Hello Rachel -

I’d given up hope. You can only be rejected and disappointed so many times. Only forgotten for so long. No one is immune to such things. Not even a dog. I’d long ago stopped trying to put on a show every time someone came to the pen. On the rare occasion someone did lift me out I’d quit licking and wagging my tail. I’d learned the hard way it was all a wasted effort. Better to remain lifeless in their arms: they put me down quicker, and I could go back to sleep. In my dreams, I was wanted. I had a family and a fenced in yard with squirrels to chase. There was water and flowers and plants to dig up. I announced myself to the trees, the sky, and to God in the heavens, “This is my life. I have a place in the world and I am important.” That was my dream and I dreamed it over and over again in the corner of the discount bin with all the other unwanted puppies: the ones that were anything short of perfect. Like me. I’m a mixed breed. That’s one count against you. My mom was a purebred yellow lab and (according to the staff at The Puppy Barn) a complete slut. “We got another litter from the Hamilton Hussy!” the owner cried the day I arrived here. “Got em real cheap too. I swear that ho would spread her legs for a groundhog.” So……….. I don’t know what the other half of me is. Strike two is the fact that by the time I got here I was already 10 weeks old, certifiably geriatric for puppy sale standards. The final strike is that I’m way too big. People want a small puppy. All of this I learned one day, one minute, one rejection at a time. So by the day she came in whatever joy I’d once possessed was completely gone and I’d lost the will to pretend. Whatever came after that place couldn’t be good, but it had to be better, and I knew if I could just appear lifeless enough it would come quicker.

The first thing I noticed was the crying. On a Saturday there are so many voices all day long: squeals of delight, laughter, cooing, and occasional crying but this cry was different and I couldn’t help but tune in. Laughing. Excitement. Crying. Laughing, Excitement. Crying. “What is going on out there?” I wondered. Finally my curiosity got the better of me so I padded over to the side of the crate to stand up and look out. The first thing I noticed was his hair. Honestly how could you miss it! Bright orange. I didn’t know hair came in that color. He was in the play area with a puppy, laughing his heart out with that laugh that didn’t sound right when suddenly the puppy bit him and he started to cry. “Another one down,” the mom said, and took the puppy away. “I get it now,” I thought to myself. “She keeps putting puppies in the play area with him but he plays too rough and they’re hurting him.” I intended to turn away then. I had my answer, nothing more to see, back to the corner I go. Only I didn’t move. It was the way he laughed (and at that moment) the way he cried that kept me standing there. It was different, the sound. For the first time in so many days of the same something ( or in this case someone) was different and I had to see for myself. So I craned my neck to get her attention. No dice. “Woof!” Still no luck. “Woof! Woof!!!” That got her attention. “Yes! Here! Over here! Hi. Yes, I know, I remember lick, lick, wag, wag whatever. Look, can I see that boy? The one with the orange hair? He’s yours right? There’s something strange about the sounds he makes and I’d like to smell him OK?” She smiled at me then, picked me up and said “Alright listen up because I’m only going to say this once. Every dog I’ve put in there has either scratched him to pieces or run from him pissing themselves in fear. All you have to do is NEITHER of those things and I’ll take you home with me.” And me being me I said, “Yeah, sure, fine, whatever, just put me in I gotta smell him!!!!!!”

I understood before she put me in, before I smelled a thing: his face. My God it was so frightening to me the first time I saw it. The pieces of it: they didn’t match. The eyes were too close together, his nose was flat, and the mouth that didn’t close all the way had drool pouring out the sides. In that moment I understood why so many of the puppies had peed themselves in fear trying to escape and when I got my first whiff I understood why the others had tried to hurt him.

I’ve never been hit by lightning but I think I know what it’s like. It’s like breathing in and being instantly transported back in time, to the barn where I was born, engulfed in the smell of hay, warm milk, my mother, and something much sweeter: my little brother. All my brothers and sisters smelled exactly the same except for the tiny one. He was so sweet. At night after we ate, he’d curl up against my tummy so that his head was right under my nose filling my dreams with that rich, perfumy smell. I was alive, and home, and I thought the world was a perfect place until the morning I woke up to find him on the other side of the barn shivering and crying. “Mom!” I cried. “Mom the tiny one got out of the box he’s all alone over there you have to go get him!” But she ignored me. “Mom! Mom! Please go get him please he’ll die if you don’t!” And despite all my protests she didn’t budge and I realized, “You did this. You took him out of the box. You left him over there because he’s small and he smells different. That’s so mean! It’s not his fault he’s small and I LIKE his smell. You go get him! You bring him back to me you bring him back right now!”

