“I should have stopped the car. He’s probably dead by now.”
I looked in horror at my wife, Linda, riding calmly in the passenger seat. What had she just said?
We had to talk. Now. I screeched my car into the nearest turn-off, the parking lot of a fast-food place. The car behind me honked and swerved. The lady in the take-out window leaned out to stare. The giant hot dog, hamburger, and soda cup festooning the building loomed over us.
“You… You ran over a pedestrian and left the scene?” I stammered.
“No, you doofus! As usual, you weren’t listening to a word I said. When I was driving to my hair appointment this morning, I saw a dog going through our neighborhood who could barely walk. One back leg wouldn’t work at all, and the other was only half-working—it kept collapsing every few steps. I looked for him as I drove back home, but I didn’t see him anywhere.”
Thank heaven for small things, I said to myself. She’d for sure have hauled him home.
“Sorry about my drifting off,” I said. “I was just worrying about work, as usual. This past week was really bad. I’m glad it’s Saturday.”
“A two-and-a-half-legged dog,” I added. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those.”
* * *
Muffin was nuts. So, when our quirk-laden Husky mix began whirling herself in circles around the coffee table, we paid little mind. Muffin chose to do such things from time to time, for reasons known only to her.
But then she commenced zipping back and forth amid spin cycles, to snort and sniff at the front door crack. Even Axl, Muffin’s befuddled giant of a pack mate, began taking notice, lifting first an eyelid and then his head.
“Up,” said Linda. “We’re gonna check this out.” We rose from the sofa, and I flashed her a friendly eye roll. Muffin’s antics, an irritant in times past, now provided comic relief from the dissonance of my workweek.
As I opened the door, all seemed normal. The intermittent rain had stopped with the daylight’s fading, and the cool wind made my coatless arms shudder. The Christmas lights on our cul-de-sac fought to pierce the fog. The Saturday traffic hummed and hurried on the mile-away interstate highway which bisected our small East Tennessee city.
But what was that odor?
“Down there,” said Linda. “On the welcome mat. It’s some sort of animal.”
I switched on the porch light. We stepped over the motionless creature and knelt a few feet away.
“Oh my gosh!” said Linda. “It’s him—the two-and-a-half-legged dog!”
The small male dog had arrived collarless, disturbingly scrawny, and with drenched, disheveled, and squalid fur. His skin descended into the gaps of his ribcage like a landscape of small hills and valleys. We saw no sign of movement.
The dog’s choice of our home as a refuge from his misfortunes unnerved me. It seemed an uncomfortable reminder of the tremors rumbling through my own life.
“Is… Is he breathing?” Linda asked.
“I can’t tell.”
I winced. The quiver in Linda’s voice had signaled the stirring of her compassion for all things dog—the same compassion which had brought Muffin’s and Axl’s unhinged presences into our lives—and kept them there. Linda had authored our household’s dog adoption doctrine: “Once Here, Always Here.”
Linda retrieved bowls of water and dog food from the kitchen, and placed them alongside our visitor. We returned inside, to give him a chance, if alive, to partake. After twenty minutes, both bowls lay untouched. Another thirty minutes, and ditto.
The third time, though, was the charm. Portions of the food and water were gone. The dog’s head, aloft and shivering, stared past us toward some impenetrable dimension.
We pondered our dilemma. The Animal Shelter and the veterinary clinics had closed for the evening. And our handling of the fragile-seeming dog could exacerbate any injuries he might have.
“What’s happening out here?”
Our living-at-home, college-senior daughter, Karen, had returned from her evening jaunt. She’d noticed her parents gesticulating under the porch light, as she pulled into the driveway. We briefed her, and she offered a solution which harked back to her mom’s portion of her DNA.
“He can stay in my room tonight. I’ll crack the window a tad, to help with the, um, aroma. If he doesn’t make it to morning, at least he’ll have been warm, and with people and dogs nearby.”
I stooped to hoist and carry the bundle of grimy sinew to Karen’s room, but he shrugged my hands away. After a cringeworthy exertion, he stood and hobbled, at Linda’s direction, through the open front door.
