in. Blue spotted his first sand crab about ten minutes after we stepped foot on the beach, when it skedaddled past him like a flash of lightning. He whipped his head around, stiffened himself on all four feet, and somehow intuited that he was standing atop a gold mine of fun. He then began digging for more sand crabs with the fervor of an obsessive-compulsive mole trying to plow straight through the middle of the planet and then back out the other side to China.