PROLOGUE
Before Bodie I would have sworn I was a cat person to my very core. With a minor sideline in shrews around the age of five. And only then because my tabby Tibbles had scared them rigid excavating them from the flowerbed and I was trying to resuscitate their dainty rodent selves by giving them mouth-to-mouth.
My mother was horrified. She didn’t even like the idea of a muddy-pawed cat in the house.
‘Have you seen Tibbles?’ she would ask every night as she came to tuck me in.
‘He looked like he was heading out…’ I’d reply vaguely, as if I’d caught him streaking his whiskers with cologne and adjusting his fedora when, in reality, he was wedged hot and stifled down by my feet.
The second my mum closed the bedroom door, I’d raise the top of the duvet and he’d tunnel towards the light, take a moment to inhale the cooler air then settle his head on my pillow where we’d sleep nose to nose, exchanging breath for breath until morning.
I was rarely parted from him. When my parents divorced I insisted on transporting him to and from my dad’s every single weekend and even brought him house-hunting with us on the grounds that, ‘He had to like the new home too.’
Moving away to London (to study journalism) I was forced to get my fixes on street corners: there wasn’t a cat secreted under a parked car that I couldn’t coax out for a nuzzle. Fifteen years on, when my magazine freelancing took me to Los Angeles, I began volunteering as a ‘Cat Socialiser’ at the Glendale Humane Society. The American kitties were just as lovely as British ones but I would avert my eyes every time I walked past the dog enclosures, flinching like a prison newbie as those hardened convicts rattled the iron doors and bashed tin cups against the bars, taunting and whooping and howling.
Why did they always make such a racket? It felt so threatening to me, all that lunging and flashing of teeth.
Such a relief to get to the cat room where my feline sisterhood would slink and splay in the sunlight – just another day at the spa. I’d scoop up the neediest furball, relish its purring and look out of the window at the dogs, all that pent-up energy, all that walking and running they were longing to do. But I was no use to them. Aside from being scared and skill-less, I was more on a par with the repose schedule of cats – I liked to be lying down almost all of the day.
But then, as Spring unfurled its fresh greenery, I underwent The Change.
CHAPTER 1
It was almost eerie how it happened.
Each time I stepped outside my door I found myself entranced by every passing dog, be it a trudgey waddling dumpling or dainty pin-legged prancer. As we made our approach the world would shift into slow motion and I’d feel like I’d stepped into one of those shampoo ads where the woman shakes and flips her cascading locks, only in this case it would be the golden swing and spring of a Spaniel’s ears or the grasses-in-the-wind sway of a Sheepdog’s coat that held me spellbound.
Drawing level our eyes would lock and they would give me a knowing look as if to say ‘It’s time…’
At first I couldn’t understand this sudden urgent pull. Typically after a relationship break-up I’m ultra-sensitive to the sight of every couple, panging at their public displays of togetherness, but this time all I saw was imminent pain. The bond that seemed to be calling to me the most was that of man and dog.
Perhaps it just seemed safer and more honest. Dogs don’t leave you. You don’t come home one day to find a suitcase by the door or a farewell note stuck to the fridge. Dogs don’t fall out of love with their owners. And most emphatically dogs do not abandon you to go and fight pirates in Somalia.
As exit strategies go, I suppose Ryan’s was a pretty good one. You can’t really argue with the US Navy’s deployment schedule. You can, however, complain about it, shake your fists at the sky and ask why-why-why after over 20 years of duds you finally meet a good one and then he’s taken away.
Of course plenty of couples survive these six-month separations. And I was all set to do the same. Even when they added a second ‘cruise’ to Russia and permanently relocated him three thousand miles away from me in Virginia, meaning that we would only be able to be together for 2-3 weeks of the coming year.
As I prepared to turn the anguish of long-distance love into an art form he told me that he felt he couldn’t make me any promises in the face of such uncertainty. He was just being realistic. Responsible even. All I heard was the rejection. He said I was the love of his life but he was letting me go.
I fell to my knees as I watched my dreams of having a happy heart and a dimply baby and someone to snug up to at night evaporate into the Los Angeles smog. I was 41 at that point and I had finally started to believe that my turn had come. Now I felt like the plain girl who can’t believe her luck that the school stud has asked her out, only to find out that it was all for a bet. Humiliated by my own hope.