His right rear leg dangled and dragged, and his head and tail hung low. He lurched down the hallway in slow motion, like a drunken sailor on a stormy sea. His left rear leg crumpled midway to Karen’s room, collapsing his entire stern section. Struggling for traction, he rose from the now-soggy carpet and resumed his slog. Muffin and Axl gawked in silence from the kitchen entranceway.
We led him onto a makeshift assemblage of old towels on Karen’s bedroom floor. He collapsed into them with a world-weary sigh and squinted toward us through mucus-heavy eyes.
“Goodnight, little guy,” I said. “We’ll find your humans tomorrow and get you back home.”
I left the dog to deal with his miseries. I headed upstairs to my home office, to work at dealing with my own.
* * *
When morning came, the new arrival, as best we could tell, was neither worse nor better. His treks to the backyard for morning bathroom breaks had been uncomfortable to watch.
“Your parents will be here any minute,” Linda said, as early afternoon arrived. “Did you forget?”
Yikes! Indeed, I did. Most Sunday afternoons, we’d drive the 40-mile round trip to visit my mom and dad at their home. They’d picked today, though, for one of their occasional reciprocal drop-ins.
I enjoyed their visits, but I hoped their presence wouldn’t conflict with our main mission of the day—reuniting the lost dog with his family. The new arrival, in fact, was now closeted with Karen in her room, as she phoned the area animal shelters and rescue agencies.
I scrambled to herd the ever-scuffling Muffin and Axl into separate rooms upstairs. We’d long let my mom—a fervid believer that dogs should be banned from human houses—assume that our two lived in the backyard.
Linda and I welcomed my parents and led them to the living room, where we four sank into sofas and commenced chatting. Moments later, I heard Karen’s door open. She greeted her grandparents and turned to Linda and me.
“We have a problem,” she said, her exasperated sigh warning us that things had not gone well.
“None of the shelters have a ‘Missing’ report for him. The rescue agencies don’t either. I even called a few of the bigger ones in other counties close to us. I’ll call the vet clinics when they open tomorrow. But, bottom line: I don’t think we’re gonna be able to find his owner.”
“What’s going on?” asked my dad. I told him of our visitor, and he began to respond.
But whoa… What was that smell? My mom blanched, as our canine Pig-Pen wobbled and flopped into the room. He made a ponderous semi-beeline toward my dad.
“Oh, my,” my mom said, cringing back into her chair. My dad, an inveterate dog lover of long standing, reached down to pet the ratty fur.
“So, what will you do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We didn’t expect this. The last thing we need right now is another dog.” My mom’s nod of assent was less than subtle.
“No problem,” I told her. “Our guiding principle these days is ‘No New Complications.’ And a new dog would indeed be a complication.” I didn’t mention that our curtailment of new complexity was due to the surfeit of complications at my job. Glaur, the large company at which I’d spent my entire working life, was unravelling faster than a ball of yarn besieged by kittens.
“Perhaps you needn’t worry,” she said. “The poor little dog seems in really bad shape. I’d be surprised if he makes it through another night.” My usually optimistic dad’s head-dip of concurrence with my mom’s pessimism caught me unawares.
Karen steered the dog back toward her room. She returned to update her grandparents with a sanitized version of her latest college doings. Her grades were fine, as was her social life. She couldn’t believe graduation to be only five months away. She and her boyfriend, now off at an out-of-state school, were writing and talking regularly.
After further chit-chat, my mom signaled the visit’s end by rising and easing toward the front door. My dad hung back, struggling to broach an awkward subject.
“Have things gotten any better at work?” he finally asked.
“No, Dad, it’s rougher than ever. Several more of my friends have left the company. And others may do the same.”
“I hate that. They’ve been mighty good to you at Glaur, with promotions and titles and such. And with raises and appreciation, too, so you’ve said.”
“Unfortunately, it’s a different ‘they’ running Glaur these days,” I said. “The old ‘they’ knew how to operate in our crazy industry, and how to treat their employees. The new ‘they’ haven’t a clue on either score.”