“What is all that racket?!”

The woman came into the barn then and my mother gave me a look that said, “Now you’ve done it.” I hated the woman. She smelled like piss and cigarette smoke.

“You.” She says to me. “You better stop that barkin or I swear you’ll find yourself in a bag with a rock at the bottom of my fish pond you hear me?” But I wasn’t afraid. “Woof!” I say. “Woof woof!” in the direction of my little brother.

“What the fu…” and then she saw him.

“Goddammit Delilah,” she said to my mother as she walked across the barn to collect my brother and put him back in our box.

“I know he’s going to die and you know he’s going to die but the customers don’t know shit. Leave him in the box with you and he’ll live long enough to make me my money so cut the shit Delilah you hear me?” and then she was gone.

My mother gave me a disapproving look but I didn’t care. “Don’t worry,” I told my sweet little boy puppy. “Have some milk and I’ll hold you super close to me tonight so she can’t do that again.” But the next morning was just the same. I woke up to see him shivering and alone on the other side of the barn, I barked and barked until the woman came, and she put him back in the box with us. By the third day he’d stopped drinking. The smell got stronger, the sweetness suffocating, but I tucked him under my belly anyway. The dreams became nightmares worse and worse until the morning I woke up not to shivering and crying, but an eerie and final silence. He was there of course, where she always left him, only this time I didn’t bark because I knew he was dead. I knew it because the beautiful smell was gone.

“Good morning slutbag.” The woman was there.

“No yappin’ from your little bastard this morning I guess you learned your lesson and stopped….” She saw him. She walked over, picked up his lifeless little body, and turned on my mother like a snake.

“Told you so,” my mother responded with her eyes.

“You’re a bitch you know that Delilah?” And she was gone. My brother gone. The smell gone.

Two days later I was gone too, to this place. But the moment the woman put me in the playpen with the broken boy she called Kevin everything instantly made sense. “Hi!” I said to him. “I’ve been waiting for you. I didn’t know it but I was waiting for you all this lonely time. THAT’S why no one wanted me. I was already taken all this time. I knew someone just like you once but my mother threw him………OUCH! Please don’t tackle me that hurts. Can you please calm down please you’re drooling all over the………..headlock! That’s a headlock, it hurts, please let me go please let just….OUCH!!!!”

I managed to squirm out just before he broke my neck. “OK,” I thought to myself. “Just dodge. Dodge every move he makes and give yourself some time to think this through. The mommy is watching. She says if you play your cards right you can have a home, a real home with a family. She smells like cedar water so that means there’s a lake, just like the one in your dreams.” He tried to grab me again so I gave him a warning snap but he didn’t understand, because he was too excited. “Do you really want to go home with this?” I asked myself. “He’s a mess and he’s dangerous and maybe………..oh no he’s crying.” He was obviously frustrated by his inability to catch me. Mom was watching and I knew I had a decision to make so I moved towards him tentatively. “Don’t cry,” I said and licked his face. Then I breathed in the beautiful smell. I’d missed it so much and I thought, “Hey, tears taste good! I’ll lick some more. He’s laughing now! Maybe I’ll lick the drool. Drool tastes good too! Oh this is fun I like your laugh it sounds like your choking to death but somehow enjoying it.” Kevin laughed and laughed and laughed and before I knew what was happening I was back in the mommy’s arms. She had tears of gratitude in her eyes. Kevin jumped up and down at her feet begging her to put me back in. I wanted to go back in but she carried me over to the saleslady and said, “This is the one.” Then she turned me around and said, “Hello Mavis.”