Yet some part of me wouldn’t accept what was happening. Why would things finally line up within my grasp only to be snatched away? Was I really supposed to go back to the way I was before? Suddenly everything I had been looking forward to had gone. My life had never looked so blank. Even my writing, which had always been my salvation, offered no solace.
While I disappeared into a murky underworld of disillusionment and despair, everyone around me seemed to think I’d dodged a bullet – life as a Navy wife would have been no picnic. That I couldn’t deny. The year we had been together had already been testing and I was about as far from military-compatible as a person could be. So it had to be for the best. At some point I would stop shaking and feel relief. Right? I was lucky in so many other ways. Just not romantically. Eventually this sensation of having experienced a life-changing love wouldn’t even seem real. Eventually I too would tut at the whimsical notion that it could have lasted. Eventually I would just go back to being me.
But for now, I wanted to know, how was I supposed to get through another day?
If I knew one thing for sure it was that this time I couldn’t get through this alone. I needed assistance from a metaphorical Saint Bernard, if not perhaps a real one. Preferably with a hefty cask of brandy.
It’s time…
They say you shouldn’t pick out a dog post break-up because you’re too needy and emotionally unhinged to make a balanced, considered decision.
It’s quite true. But I only found this out after the fact.
All I knew at the time was that I felt like I might spontaneously combust if I didn’t find an outlet for all my displaced love. I had no idea my motive would be so transparent.
‘Oh I get it, she’s trying to replace the boyfriend!’ My landlord hooted when the local humane society called to check that my apartment building would in fact allow pets.
My sense of being exposed increased when I read through the application form.
Reason for adoption – please circle one of the following:
Playmate for family dog.
Guard Dog.
Exercise motivator.
Companion.
My face grew hot at the last option.
They know. They know how lonely I am. They know I can’t make a relationship work with a person so I’m resorting to a dog.
And then it dawned on me – if it’s there in black and white on an official form then I am not alone in my aloneness – I am not the only person to have reached out in this way. Maybe there isn’t even any shame in it. Certainly in some ways this listing was an endorsement – that emptiness I am hoping to ease, it can be done! And a dog is just the thing to do it.
But which dog? There are over half a million unwanted dogs in the US available to me right now. How will I know which one is meant to be mine? And will I reach him before he becomes another euthanasia statistic? (I just learned that a chilling 60% of shelter dogs don’t make it.)
Eager to get started, I began my selection process online.
Go Huskies!
I have always found sled dogs to be the most striking of all breeds – the precision tufting of that monochromatic fur, the zing of those white-blue eyes – but they didn’t seem the best match for the eternal sunshine of California and, if my people-pleasing issues translated into dog-pleasing, I could end up relocating to Siberia.
I knew I didn’t want a handbag dog – nothing I could accidentally sit on or suck up with the vacuum. What I really wanted was something that could knock me over. The bigger and furrier the better. Basically Chewbacca on all fours.
For days I fixated on a Tibetan Mastiff named Dharma, captivated by her squinty old-soul eyes and the fountain of fluff she had for a tail. I loved the idea of being able to wrap my arms around that warm body and become entirely engulfed by nose-tickling wisps. But then I read that Tibetan Mastiffs are nocturnal barkers and I didn’t think my neighbours would thank me for that.
Akitas were akin, though something about their dignified stance suggested they’d rather keep their immaculate coat just so and not have you tousling them willy-nilly. Plus I read that they have a dominant personality and need an owner who can exert control. I am not that owner.
The one breed I found myself drawn to over and over again was the Chow Chow. They really do look like a cross between a teddy bear and a lion, chubby with dense fur and crowned with a back-combed ruff. I particularly liked the amber hues and the contrast of their bluey-black tongues, like they’d been sucking on a blackcurrant cough drop. I didn’t mind that they were considered aloof and ‘not as motivated as other dogs to please their masters’ because I was used to cats and actually found their distain endearing.
(Add that to the ‘discuss in therapy’ list.)
