The Dogs Were Rescued (And So Was I) (20 page)

“I’m going to just take that as a yes, okay?”

He pawed at my hand for more. Or to, you know, shake on it. I’m sure.

We joined the Beaglefesters on the bar patio. I was so late there were only about ten folks still there, but I’ll take a small crowd over a large, noisy one any day. And for Percival, small crowds were probably better as well.

I greeted the group, but as is the case with beagle lovers, it was really all about the dogs. Most of the group had known Seamus and read our story—either in book form or on my blog. And most of them knew of our adoption of Percival. There was great crossover between the Beaglefest group and Beagle Freedom Project supporters. So everyone was excited to meet and start kissin’ on Percival. Percival, I was pleased to note, was just as excited to greet the humans. He immediately hopped up on the patio couch and introduced himself.

I love a good happy hour, but I was far more excited to see the doggie menu. It featured chicken stew, bacon strips dipped in yogurt, a grilled burger patty and gravy, and even Skippy-treats with a nondairy ice cream and scoop of peanut butter for doggie dessert—but no canine crudités plate. So adorable! But then I had a moment of anxiety as I was faced with the vegan dog-companion’s dilemma. While I searched the human happy hour menu, I also searched my conscience for what to order for Percival. Even though I did not feed them vegan meals, I tried to keep their treats vegan. As I looked around, I could see that my fellow beagle-peeps were feeding their beagles the chicken, the burger, bacon. I could just imagine trying to get Percival to settle for broccoli.

I ordered the pita and hummus for me, and the bacon and yogurt for Percival. I shouldn’t have, and I felt horrible immediately after doing it—all I could see was the adorable face of a pig who gave her life.
Her
life
so
that
my
dog
could
enjoy
a
snack
at
yappy
hour
in
a
beachside
hotel?
Oh good lord, what had I done? Who was I? I turned in my chair and searched for the already-departed server.
No! My dog would eat broccoli! And carrots!! And sprouts! Bring him sprouts! Wait! Peanut butter and nondairy ice cream is an option!! Why hadn’t I ordered that?
Percival must have sensed what was about to happen—how his dining delicacies were about to change—instantly he engaged the braking system and flung himself backward with all of his might. And this time he slipped out of the harness in one easy maneuver. His practicing had paid off. Before I even had time to shout his name or “No!” or any command that he might possibly acknowledge, he turned and bolted, as alarmed by his instantaneous freedom as I was. He ran to the indoor restaurant area and made a beeline for the kitchen, whether out of fear, luck, or that beagle sniffing skill that would always identify the scent of food, I didn’t know. And it didn’t matter.

I leapt from my chair and chased after him. My long, flowing orange patio dress and gold sandals, while no doubt making quite the flamboyant scene, were not allowing me to gain much ground on the exuberant beagle. The diners, casually but smartly dressed couples out for date night and safely away from the dog cacophony on the patio, all turned and stared, first at the blur of a dog, then at the lunatic woman in bright orange chasing the blur. And if there was ever a time one needed a quick, cute, nonembarrassing name to shout for their dog, this was it. Instead, I was running through the dining area of an elegant oceanside restaurant, on a busy Friday night, shouting, “Percival! Perc-AH-VAL!!!” I may as well have been yelling, “Percival Ramonce, young man, you get back here. You get back here right now. I’m going to count to three!” from my front porch, in a robe, with curlers in my hair and swirling a highball.

Luckily, the maitre d’ (yes, of course there was a maitre d’, and of course he saw this all happen) headed Percival off at the pass to the kitchen, and though the dog, true to his college-football-based middle name, made a sharp, nimble ninety-degree turn, he was at a loss as to what end zone he could run to. Instead, blessedly, he stopped.

“Percival, stay!” I said, apologizing as I stepped around one table and the bemused diners to get to Percival.

