Jackson, Day 1: Pickup
“Please don’t think I’m a bad person.”
I don’t know how to reply. The teary-eyed woman standing next to me, cuddling her Bichon puppy for the final time, seems to want forgiveness, but there’s nothing to forgive.
This was just an error in judgement. Young couple, just starting out, decide to share their home with a puppy. Unfortunately, it takes them only a couple of weeks to discover that this little ball of energy isn’t as low-maintenance as their cat.
He’s only about ten weeks old. I ask her to hold him so I can take a quick photo with my cell phone.
It’s not like they didn’t try. Clearly this puppy was loved. He’s clean, obviously well-fed (he has a little round treats tummy) and nicely socialized. He has his perfect little dishes, his little toys, a nice sheepskin bed. It’s not hard to imagine the couple happily shopping for these with him in tow.
But now that’s over. As they take one more walk on the only lawn he’s known for his brief life, I assemble his cage for the journey and try to think of the right things to say.
“What’s going to happen to him when you leave here?”
I settle the puppy into the cage and lift it into my vehicle before answering. Jackson will take a ride with me, then settle into a loving foster home where he’ll have all the love, care and socialization he needs. When the time is right, he’ll be adopted into a new forever family. And it’s at that moment that I have the right response.
“I could never think you’re a bad person. Thank you for loving Jackson so much that you placed him with rescue. He has a good life ahead of him.”
That gives her comfort, and as I drive away with Jackson, I’m comforted too. Because there’s one thing that I deliberately didn’t tell her. Jackson’s new foster home is with me. And I’m a n00b.
Although I’ve had dogs all my life, and they have all come from shelters or rescue, I’ve never had a Bichon and I’ve never fostered. This will be a learning experience for us all…for Jackson, for me, and for my two dogs at home who have no idea what’s in store for them.
Day 1, Part 2: Oy!
After his initial consternation, Jackson spent the rest of the hour-long drive napping. At each traffic light, I gazed fondly upon the sweet, pure white fluff snoring softly on his cloud-like sheepskin bed, his much-loved chew bone and rope toy by his side, inside his sturdy protective cage. So precious. So clean. So quiet. Such a delightful scene, gently lit by the sun beginning to set.
That is a very crystalline memory for me, because it was at that very moment that my brain had the fateful thought: I can do this. This won’t be so hard.
Five minutes from home, I realized I had no food in the house for myself and I hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. I don’t like fast food, but a quick chicken sandwich sounded incredibly good. I’d put the bag in my purse and wait to eat until I got home, so as not to be a bad influence on the puppy.
And that was when I discovered Jackson was no stranger to the drive-thru. Holy crap, yap yap yap! I had to repeat the order four times.
As we pulled up to the window — I got my order extra-fast — I wondered if Jackson was just hungry. I couldn’t remember if he had been fed.
A few seconds later I had my answer, as I actually got to see his most recent meal. And then some.
And then more. He must have freaked himself out by barfing so copiously, because then he peed. A lot. Then stumbled and wound up rolling in it all.
And then, I swear to you, he looked at me and laughed.
The much-loved chew bone and rope toy were obviously goners. The cloud-like sheepskin bed would probably need to be power-washed before it was useable again. I don’t even want to tell you what Jackson looked like, but he’d get a bath before bedtime.
I cracked the windows and hoped we could make the rest of the trip without further incident.
The moral of this story is: Never, never say this won’t be so hard.
Day 1, Part 3: Interloper!
We made it home and I left Jackson in the car to make a quick trip inside. At the door leading from the kitchen to the rest of the house, I got an excited greeting from my dogs, who I will refer to here as Brother and Sister.
Brother and Sister are dogs of indeterminate heritage, from the same litter, born into rescue, who came to me at six months old. Now they’re nearly six years old. Brother loves puppies, but I didn’t know how Sister would react. For control, I hooked up their tie-outs, and let them outside to do their business. They made a beeline for my vehicle. Obviously Jackson’s current…aroma…had reached them.
We were rapidly losing daylight so I decided to take the cage out of the car and set it on the ground across the driveway, about 8 feet out of their reach. That would have to qualify as their “initial meeting on neutral territory.”
I was fully prepared for the Cujo noises that followed. I wasn’t expecting them to all come from Jackson. I had an inkling that he’d be intimidated by the larger dogs, but he was ready to take them out! For some reason, this caused Brother to turn on Sister. I broke that up and got them both back inside, locking them out of the kitchen. Jackson let his displeasure be known. He probably thought I was going to leave him outside all night in the cage.
There was no choice. I had to speed things along. It was dark by that time, and the little stink bomb needed cleaning. I brought the cage inside, and set it on the kitchen floor. Jackson came out and went straight into the sink. The ruined toys went into the trash, and the sheepskin bed outside. I’d deal with that in the morning. Thankfully, there was a bottle of puppy shampoo in the bag of supplies that had been sent along, so I didn’t have to make an end run through Brother and Sister to get some. I heard them snoofling under the door, trying to figure out why Mom had brought home a Tasmanian Devil, trying to determine by scent the exact moment when she’d gone insane.
Once Jackson was restored to an acceptable level — which required nearly a full roll of paper towels before I could begin the bath — I locked him back into the cleaned cage and opened the kitchen door for Brother and Sister.
They did not want to set foot into the kitchen.
“Come on, come see the puppy.”
Absolute silence. Nobody moved.
At this point, I have to interject a little Backstory about my dogs: They are scared to death of cats. Unfortunately, the first cat they ever encountered was my sister-in-law’s psycho kitty. Since then, if they see a cat, even one walking across the lawn, they run and hide. Even the cat-shaped doorstop at the vet’s freaks them out. They get an expression on their face that I see at no other time. So here they were, standing just inside the kitchen door because I told them to come in, trying their best to avoid contact with That Thing in the cage, and giving me that “ZOMG! Cat!” look.
In my mind’s eye, I stacked up virtual puppies alongside my dogs. Sister, who was the runt of her litter, is clearly five Jacksons in size; Brother perhaps seven Jacksons. And they wanted nothing to do with this single-unit Jackson.
The logical thing to do? Lock myself in the bathroom. Not as an escape (well maybe) — I didn’t want to somehow give them the wrong idea in “dog language.” If I, as (alleged) Alpha ignored the situation, then it was up to them to sort out. About ten minutes later, I checked in and the older two were giving the pup a thorough sniffing. Progress!
After a few more minutes of reassurance for them, and a mental run-through of all worst-case scenarios for me, it was time to open the cage door. As Jackson emerged, Brother and Sister swiftly backpedaled.
Again there was a standoff, then he dashed between them. They followed on his heels, knocked him over, sniffed him thoroughly. I wanted so much to shoo them off and defend the puppy, but knew that would be exactly the wrong thing to do. If they did hurt him, he would yelp and I’d step in. Unless that happened, I had to treat this like it was no big deal.
Then, as if someone flicked a switch, they both stopped, turned, and walked away. Brother hopped onto the sofa and turned his back. Sister went into their cage and curled up, turning her back as well. Jackson stood up, shook himself and looked at me like, now what?
I brought his cage into the living room and set it down next to the larger one. Added a fluffy towel, filled the food and water dishes. Jackson had followed from room to room…he trembled when I picked him up. Cuddled him until he stopped. Thought he growled, but it was my stomach. Remembered the sandwich in my purse, now almost certainly cold and ruined. Cuddled Jackson some more. Whispered in his ear that we’d find him the best forever home ever.
He flopped onto the towel immediately after being put into his cage. I reclaimed some of the sofa from Brother and settled in alongside the rest of the pack. We were all exhausted.