I have adopted fostered adopted fostered a fucking dog.
She is not the right dog for me. She’s reactive to visual stimuli, and I live on a visual superhighway of people walking with and without assistive devices, dogs on leashes, construction vehicles, headlights, store-front sign boards, wheeled things like strollers, bikes, skateboard and whatever those terrifying electric uni-wheeled things are called my cousin Luke loves.
That’s here in the city. In Provincetown in the summer it’s much busier, with tourists, thousands of dogs, pedicabs with flashing lights, fire pits, Carnival floats, waving flags, drag queens on unicycles, and a gazillion other things passing by at all times.
I tried to give her back yesterday but horrified myself by falling apart on the phone to the rescue woman. I tried to pretend I was just having a seizure or drowning in my tub, but I don’t think I fooled her.
I was doing OK til I wrote up my “return report” on this dog, whom I call Bertie after Sister Bertrille, the Flying Nun’s cornette, which Bertie’s ears resemble. I was giving her back because it was so obvious that my lifestyle was not the best life for her, nor for me. I do not need a project dog. I have too many projects as it is.
But then I saw how much progress she’d made in just ten days; how much she’d acclimated to, how far she’d come. And she was sleeping on my lap, so cozy and sweet. So… not lonely. So soft and not annoying-because-sleeping…
“Don’t fall for it!” said my very wise friend Anya.
And then the adoption woman said, “So to be clear, I’m going to list her for adoption again.”
Oh, sorry. That was just me drowning in my tub and having a seizure. Please go on.
So I have her for another week, or until the right foster place opens up for her where she can continue to make progress. Or I cave and say I’m keeping her.
The vertigo I had yesterday wasn’t helping things. Only after heavy meds did I dare walk her outside.
She recovers very quickly from most things she reacts to, which is a big plus, but the life-sized bulldog statue in the yard a block over got her this time, even though we’d passed it a few times before. She barked fearfully, did that “front end leaning toward, back end leaning away for a fast exit” thing they do, until she was able to look at me and take a few pieces of kibble, fairly convinced the statue was not going to kill us. We turned to walk on, and her head exploded.
There, moving toward us, was an escaped, punk-goth soul from hell.
Logic told me it was a chicken, but even I wasn’t convinced. I couldn’t see a head, nor feet. It was just a black, spiked, amorphous object. It turned, only after advancing to within about five feet of us, and this caused me to believe the head end was leading, and therefore thataway.
Bertie’s barks were supersonic. Or maybe that was me.
The Hell Soul took its time moving away—I think it may have turned to give us shade, but you can’t be amorphous and rely on subtleties like sassy look-backs to convey attitude. Just sayin’.
This dog weighs 9 1/2 pounds. It took fifty yards and about a quarter of her weight in kibble to bring her back to nearly baseline. Another fifteen minutes of walking and a massive zoomies session once we got home to get all the way down.
Today we walked that same street. One must overcome one’s trauma. Every house and driveway were approached with wariness, every plant in a pot required announcing, or at least investigating.
The bulldog statue apparently didn’t exist. Truly, who can worry about posturing bulldogs when there are goth punk hell souls to worry about?
I couldn’t get a photo of the thing at the time, which is a shame, and it turns out chicken people only want to show pictures of chickens that look like chickens. This is false advertising, and I will be writing to the International Chicken Board about this. People need to be warned.
Meantime, I have until the end of the weekend, or maybe longer, to decide what to do about this goddamned dog. Maybe someone will just come and take her. Someone without chickens.
Happy Birthday Geezer!
We celebrated my father’s 93rd birthday on Sunday, with all the things, family and chosen family in attendance, but today is his actual, official birthday.
Happy birthday, dad!
You're fooling no one. You don't get a puppy or mini horse or ferret, name it Fifi and be on your way. You rescue a multipally traumatized and visually alarming creature that has been rejected by all sensible potential adopters... because, Reverend Mother, that is how you roll. Deny it all you like. You'll be putting out Tik Toks of her giving french lessons by December.
My heart hurts for you. She has a chunk of yours and and and... she's a project and not what you need / want. This is where that thing about the universe sends you what you need makes me really wonder. The project dog or self care. And does the universe like ripping your heart a new one so you can learn? Hugs to you.