Apparently my command translated to “Please introduce yourself to the diners” in beagle-speak because Percival walked to the closest table and put his two front paws up on the woman’s lap to steady himself while he sniffed at her entrée. I can only hope the red in my face was complementary to the orange of my dress.

I grabbed Percival and picked him up. “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, no worries, he’s adorable,” the very kind, very patient, very wonderful woman said.

I was completely prepared to launch into his lab experiment background to garner sympathy for him (and me) if need be, but this woman was the epitome of laid-back beach cool.
Percival, you are one lucky dog.

“Thank you. And again, I’m so sorry.”

I carried Percival back out to the patio and had one of our group hold him while I tightened his harness. Just as I got the harness set and Percival strapped back into it, the server arrived with my drink (yay!) and Percival’s yogurt-dipped bacon (groan).

Forgive me, beautiful pig. And forgive me, every dog trainer in the universe. I gave a strip of bacon to Percival.

Oblivious to my moral dilemma, or perhaps sensing it, he dropped the bacon on the ground and instead turned to play with his new buddy, an adorable female beagle named Daisy. Daisy’s sister Jaxie gobbled up the bacon strip.

Chris and Daphne arrived well after yappy hour, but while some of us were still contentedly hanging out on the patio and letting the dogs play. Daphne, naturally, began to bark at the other dogs and sniffed at Percival frantically. She could tell some fun, and perhaps some food, had been enjoyed without her, and clearly this was intolerable.
Against. The. Rules
. She barked.

I took Daphne for a little walk and left Chris to enjoy his cocktail in peace, albeit with Percival standing on his lap. Percival was clearly beside himself with joy at Chris’s arrival and had immediately laid claim to him. There was no risk Percival would be running off anywhere now that Chris had arrived. Percival wanted nothing more than to bask in the glory of Chris. And lick his face.

We went to our room around ten that night. We’d had enough cocktails to not be stressed about navigating a hotel lobby, elevator, and new environs with two rescue beagles we’d had for only weeks. And the dogs seemed content to merely follow us along. All cheer yappy hour!

Chris and Daphne were as thrilled with our room as Percival and I had been. Daphne sniffed about and then very quickly made herself at home on the couch. Much to our surprise, Percival jumped up and joined her. Sure, he was four feet away and it likely only happened because the couch was as long as it was, but still—
they
were
on
the
same
couch!
I took advantage of the moment.

“Wait till you see this!” I grabbed Chris’s hand and led him to the bathroom. “
Look
at that tub!”

“Wow. Wow. I haven’t seen a tub like that since your old place!”

“Exactly! So…dare we try?”

We both poked our heads back into the living room. The beagles were asleep. Daphne’s snore was loud and deep.

“Oh yeah. We’re goin’ in,” Chris said.

The dogs did not wake as we filled the tub. They did not wake when we opened the bottle of wine that Chris brought with him. They did not wake as we turned out the lights in the room, dimmed the bathroom light, undressed, and slipped into the tub.

As far as we knew, they didn’t wake the rest of the night either. Not that we were paying a lot of attention to them…

But once the sun streamed through the windows of our gorgeous room, the beagles were up and ready for breakfast. They used their newfound tolerance of each other to gang up on us. Percival leapt onto Chris’s head and began to paw at his face, while Daphne took the more subtle approach of lying down next to me, her head sharing my pillow and her tongue licking my face—urging me to wake. I was so happy they were happy and not fighting that I overlooked my headache and lack of sleep. I got up and got their breakfast out of the bag we’d packed and stored away high up on a shelf in the closet. I fed Daphne in the bathroom and Percival in the living room, shutting the bathroom door between them. No point in testing our luck.

• • •

Close to one hundred beagles and nearly twice as many humans converged on the dog park in Huntington Beach in the morning. You could hear the howling from blocks away.
Aaarrrooooooooo!!! Aaarrrooooooooooooooo!!! Aaarrrooooooooooooooooo!!
Daphne joined the fracas from the backseat of my car while Percival concentrated on not vomiting. We found parking several blocks from the park and got the dogs out, together with our blanket and the dogs’ water bottle and snacks, and set out toward the festivities.

