Letting Your Dog Into Your Life

When we first got our dog, Bae, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. A friend had found her wandering around in the middle of winter, a puppy, maybe only three or four months old. She was found by a hotel that runs near a very busy interstate and highway junction. It's hard telling whether she was a dog from a local because the closest house to the area she was found is nearly a couple miles away, or if she was dropped off by someone out in the country and she wandered into town. Regardless of all those logistics, she was found. My friend made a Facebook post recounting the events of finding the dog. Somehow, this post touched my heart, and my friend lived in an apartment and was not allowed to have animals. It didn't take even a second for me to decide to tell her we'd take the dog for her while they searched for the owners.

We decided we'd pick the dog up the next evening. My friend sent a picture of her to us, told us an extended version of the story of finding her, about the possibility of her age, and her demeanor. They were calling her "Baby" while she stayed with them. We made a trip up to the local grocery store and picked up a dog food and water bowl. I had my hesitations about the dog, I'll be honest. I'd heard all the horror-stories of maulings, bites, and the like about pit bulls, but I had been building up a confidence level about animals, particularly dogs, upon deciding that I wished to enter a life involving a veterinary career just months prior to this particular moment. I was just so nervous about having a dog. Will she get along with the cat? Will she be mean? Will she hate us? And of course many other questions shook my heart and my thought processes about the whole ordeal. Will we get to keep her?

We drove to pick the dog up. It was probably around seven or eight in the evening, and I was completely in shambles. A bundle of nerves. We got to the door and knocked. You'd never even known there was a dog inside the building. She didn't bark or anything when we knocked. We entered the doors, and the most beautiful puppy I'd ever seen was staring at me from behind the arm of an overstuffed couch in my friend's living room. The dog was breathing and panting very heavily and burdened. Sean and I looked at each other in amazement of just how cute she was. An awkward sight, that's for sure. Large paws, huge floppy ears, saggy lips, doggy 'warts', forehead wrinkles, all covered with a beautiful ruddy brown and orange tinged coat. It was originally thought and still believed that "Baby" was a pit/lab mix. She, in her red collar with shiny silver paw-prints on it, was about to em'bark' on another journey across an unfamiliar town with unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar car. Who knew that this would be the same car that she would soon grow to love long-distant car rides in, that these people she would soon come to love and trust more than all the dog treats in the world could offer? My friend gave us a bag of puppy chow that she had purchased, and after a ton of good-bye lovings, we were back on our way out the door with what would become our heart, worn outside our bodies by the heartstrings of a blue polka-dotted leash.

After an adorable car ride home of sitting in Sean's lap, scanning all angles of the car and the hands that were holding her, and the voices speaking to her, we arrived in our drive way.

We had prepared the night before to having "Baby" come live with us: We'd thought we'd puppy-proofed the entire house, but we soon found that there is no such thing as this, less a room with concrete walls and a concrete floor. We put Midna the cat into the bedroom for the time being, just to allow the dog to explore the house solo and digest all of the new scents around her. After about an hour, she had made a contenting trip around the house, and had settled down quite a bit, we decided this would be a good opportunity to let the cat out of the bedroom. Sean had built Midna a 'cat tree' a few weeks before, which was proven to be an optimal hiding spot from the dog from the get-go. And that's where Midna spends most times not spent teasing or slightly 'playing' with the dog. Bae had immediate curiosity about the cat, and Midna had zero curiosity about the dog, but had a look of great betrayal that she wore for weeks. (Seriously, she was an unholy terror in the late hours of the night for quite a while after we got "Baby".) They did not 'click' together at all, and that frightened me. I envisioned coming home from a short trip and finding the cat shredded to bits, honestly. Little did I know that this would soon be a reversal in roles, Midna being the dominant animal in the household. They were tolerating each others presence though, and that was acceptable enough in my books to allow the chasing and hissing.

We hadn't thought deeply over a name for the dog yet. That night, we looked online for different names. We wanted something that described her. The only suitable names we could conjure on our own were generic visual descriptions, such as "Brownie", "Floppy", or keeping the name "Baby". After hours of scouring over the internet, Sean had found a very beautiful Korean word that sounded a lot like her name that she was given. "Bae". It means "inspiration". It was the most suitable name we could find, as we were still very unfamiliar with her true personality, and she was already inspiring with her cheery puppy demeanor. Sheer listlessness. Not a care in the world, and I don't know about you, but after walking in the snow for who knows how long, and then coming into multiple homes in the past few days, not knowing where you're going to live, but still having the ability to remain cheery is pretty inspiring to me.

She slept on the floor, seemingly with one eye open, waking constantly to see what she could potentially be missing out on. We took some old socks of ours and tied a knot in them to create a make-shift chew toy to ease her troubles. It seemed to instill some sort of unspoken puppy confidence code because she immediately responded with unhesitated, full-on puppy playtime.

By three or four in the morning, I was sincerely exhausted and emotionally drained. I was already falling for this little puppy, and I was not even certain I would get to keep her. Somehow I think that thought didn't really cross my mind, but judging by the stress I feel about it now, I think it was camping out in the back of my brain, waiting to go off the moment her owners came forward. I knew she was going to be part of our family that first night. When I crawled into bed, she clamored behind me, lopping awkwardly as puppies do. She curled up into a miniscule ball by my side on the covers of my blanket and just passed out. Sean stayed up all night that night to make sure she was going to be still. She never budged. She slept next to me, keeping me warm through the whole night. My little snuggler. Sleeping this way, the same she will sleep by us all night long, ever since that very first night.

Is it wrong to say that I'm glad we never found her original owners? Sure, there were many nights of sleeplessness due to puppy growing pains, loud scary noises outside, many days where we didn't quite make it outside in time and cleaned up 'accidents' on the carpet, many days of cleaning up chewed bits of linoleum that she decided needed to be replaced, and enough shredded paper to rebuild an entire forest of trees. All of it was worth it.

I was never much of a dog person before Bae, but now, I consider her to be an extension of myself. Sean and I would never let any harm befoul her, and she protects us with the same sentiments.

Teaching her new tricks and habits has been a sick obsession of mine now, practically from the day she trotted into our lives. It's funny how the simplest of things, such as playing dead or 'sitting pretty' can lighten your day. When I look at her, it's like looking at a piece of clay that we have molded and shaped into something so perfect, no one could match it. The interactions with her on a daily basis, watching her grow, explore her surroundings, and make riveting discoveries of lightning bugs, and other creepy crawlies. Absolutely inspiring.

I used to think owning a puppy or a dog would become a sort of handicap. "Oh we can't go there, we've got the dog..." or something like that. It's funny to think that we now kind of...accommodate to her needs before our own subconsciously. There's nothing I love spending my last three dollars on than by buying a salty delicious pig femur for her to chew on, even if she over-indulges and it only lasts her thirty minutes.

Getting a dog can change your life, and if you do it the right way, it will change your life for the best.