Wheeling and dealing in poodle recovery.

This weekend we went and saw Wanted (SUPER lame, don't bother) and on the way home we witnessed an elderly standard poodle weaving in and out of traffic on one of the busiest streets in Memphis. It was pretty obvious that any minute it would be hit. After steering around it we pulled into the far right lane and attempted a tag team rescue mission. Josh went first, trying to bait the dog with implications he was it's buddy and it would be petted thoroughly after stepping on the sidewalk. This didn't work and it inched deeper in the middle of the 6 lanes of traffic. I bent down and patted my legs talking in one of those shameful "shmoopy bear" voices saying, "Baaayybeee. Come here baby baby". It worked. She ran right to me and calmly stood at my feet as if I had always known her. As car's zoomed past us and I held this huge stinky dog with no tags, we decided our best option was to put her in the car and search for someone who looked like THEY were searching too.

After an hour of me trying to convince Josh that she looked like she recognized different houses and yards, we were no better off than when she had first hopped in our car. The only shelter we could find open on a Saturday night was a city shelter, which a friend of Josh's says is a worse place to leave an animal then hell. We decided she would come home with us... we'd post adds online... we'd find her people.

Upon arrival at our home, after Josh told me it wasn't a good idea to name her Lincoln, I dubbed her "New Dog". Soon it became obvious, mainly from all the walls she hit and the way she didn't look at me when I called for New Dog, that she was completely deaf and partially blind. Poor New Dog.

I made cookies that night and let Wilkes lick one beater and New Dog licked the other. I think she really liked me, at least I tried really hard to make sure of it. I imagined her real family coming to claim her and her standing in between us looking back and forth between the old and the new, not knowing where to go. We HAD saved her life after all and fed her cookie dough and petted her a lot, even though her fur made my hands feel the way they do after I touch my bike chain. She was a good dog. Old, sweet, and a little confused why she was in our house. Josh slept on the couch that night in case she woke up and realized she was in a scary new place that wasn't her home and smelled like some other dog. I don't know if she appreciated how sweet it was that he lay next to her all night, but I did. Josh is the cutest.



Late the next night we got the call we had been waiting for/dreading. Her name was Cocoa. She was 10 years old and more deaf than we had thought. She was a dog of means. They were calling from their vacation home and had been worried sick after the house-sitter notified them of their ailing dog's absence. We had to give her back. I was relieved and sad. I still had so many sweet nothings to whisper into those deaf dog ears. I had loved her. It had all been so pure and real.

The grandmother of her real family came to get her around 10 that night. The woman slipped a red L.L. Bean collar around her graying neck and thanked us profusely in her southern bell voice. As quickly as it all began, it all went back to the way it was before New Dog. We were no longer a two dog household. We were a two people, one dog, one car, three Mac, one bike household, and those numbers begged to be toyed with.

Three days after New Dog left we became a TWO bike household. Josh got a sweet new ride and now rides it to work. I couldn't be happier about the sight of him on a bike with his little beard. I've always had a thing for boys on bikes (ask Jodi) and Josh looks like a little piece of perfect to me. I'm still rolling my cruiser from the days of 'ol, but eventually I might get a snazzy little city number like him.



Things keep getting better, and dare I say 'cuter'. We are getting closer to who we want to be and rescuing dogs along the way.