Beagles with their telltale white-tipped tails swarmed the lawn, with many of them congregating, not at all surprisingly, near the picnic tables and barbecue area. Daphne howled and pulled at her leash, straining to join the melee. Percival was a bit more interested in sniffing the grass and taking his time before meeting the masses. I walked ahead with Daphne while Chris let Percival do his stop-and-smell-the-flowers—or, well, the grass blades—thing.

We found some of our online friends easily (I’d met them at last year’s Beaglefest). With others it took hearing the beagle’s name to be able to place the human. It was just like going for walks with the dogs in our neighborhood. We may not know our neighbors’ names, but we know their dogs’ names. One of the best parts of Beaglefest is that no one can be in a bad mood with that many howling clown dogs around. Not even those of us who may have enjoyed yappy hour a bit too much. (I’m not naming names.)

We took Daphne and Percival to the fenced off-leash area, figuring that running a little energy out of them would not be a bad thing. Percival was thrilled to be let loose and, much to our surprise, immediately began to chase and play with the other dogs—beagles, poodles, corgis, shelties, mixed breeds of all sorts, it did not matter. Percival was happy to be free and running wild. And run he did. Daphne, on the other hand, put her nose to the ground and very methodically began to sweep the premises, carefully identifying each and every scent. “
Yep, beagle pee. Yep, that’s a poodle. Ooh, dachshund, and that’s a pug over here. Yep, yep, lots going on in this yard.
” Chris and I took a seat on a park bench with some friends. Daphne joined us after about twenty minutes of nonstop sniffing. Even a beagle nose needs a break now and then. She hopped up next to me on the bench and surveyed the park from her new vantage point.

We watched for Percival, who seemed blissfully happy to run about. I spotted him in one corner facing two dogs that were crouching in play position. Or at least, I hoped it was play position. Two more dogs ran over, and then a fifth. Percival seemed lost in the dog pile, and I was just about to hurry in Percival’s direction, offering aid, when Daphne leapt up, let out a bellowing howl, and ran toward Percival. I watched in amazement as she flung herself between Percival (now backed all the way up against the fence) and the four other dogs and howled. There was no mistaking her message:
Leave
him
alone! Or you will have me to deal with! Back off, dudes!

Chris turned to me. “Did you see what just happened?”

“I did! I’m so proud of her!”

“She came to his defense! She’s looking out for him!”

“I guess it really is like family. Family can pick on each other but nobody else gets to.”

Daphne and Percival together came sprinting back toward us, tongues hanging sideways, eyes wide, and tails wagging.
This
is
the
best
time!

“I think they’re going to be fine,” I said, petting Daphne while she licked my face.

Chris responded as best he could given the tongue washing Percival was now giving his face. “You may
mmfphtfmmm
be right. We’ll
pffmhphhmmm
see.”

Chris was seeing a glimmer of hope, while I was already booking our family Christmas photo, which somehow involved trained beagles, cuddling, smiling, and posing. I don’t even like Christmas, but why should that interfere with my hallucinations? If I was going to be having brain issues, at least some of it should be enjoyable.

I waited on the exam table in my customary and oh-so-fashionable paper towel dress. I practiced how I’d mention my restless brain syndrome and considered not saying anything at all. I hadn’t had the problem lately, so perhaps it was just stress. Normally, I never like blaming things on stress—it seems like such a cop-out. But hey, I was looking for a cop-out on this one. When the alternative is cancer metastasized to the brain, stress is my friend. Well, maybe my frenemy.

Denise, the physician’s assistant, came into the exam room. The further out I got from my diagnosis, the less I saw the oncologist himself. I liked the oncologist just fine, but I was happy to see the PA—I liked her and I liked thinking they weren’t as concerned about my health status now. I was no longer a DEFCON 1 patient. Maybe more like a 4.