With determined intention, I’d left out much of what I could have told my dad about this most unpleasant of topics. Bad news and bad decisions now permeated most workdays. Salaries had been frozen. Positions were being cut. Bankruptcy rumors were swirling. Pessimism, uncertainty, and mistrust had descended on us like waves of pharaoh-worthy plagues.
The internal impact on me had been severe, as pent-up anger continually gushed forth. I’d by now ceased to care—about much of anything, but especially about work-related matters. I doubted that key elements of my battered core—commitment, motivation, judgment, self-confidence, and trust—would ever be the same.
As I mulled how best to switch subjects, Axl lobbed an insistent woof from the guest bedroom upstairs. My mom, puzzled, peered toward the stairs.
I hustled my parents out the front door, just as Axl transitioned into a full-blown howl. My discomfort at discussing my job—even with my dad—was exceeded only by my desire to avoid an encounter between the freak-out-prone Axl and my mom. The big guy would likely have confirmed every dog phobia she’d ever had.
* * *
As my parents drove away, I grimaced inside at the earlier reminder of my growing-up years. My parents, so lovingly compatible on virtually every level, had sat on polar-opposite ends of the dog-appreciation spectrum. I’d struggled, then and since, to determine where on that spectrum I fit.
During our growing-up years, my dad had brought home five different dogs as pets for my little sister and me. They’d been forbidden, of course, to enter our house, and my mom had invariably referred to each of them as “that old dog”—regardless of their ages. Over time, she’d managed to find reasons that every one of the five “old dogs”—plus two litters of puppies—should be given away.
I’d not truly bonded with any of them—most weren’t with us long enough for that process to even begin. But the fifth dog, Mutt, who managed to stick around through my high school years, came close. I’d play with him occasionally, and we seemed to appreciate each other’s company. But girls, cars, buddies, and school had sopped up vast portions of my time. And Mutt was outside. I was inside, or else I was gone. He’d deserved far better.
Later that afternoon, Linda, Karen, and I reconsidered our game plan. A veterinary appointment, for tomorrow after work, seemed the best option. By subjecting our visitor to a rigorous vet assessment, we’d get the best possible information for deciding his future.
The dog’s lethargy, the dysfunction of his hind legs, his dazed expression, his limited interest in us, his lack of appetite despite the severe loss of weight—all made us consider whether my mom’s negativity might not, this time, be on target. So, we expected a sad prognosis from the vet—that the dog would soon die of his maladies, or that euthanasia would be the kindest of paths.
After our discussion, I mused about my having never fully connected with either our “growing-up” dogs, or with Karen’s adoptees. I didn’t share, nor had I ever understood, my mom’s persistent animus toward the canine species.
But was I an all-in “dog person,” like my dad? Definitely not, I thought. But, as this latest dog-arrival episode pointed out, I needed to figure it out for certain. And soon.
* * *
“We’ll take him to the back now, for the X-rays, shots, and blood work,” Dr. Helms said. As the vet tech carried the dog out of the examining room, he looked directly into my eyes, with unmistakable anxiety. When she brought him back minutes later, another ocular connection took place.
X-rays were developed, tests were analyzed, and conclusions were drawn. I braced for the worst, as Dr. Helms prepared to speak. I glanced at Linda, and surmised she was doing the same. The vet’s conclusion was a surprise.
“He’s going to live.”
The dog had come to the very edge of perishing, Dr. Helms told us, from dehydration and near-starvation. He’d lost, she estimated, a third of his body weight. His journey, she speculated, had likely occurred over several weeks. That he’d used his last depths of energy to reach a place where care and safety awaited seemed something of a miracle.
“There’s lots of damage here,” she said. “Some of it can be fixed, but some can’t.”
One eye, damaged by exposure to the weather, would never regain its sight. The X-rays indicated he’d been struck by a car earlier in life, and his hip had required surgery as a result. The muscles and tendons needed for walking on his right rear leg seemed not to have survived the accident, and he’d be unlikely to ever use it again. The left rear leg, though, should recover fully, following more time and rest.
A urinary tract infection was raging, and his tear glands weren’t producing sufficient tears. Other afflictions could be lurking as well. No owner-identifying microchip had been present. And she estimated his age at six, but noted that he could well be older.
