Our animals have come to us in various ways. When my parents moved into our new home, in 1949, they opened the door one wintry day and in walked a black cat. The same thing happened almost thirty years later, when they again moved. One fall day they opened the door and in walked a black cat. Well, maybe she was sitting on the porch, but close enough.
A dog officer in another county knew my mother was looking for a rescue lab and held onto a dog for a few months until she could take him. The dog was sweet and ended up living with us after she died. We adopted another lab that was being fostered in Cambridge. The foster mother brought him out to meet us, and it was love at first sight. But this time, getting our third lab, was different.
With directions in hand, or actually in my old-fashion memory, we drove to Vermont, finding our way to a store outlet parking lot. We drove in and parked. I couldn’t help noticing a number of other cars with drivers spaced throughout the ill-cared for lot. During the hour we sat there, I felt a little like I was waiting for a drug buy. The outlet stores were drab and not busy in a neglected one-story warehouse, right off a busy highway for a quick getaway for prospective thieves. The parking lot was pitted, with weeds and potholes. Would our dealer arrive? Would the police pull in and ask what we were doing? Why were there so many out of state license plates here? (So, yes, in my life everything is about writing.)
A white van pulled in and drove to the end of the lot. We got out of our cars and converged on the van, standing around in silent anticipation while the two women opened the back doors and began unloading dogs one by one (or by twos, a pair of puppies). One dog was terrified and fell onto her back, legs up in the air, begging for kindness. The puppies flopped and sprawled and jumped together. Another dog sniffed over to his new owners.
Each prospective owner had to produce a photo ID. We were checked off as each dog was delivered. Many of the new owners brought donations, as requested—newspapers, towels, and the like. We brought newspapers. Later we were asked to pose for photographs.
The driver warned us that our dog was a bit “wild,” so full of energy that we should be careful. She and her assistant seemed to have trouble getting him out, and now that I know him better, I’m guessing he wouldn’t stay still long enough to get the leash on him. Out he bounded, and he was ours.
I understand now why he went straight to sniffing the ground, heading for the grass shoulder. He’d been in a shelter for two years, and spent the last six months in a kennel (a metal enclosure with a shed at one end and a short run), where he wasn’t allowed to play with the other dogs because he was too energetic, too wild. After being in a van for eight hours, we were about to take him on another drive, for three more hours. He is indeed wild, but we have a great dog trainer to work with, and I’m confident our guy will turn into a regular dog fairly soon. But he is a lesson in the dangers of long stays in a shelter without enough attention. But we’re making up for that.
And his name? As far as my husband is concerned, there’s only one name for a shelter lab. This is Rob. So now we have Rob 3 (formerly Farley), sixty pounds of love and craziness.
And to bring this post back to writing, I’ve included in my next mystery novel, Below the Tree Line, a shelter dog named Shadow. Watch for the debut of my new series in September, coming from Midnight Ink.