She did her usual exam and began the list of usual questions. How was I feeling?
Great, I’m good. Things are fine.
Any pains?
Nope. No pain.
Any digestive or bowel issues?
Nope. All good there too.

“Great. So any complaints in general? Any changes?”

Weeeeeell…
“Um. Well. I’ve been having headaches. Well, not really headaches, more like head vibrations. I call it restless brain syndrome.” Her left eyebrow shot up, but I pushed on, hoping that was only because of the name I’d given my symptoms. “It doesn’t really hurt; it just feels like my brain is pulsating. I can’t concentrate and I can’t sleep.”

“That’s not good.”

DEFCON
3.

“No, I know. It doesn’t happen all the time, though.” Because it’s okay if your brain only shakes once in a while, right?

“How often?”

“Uh. Um. Well, maybe a couple of times a week? Usually at night but sometimes at work.”

“That’s not good.” She closed my file. “Let me get the doctor.”

DEFCON
2.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Dr. Glaspy joined us a few minutes later and I repeated my story.

“I don’t think this is anything serious. I’m not concerned this is a recurrence of your cancer,” he said.

It’s not MY cancer! I gave it back! I do not accept it!

The doctor continued, “But it’s something we should check out. Just for peace of mind.”

He was not the kind of doctor to make a pun, but I heard it that way anyway—
yes, definitely, I want my mind at peace
. The war zone in my head was not really working for me.

“Check it how?”

“I’m going to send you for a brain MRI.”

DEFCON
1 had been reached.

“A
brain
MRI?”

Over lunch I explained it to Kelle. At least she got the “peace of mind” pun, though she wasn’t really laughing.

“That’s pretty terrifying,” she said.

“Well, yes and no. I mean, it’s not like it hurts or anything.”

“Still. It’s your brain. That’s kind of serious.”

“I do use it for a few things.”

She laughed. We both paused while the waiter set down our vegan “bac-un” cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries.

“Do you think it could be stress-related?”

“Stress? What stress?” I mimicked a facial twitch.

“Right. Well, it sounds like maybe things haven’t been going so well with the dogs. I’m sure that’s stressing you out.”

She didn’t start with my job, or family things, or even my “cancer patient” status. Nope. It was the dogs. She understood what they meant to me. And since she’d had her Bogart for more than a year by then, she understood what it meant to have a Beagle Freedom Project dog too. So at last, I had someone to talk to about Percival.

“Well, it’s gotten a lot better. A lot. I think they just need time to adjust. Percival has these horrible night terrors, and it’s heartbreaking and frightening. And of course it scares Daphne. But he’s getting better with time. How did Bogart adjust when you got him? Did he and Jack get along right away?”

“I’m not a good one to ask. We just got really, really lucky with Bogart. He was easy from the moment he was rescued, so we’ve never had any issues at all. I know that’s not even fair, and Shannon teases me about taking the easiest dog, but it just turned out that way.”

“Wanna trade?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t trade Percival!”

I took a hearty bite from my burger and contemplated. “No, I would not. He’s really adorable, and I love his spirit. But Chris might want to trade.”

“No! I can’t believe that. From all the pictures you post on Facebook it looks like they’re totally in love.”

“It might be unrequited love for Percival at this point. He is obsessed with Chris. He’ll sit with me and cuddle for a while, but the moment Chris is around, Percival bolts from my lap and launches at Chris. He climbs all over him. It’s like he wants to be absorbed by Chris.”

“Awww.”

“I know. But Chris assures me it’s cuter to watch than it is to experience. He may have been scratched more than once. Especially as Percival continues to paw at Chris’s face.”

We ate in silence for a few moments until Kelle spoke up again. “I’m not forgetting about this brain MRI thing. When is your appointment?”