“It’s not a great verdict for him,” Dr. Helms said. “He’ll likely be disabled, sickly, and with low energy, for the rest of his life. But surviving an ordeal this extreme shows us—quite dramatically, in fact—what this dog is all about.”
* * *
The day—work, plus the vet visit—had drained me. Nightfall, bedtime, and dozing off had been like the most welcome of friends.
But what’s going on now? Oh, I’m dreaming. This one is strange. Different. Interesting. Gonna ride it out and see what happens.
I’m in a courtroom. Lots of onlookers out in the spectator seats. Some seem to be dogs, and the others human. Can’t make out any faces clearly, except for three of them.
The two-and-a-half-legged dog is sitting in the middle of the front row. On his left sits a SpongeBob-ish, cartoon-like version of one of my dad’s DNA molecules. On the dog’s right sits a similar version of my mom’s DNA. The two molecules keep leaning forward, to point toward the other dogs in the room, to argue about them, and to glare at each other.
Up front is a long judicial bench, where all the judges sit. Kinda like the Supreme Court’s bench, I suppose.
And look at those judges, in their robes. But wait. The judges are dogs! Hilarious! They’re all climbing out of their chairs now, and scrambling onto the top of the bench.
And wow. These aren’t just dogs. I know these dogs! At least I used to. They’re all the dogs we had while I was growing up.
Those two smaller ones on the end closest to me. They’re Buddy and Pal, my first two dogs, from back in toddlerhood. They’re looking at me now, with their tails wagging.
Surely they can’t remember me. But Buddy is scurrying toward me. Pal grabs his collar and pulls him back. They’d barely reached puppy adolescence when my mom ordered my dad to return them whence he’d gotten them.
On the other side of Pal sits Fuzzy, the handsome Collie my Uncle Morton had given me. Shortly after Fuzzy joined us, though, a rambunctious play session had ended with him knocking me, laughing, onto my four-year-old keister. My horrified mom, convinced of my eternal fragility, had hastened Fuzzy back to my uncle.
Next to Fuzzy is Topsy, our beautiful Cocker Spaniel of several years. Behind her squirms her two litters of ultra-cute puppies, which my mom had banished within weeks of their births. And, once old age had injected contrariness into Topsy’s disposition, she herself soon departed, in a baffling disappearance—involving, our mom told us, Topsy’s being relocated, via railroad boxcar, to a mysterious uncle’s onion farm in far-off Texas.
And that leaves Mutt. A most noteworthy pet, he’d managed to avoid banishment for over six years. But when my parents moved to another state following my first year of college, my mom had decreed that no animals could come with us to the new digs. So Mutt, now well into advanced age, had been dispatched to live with another family, as were my sister’s parakeets.
Mutt’s tenure with the new family ended soon after it began. An accidental fall from a high porch, we were told, had brought his life to an end. I’d been surprised by the depth of my resulting sadness, and by my anger. Why, I wondered, couldn’t I, my dad, and my sister have finally pushed back against my mom? And why could I not have found a college residence suitable for the keeping of a pet?
But Mutt now sits in the center of the judge’s bench, and to the front of the other dogs. He seems, somehow, to be in charge of this crazy, dream-world canine court. He rises to his feet and looks me in the eye. And from his mouth thunders forth not a bark-stream, but the sonorous tones and perfect English of a Shakespearean actor.
“This ‘No New Complications’ doctrine of which you speak,” he says. “Explain it to us.” Each member of the dog judiciary leans forward and toward me. I rise from the lawyers’ table and face them.
“The company where I’ve worked since college is falling apart,” I say. “The career I’ve loved and enjoyed is drawing to a close. With what shall I replace it? The options aren’t good. I’m confused. And saddened. And troubled. I feel that I’m now at the lowest point of my life.
“So, my wife and my daughter have agreed with me that, until my career is back on solid ground, we’ll keep our lives just as simple as we can. That means no major expenditures, or new projects around the house. No car trade-ins. No new commitments for doing volunteer stuff. No long-distance trips or vacations.”
I look down, gulp, and look back toward the furry judges. “And no new pets.”