Fast forward 2 years and it has been everything and nothing like my dreams. The yard is fantastic: a lake to swim in, fenced yard to run in, squirrels to chase, and much to my family’s dismay, lots of plants to dig up. I’m particularly fond of rhododendron bushes. YUM. As for my family, I LOVE Chris. He’s my one true love. Chris is my man. He walks me, pets me, cuddles me, and the only time he yells at me is when I escape the house to roll around in goose poop. You don’t know fun till you’ve rolled around in a nice, steamy hot pile of goose poop. Now THERE’S a great smell. Kayla’s my second favorite. She does all the great stuff Chris does, plus I get makeovers. She always takes care to use Mommy’s favorite $65.00 eye shadow because it brings out the green in my eyes. And whenever I jump up on the counter and steal a sandwich, Kayla makes another real quick so I don’t get in trouble. I just love that kid. Dana I could give or take. She’s very bossy and high strung and I think if we all fell off the face of the Earth it would take her at least three days to notice, unless she needed leggings. She’s always barking at her mother to buy her new leggings. I think she eats them, I know I would. Then there’s the mommy. I don’t like the mommy very much and she doesn’t like me. She told me from the beginning not to take it personally, she’s just not a “dog person.” Who doesn’t like dogs???? The mommy, that’s who. She’s all like, “Chris your dog ate an entire bottle of cortisone cream!” It’s not my fault cortisone cream is delicious. And then she’s like, “Kayla feed this dog she won’t shut up.” And I’m like, “I don’t need food I need to poop. Pistachio shells give me the runs!”

I try though. I try to like her. After all she has her hands pretty full with the boy, Kevin. He can be a lot, even for me, We have good days, like the day he poured and entire bottle of chocolate syrup on me. That was delicious. Or the day he cracked 6 eggs on my head, that was good too. And the day he filled the bathtub with V8 and we took a bath together was really fun. But the bad days, they can be pretty bad. He pulls on my ears and tail and though I try to walk away from him he just follows me, kicking and yanking on my fur. I growl at him when he does this but that only makes him angry and he does it more. The mommy tries to protect me when this happens. She puts me in the laundry room and bars the door while he screams and hits her. Sometimes she puts him outside until he calms down. Sometimes she puts me outside in the yard because he never figured out how to open the gate. Sometimes we all have to go outside because he’s attacking me AND his sisters. Those are the hardest days. Those are the days she has to sit outside and restrain him while he screams and spits on her. On one of those days a lady walked by and said, “I should call DYFS on that woman. Every time I pass this house that poor little boy is out here screaming to be let back inside. It’s absolutely sick the way she just puts him out like a dog.” Well I ran over the edge of the fence and gave her a piece of my mind. “Woof! Lady, you don’t know anything about her. I suppose you know exactly how you would handle it if your Kevin started kicking you, the girls, and your dog. You think there’s a manual for this? You think he came with instructions? She may be a bitch but she’s my bitch and she’s doing the best she can. My mom had a little boy just like Kevin and you know how she handled it? She took him out of our box and let him die alone, shivering in the corner of our barn because he smelled different. He smelled like sunshine and flowers and pancake syrup and for that she starved him to death and threw him away like so much trash. I wasn’t here for it but I bet when Kevin was born the Mommy wanted very badly to throw him away. I bet she knew something was wrong and it robbed her of sleep, and she wasted away from the stress but he’s still here and so is she. She doesn’t even like dogs but for him she got a dog. And because of her I have a home and a family and goose poop to roll in and a big trash can full of pistachio shells to eat so you just watch who you call a bitch! Come into this yard one day and I’ll show you a bitch! Woof!”

It’s quiet. He has stopped screaming. The two of them are coming toward me. I run over and lick Kevin’s face to show him he’s a good boy for calming down. That’s my job. “Kevin can you tell Mavis you’re sorry?” Mommy asks. He looks contrite as he says, “Sawney Maynis.” I lick him again to show him he’s forgiven and that it’s time to play. I’ve become very good at this. When he lunges I move out of the way then gently knock him down from behind. Next I nip at his feet because they’re ticklish. I do this because not only am I wanted, I’m needed, and somehow that’s even better.

This is my life. I have a place in the world and I am important. I have a family and a fenced in yard with squirrels to chase. There is water and flowers and plants to dig up. Because of this broken little boy all the dreams I dreamed for myself came true, only better. I start running around in circles to celebrate this realization till she scoops me back up in her arms. I have tears of gratitude in my eyes. Kevin is jumping up and down at her feet begging to continue the show and I want to but first I look deep into her eyes and remind myself that everything I have, I have because of this mommy. And even though she’s nothing like the mommy I imagined I have, she is the one. So I lick her face and say “Hello Rachel.”

Hello Rachel

Rachel Ulriksen

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