“I don’t have an appointment yet. They’ve got to get insurance approval first, then we’ll schedule.”

“If you want, I’ll go with you.”

I hadn’t known Kelle that long, so this was a generous offer. We’d met only months before at the Words, Wine, and Wags benefit Chris, Seamus, and I did for Beagle Freedom Project. It was easy to see we had not only a shared passion for beagles, but also a remarkably similar sense of humor. “No, just meet me for a drink after.”

“You’re on. I’m always up for that.”

“I don’t think it’s really going to be anything. Things have been better with the dogs and hence better with my brain, so that tells me something. Now, if I could just stop the nightmares and get some sleep, I’ll be just fine.”

She put her burger down. “Nightmares?”

I put my burger down too. “I told you I’d been watching all these documentaries and reading about factory farming, animal testing, and all the reasons to stay vegan? Like, you know, saving the world and all?”

“I recall.”

“Turns out, that’s kind of stressful.”

“You think? Maybe, I don’t know…stop?”

“I know, but I feel like I need to know this. I’d been in denial all this time about what I was eating, about what was happening to literally billions of animals, about what it was doing to my body. And did I tell you I finally watched
Maximum
Tolerated
Dose
?”

“No, you did not. I can’t watch that.”

“I can’t get the images out of my head.”

“And hence the headaches maybe?”

“Well, the nightmares anyway. It was all I could do to refrain from describing to everyone I dine with where their meal came from—what happened to the cow, the pig, the poor chicken they’re chowing down on. But now I want to talk about animal testing constantly. I need to tell everyone—even random strangers.”

“Oh no, don’t become that person. Is Chris vegan with you?”

I’d gotten used to answering this question. Used to it, but not comfortable with it. “He’s one-third vegan. He has vegan smoothies for breakfast with me. And he’s eating a lot better. A lot. But no, definitely not vegan.”

“So you can’t really get in the habit of discussing the animals suffering at every meal.”

“No. I can’t. I want to. But I can’t.”

“I know people who do that. It’s not effective. All it does is alienate everyone from ever dining out with you. And, you know, I’ve seen a lot of people really burn out from just throwing their all into animal rescue or advocacy—whether it’s the people rescuing the beagles, or going into shelters, or protesting circuses. You just have to be really careful to not stress yourself out. I mean, I know it’s all horrible. I know this. But you have to watch your own health too.”

“I am. I’m vegan!”

“You know what I mean.”

I did know what she meant. I
did
want to stop reading about mass-produced and mass-slaughtered animals. I didn’t want to read or see images of man’s depravity toward animals anymore. But I felt like I had to bear witness. I needed to really, deeply understand the things I’d so blindly ignored in the past. People were regularly asking me if I was “still” vegan. Like it was a fashion trend I’d tried on. And it was, originally. But I knew now I’d stay vegan. And I knew that because I’d painstakingly and painfully educated myself. I’d have nightmares, sure, but I’d stay vegan.

“I do know. But, you know, I’ve got this cute little beagle at home looking me right in the face and reminding me daily of the horrors humans inflict on animals. I can’t look away. None of us should look away.”

“Just be kind to yourself,” she said.

Back at home, I told Chris about the MRI and my conversation with Kelle. And then the next morning I did something really dumb. I posted my status update to Facebook and mentioned the impending MRI.

This was dumb for two reasons: the first is of course that random strangers (also known as Facebook “friends” I don’t know in real life) post medical advice including such useful tidbits as
MRIs
cause
cancer!
—and the other is that while my father isn’t on Facebook, his wife is. She let him know about my referral for an MRI about two-fifths of a second after I posted it. Three-fifths of a second after that my cell phone rang.

“You can’t even call your poor ol’ dad and tell him you’re going in for a checkup? And I need to find out on this Face-thing that you need an MRI?”

My dad was neither poor nor old, but he was sarcastic. “Sorry. Right. Yes, I went for my checkup and everything looks fine, but they want to do the MRI for peace of mind.”

