a girl and her dog
I had a brief moment when my life was not as overwhelmed as it usually seems to be, and I happened across an online photo of a dog in the LA County Shelters. Yesterday I stopped at a shop called Maxwell Dog in Studio City and bought a raftload of pet supplies, then drove off north on the long ride to Lancaster. At Maxwell Dog, a man paying at the counter asked me about one of the items I was buying, and I said, "I don't know anything about it -- I don't have the dog yet. I'm going off to meet this guy now." I showed him the picture from the website, and he said, "Look at that face! This is very exciting." "Yes," I said, "and I'm very excited." He wished me luck.
I had no idea what was going to happen; the county shelters tell you nothing -- not if the dog is housebroken; not if he's psychotic. It's a total crapshoot. I thought I'd drive out to Lancaster, hang with the dog for a little while, and see how we took to each other.
Lancaster is high desert country, and a longish ride from LA, but I'd been looking for a standard poodle mix for a long time -- poodle, because they're recommended for allergy sufferers; standard because they're less likely to end up coyote food if they run off. Though as the woman behind the counter at Maxwell Dog said, "That's no standard." True, he's too small -- someone was on crack when they wrote that. Nonetheless, I drove away north through the mountains, a leash and two differently sized collars in my bag, and a trunk full of pet things. There was one moment when I was coming down a hill and looked off to the east, where the Hopperesque light streaked the mountains with brights and shadows -- level upon level of varying heights; one long stripe of green, with gray and streaks of snow above. The light was shining on the green, and a small white plane was illuminated just at the moment it was banking, turned halfway onto its back as it rose like a big white bird, as though for the sheer joy of it; and for that moment I felt privileged to be alive, fifty year-old woman with bad feet and chronic fatigue or not.
The ride got more prosaic quickly, but then, life is like that. I reached the vast horizontal that is the Lancaster area, and waited in line at the pound. There the man told me that I needed to pay them $37, since the dog had been neutered for me. What what what? I just came to chat -- well, okay, and take him home after that, but shouldn't we see if we were compatible? The man agreed I could go meet the dog, but that I'd find him at "the clinic" -- he'd been operated on just a few hours ago. I discovered him lying in a cage, looking pitiful indeed. His fur was long and matted. He lifted his head and looked at me with sad dark eyes, then laid his head back down.
The woman whose car was parked next to mine advised me on which seat to put him in, and added, "He looks so regal sitting there, doesn't he?" "That works out well," I said, "because I'm naming him Harry." We rode the long ride back to LA in the dark with Harry sitting in the front passenger seat, mostly resting, but occasionally looking over at me, or out at the lights of passing trucks. I said, "It'll be all right, Harry." And it would be, one way or another; if for some reason this didn't work out, I thought, I can arrange for him to be a real rescue dog -- to go to one of the places where they pamper the pets and check out potential owners.
Once home, I introduced him to the bed I'd gotten for him. His gaze passed over it in a "yeah, whatever" way, and he turned to look at other things. Later, though, when I was making dinner and couldn't pay him as much attention, I turned to find him back in the living room, lying on the dog bed, head up and his dark eyes peering toward the kitchen as though to say, "See? I knew where you wanted me, and I'm happy to do it." He was so gentlemanly, I took a chance and instead of putting him behind a gate in the bathroom with newspapers over the floor, I let him stay out and sleep in his bed in the living room.
I still don't know how this will turn out -- it's like, as C.S. Lewis said in a book I disagreed with intensely, getting married or joining the army. My allergies kicked in this morning, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried how this would affect our long-term prospects, but the vets cut off huge amounts of matted fur from his coat, and we'll see how it goes. Right now he looks all shaved and funny looking, with an Elizabethan collar around his neck to keep him from licking his stitches and getting an infection. He keeps shaking himself to dislodge the cone of silence, but for the present it is a doom he must bear, and he strangely resembles the old RCA Victor dog. But he is not. He is
HARRY, DOG OF THE HIGH DESERT.
I had no idea what was going to happen; the county shelters tell you nothing -- not if the dog is housebroken; not if he's psychotic. It's a total crapshoot. I thought I'd drive out to Lancaster, hang with the dog for a little while, and see how we took to each other.
Lancaster is high desert country, and a longish ride from LA, but I'd been looking for a standard poodle mix for a long time -- poodle, because they're recommended for allergy sufferers; standard because they're less likely to end up coyote food if they run off. Though as the woman behind the counter at Maxwell Dog said, "That's no standard." True, he's too small -- someone was on crack when they wrote that. Nonetheless, I drove away north through the mountains, a leash and two differently sized collars in my bag, and a trunk full of pet things. There was one moment when I was coming down a hill and looked off to the east, where the Hopperesque light streaked the mountains with brights and shadows -- level upon level of varying heights; one long stripe of green, with gray and streaks of snow above. The light was shining on the green, and a small white plane was illuminated just at the moment it was banking, turned halfway onto its back as it rose like a big white bird, as though for the sheer joy of it; and for that moment I felt privileged to be alive, fifty year-old woman with bad feet and chronic fatigue or not.
The ride got more prosaic quickly, but then, life is like that. I reached the vast horizontal that is the Lancaster area, and waited in line at the pound. There the man told me that I needed to pay them $37, since the dog had been neutered for me. What what what? I just came to chat -- well, okay, and take him home after that, but shouldn't we see if we were compatible? The man agreed I could go meet the dog, but that I'd find him at "the clinic" -- he'd been operated on just a few hours ago. I discovered him lying in a cage, looking pitiful indeed. His fur was long and matted. He lifted his head and looked at me with sad dark eyes, then laid his head back down.
The woman whose car was parked next to mine advised me on which seat to put him in, and added, "He looks so regal sitting there, doesn't he?" "That works out well," I said, "because I'm naming him Harry." We rode the long ride back to LA in the dark with Harry sitting in the front passenger seat, mostly resting, but occasionally looking over at me, or out at the lights of passing trucks. I said, "It'll be all right, Harry." And it would be, one way or another; if for some reason this didn't work out, I thought, I can arrange for him to be a real rescue dog -- to go to one of the places where they pamper the pets and check out potential owners.
Once home, I introduced him to the bed I'd gotten for him. His gaze passed over it in a "yeah, whatever" way, and he turned to look at other things. Later, though, when I was making dinner and couldn't pay him as much attention, I turned to find him back in the living room, lying on the dog bed, head up and his dark eyes peering toward the kitchen as though to say, "See? I knew where you wanted me, and I'm happy to do it." He was so gentlemanly, I took a chance and instead of putting him behind a gate in the bathroom with newspapers over the floor, I let him stay out and sleep in his bed in the living room.
I still don't know how this will turn out -- it's like, as C.S. Lewis said in a book I disagreed with intensely, getting married or joining the army. My allergies kicked in this morning, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried how this would affect our long-term prospects, but the vets cut off huge amounts of matted fur from his coat, and we'll see how it goes. Right now he looks all shaved and funny looking, with an Elizabethan collar around his neck to keep him from licking his stitches and getting an infection. He keeps shaking himself to dislodge the cone of silence, but for the present it is a doom he must bear, and he strangely resembles the old RCA Victor dog. But he is not. He is
HARRY, DOG OF THE HIGH DESERT.