The dogs gaze back and forth at each other, growling softly. Mutt’s voice silences them.
“And the doctrine which you call ‘Once Here, Always Here.’ Explain that to us.” I gulp again.
“Since we’ve been married, my wife and I have adopted three homeless dogs,” I say. “Not all of them proved to be, shall we say, ideal pets. If Muffin were here, I could label her as ‘Exhibit A.’
“‘Once Here, Always Here’ means that, except for the most extreme of circumstances, we’d never send a dog away that we’d already accepted into our home. That’s always seemed the fairest approach to take.”
“And how wise your words do sound,” Mutt says. He waves a front paw at the dogs to his left and then to his right. “We here have all felt the sting of being banished from our home.”
Each dog, including the puppies, begins barking at me. My mom’s DNA molecule sits up in its seat, crosses its arms, and juts out its chin in defiance. My dad’s molecule, likely remembering his tacit complicity in the banishments, lowers its head and slumps in its seat.
A clarion bark from Mutt restores the room to order. He stares at me in silence for several seconds. He raises a front leg, and points his paw toward the dog with the two-and-a-half functioning legs.
“So, is this lad not already ‘Here’ at your residence? And if he’s ‘Once Here,’ then why would he not be ‘Always Here?’ Would you banish him without cause, just as your mom banished us? Do you speak truth, or do you not?”
I snap back to wakefulness—sitting up and drenched in sweat. Stunned. Puzzled. Exhausted. Deeply troubled.
* * *
The early morning sunlight streamed through the sliding glass door separating our dining area and patio. Its rays obscured the glass table top, as they danced with the steam rising from our coffee cups. We’d gathered around the table for a post-breakfast, pre-work, pre-class family meeting.
“We have two choices,” said Karen. “We can keep him, or turn him over to the Shelter. If he stays, I’m willing to be the owner and take care of him. But it’s your house, so we should decide this together.”
“I can’t see a dog in his condition being adopted,” said Linda. “And the Shelter is always overcrowded. Taking him there would be a death sentence.”
“With all the turmoil in my work life right now, the last thing we need is another dog,” I said. “Of all the houses in the city, why did he have to come to ours?”
“If he stays here, he’ll need lots of love and special care from us,” said Karen.
“He’ll need special care from the veterinarian as well,” I said. “Considering all that’s wrong with him, those vet bills could be high. And if the company goes under, I may well end up unemployed.”
“He seems more alert and engaged today,” said Linda. “In fact, I wonder if he’s beginning to bond with us. At least with some of us.” She scowled in my direction.
“But he’s not bonding with Axl or Muffin,” I said. “Nor is he likely to. Muffin has a bullying streak. And Axl might well attack a smaller dog during one of his freak-out episodes. As fragile as the dog is, we’d need to be on constant alert, to protect him from his loopy pack mates.”
“I’ve felt we should keep him,” said Linda, looking toward me. “But you’re the one with the fracturing work life and all the stress. So, it needs to be your call. And you’ve made your feelings plain.”
At that point, a panorama of the prior night’s dream images began sequencing through my mind, with machine-gun rapidity. And a vaguely familiar potion began stirring to life inside me. It burrowed through the encrusted dregs of my job-induced funk, and burst into the open as two tiny bits of moisture in a corner of each eye.
I then recognized them for what they were: the first drops of humanity I could recall feeling in quite some time.
“I think we should keep him,” I said.
Linda’s and Karen’s stunned silence was followed by an apparent fear that I might change my mind. To head off that possibility, they commenced ticking off a list of canine-related to-do items. He’d need a collar, an ID tag, a harness, and a leash. An immediate bath. And a groomer appointment, to deal with the unkempt fur. A dog bed, a food bowl, and food to go in it. And, of course, toys. I nodded my concurrence with it all.
And then, like a curtain being drawn to unveil the first act of a play, the sun changed its angle just enough to remove its reflection from the table top. I looked down through the glass, to the carpet beneath.
The dog sat there looking up at us.
But wait. There was more. I glimpsed the reflection of my unshaven countenance atop the table’s glass surface.
The face of a dog lover stared back at me.