“Well, why? There must have been a reason.”

Oh. That.
Right
. I explained my restless brain syndrome.

“When did this start?”

“Maybe six months ago?”

“When did you turn vegan?”

I had thought it was odd that my oncologist didn’t ask about any change in diet—not even when my weigh-in showed me at least twenty pounds lighter. (I may have gained back a bit of the initial weight I lost. Wine will do that.) But now I didn’t want my veganism blamed for anything.

“No, that’s been well over a year ago now.”
Or, you know, thirteen months ago. That’s more than a year.

“When did you learn Seamus was terminal?”

Tears sprung to my eyes. I knew where my dad was going…that ol’ favorite “stress” bully. “February. Three months ago.”

“You need magnesium. I’ll bet that’s what it is.”

“Magnesium?”

“Magnesium is a mineral, stress depletes it from your body, and you may not have been getting enough in the first place. When your magnesium gets low, you can suffer from depression and muscle spasms. And insomnia.”

A spasm was a good way to describe what my brain had been doing, but “brain spasm” did not sound better than restless brain syndrome. On the other hand, “take magnesium supplement” sounded much, much better than “brain MRI” or “cancer recurrence.”

My dad is a chiropractor and has been one for over forty years. He believes in vitamins and supplements, eating right, and holistic health methods. He also paid careful attention when I went through cancer treatments, gave me excellent advice on handling the side effects of chemo, and believed in my surgeon and my oncologist, but closely followed what they were doing. I get my logic from him. My penchant for fainting over the sight of blood or the mention of the word “stit…” I do not get from him. I don’t know where that comes from; I just know it isn’t going anywhere.

“That’s interesting. I did not know that. I’ve been taking vitamin B
12
and vitamin D, but I hadn’t read that I also needed magnesium.”

“Well, have you been under stress lately?”

This was likely a rhetorical question. My dad had held the position of “dad” in my life for, well, my whole life (and the nine-month period immediately preceding it). He excelled at the position. Telling him I was not stressed would have worked about as well as saying it to Chris, who was witnessing my stress on a daily basis. Normally I find discussions of stress to be ludicrous. What adult over the age of, say, twenty-five does not have stress in their lives? Life
is
stressful.

“Maybe a bit of stress, yes.”

“Are you still doing yoga?”

I assumed sulking child pose: “No.”

“Walking?”

I assumed defensive adult pose: “Sometimes. Maybe. Well, Chris is walking the dogs. He’s got them on this dual leash thing I bought at the Pet Expo…”
Deflect! Deflect!
“It’s working really well to force them to cooperate with each other. It’s helping them bond and they’re fighting less.”

“You’ve got to do something to get your stress under control.” It’s like he didn’t even see the bait I threw out!
Puppies! Walking in tandem! With someone else…

• • •

If people I respected—Chris, my dad, Kelle, basically anybody I respected enough to actually talk about the problem with—were all coming to the same conclusion, my logic was going to lead me there as well (gently, ever so gently). Maybe, just maybe, I’d not been handling my stress well. And maybe, just possibly, I’d brought some of it on myself. Being sent for a brain MRI brings a certain clarity to one’s life.

Perhaps I’d been approaching my veganism incorrectly. I remembered something I’d said in India: “Stop saying India is hard when you are
making
it hard!” I had to laugh. I’d been so unforgiving and self-righteous then. And yet maybe I had made my own life as a vegan hard. Maybe there was a better way of doing it. A way that perhaps didn’t involve nightmares of butchered little piglets.

Maybe I was trying to control too much. To do too much.
I
couldn’t save Seamus, so by Buddha, I’d save all the world’s animals!
Was that what I’d been raging against—what happened to Daphne, to Percival, and the cancer that had taken Seamus before that? And what had I changed? What good had all my rage brought? It brought me an appointment with an MRI machine.