But then I found out my landlord had a No Chow policy. And he used to breed them. I think it may have had something to do with their ‘bite first, ask questions later’ reputation. Apparently this is due to their lack of peripheral vision (thus easily caught unawares) but I suppose that is of little consolation to the person with the fang marks in their thigh.
And so I looked at every other breed – from wiry Airdales to sleek Weimaraners – but no matter how beguiling the pose, Chows remained my guilty pleasure and I always found my way back to their webpage, falling so deeply in love with one shaggy old beast I actually snuck along to the Pasadena Humane Society to meet him.
It was me working the puppy dog eyes when I got there because Kerry – the girl assigned to help me – said that Leo was not a good match for a first time owner. She paraded a ramshackle array of strays before me but my gaze always returned to Leo’s cage. He was nine so not exactly on the hot list as far as adoptions go. Couldn’t I at least meet him? Eventually she conceded and told me to wait in the play area. As soon as he walked in he reared up and threw his raggedy paws around me.
‘GET DOWN!’ She yanked him back.
‘Oh I don’t mind!’ I actually welcomed the affection.
‘He’s got a severe humping problem.’
‘Oh!’ I startled.
I hadn’t realised he was trying to hump me, I thought he just wanted a hug. Same old story.
‘Trust me, you’ll soon grow tired of this,’ Kerry tutted as Leo tried it on seven more times in as many minutes.
The truth is, if she hadn’t been so insistent that he was a bad idea for me, he’d be home with me right now. I was not in a discerning, objective frame of mind. All I really wanted was to leave the shelter a different person to the sad, shuffling reject who had come in. I wanted to spin round three times and become a bouncy new dog-owner – laughing and skipping through fields of buttercups. I wanted to have something positive and surprising to say when people asked how I was. I wanted to jolt myself out of my malaise by doing something major, irreversible and demanding.
The last criteria may sound strange – who needs extra demands in their life? The truth was that, after a lifetime of prioritising freedom above all else, I had ended up feeling unanchored and unconnected. I wanted some responsibility. I actually wanted to be able to say, ‘Oh I’d love to but I can’t – I’ve got to get home to feed the dog.’
So I couldn’t leave empty-handed, I just couldn’t. I asked if I could peruse the cages by myself, see if there were any other options we might have overlooked. Another couple had just arrived so she let me wander unattended. What a relief that was – before I felt like I was trying to humour a matchmaker but now I could let my instincts guide me. As odd as it may sound, you really do have to find your dog physically attractive. The genius thing is that everyone has wildly different tastes – some like smushed-up thug faces, others high society bone structure and snootishly elevated jaws. There is a dog for every man or woman. But where was mine?
As I moved among the cages I felt as if I was flicking through images on a dating site. No, no, definitely not… Quick shudder, move on… Hmmm, maybe… And then I saw this scrappy little yellow and white fellow who looked like the early pencil sketch for a cartoon. As our eyes met I got the heart wrench I’d been waiting for. I knelt beside the cage and he came straight over, such a gentle presence but with a clear message, ‘I am lonesome and in need of saving.’ And there it was – that melting sensation. I’d been suckered!
I wanted to run and find Kerry but I was worried he’d be snatched up in my absence so for the next ten minutes I guarded his cage, periodically edging down the path hoping to catch Kerry only to dart back if I saw newcomers on the prowl. Finally she appeared.
‘Ta-daaaa!’ I made a grand flourish.
‘Oh no.’
‘No?’ My face fell.
‘Not for a first time owner.’
‘Really?’ I sighed exasperated. ‘But why?’
She looked around and then leaned close, ‘Killed a cat, scaled a six foot wall, bit a man.’
I looked back at this little tuft of a dog. ‘You did all that?’
‘What can I tell you? We all have bad days.’
‘He needs a more experienced handler,’ Kerry insisted.
Still I was torn. The wall scaling could be seen as athleticism. Maybe the man in question was a burglar. But the cat… I could never forgive myself if he did that again on my watch.
‘Okay,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ll keep looking.’
And I did. Every night trawling the internet searching for the canine love of my life. Every time I thought, ‘He’s the one!’ I’d be knocked back. Just as with my taste in men it seemed that I was fatally attracted to all the troubled basket cases with dark pasts and anti-social habits.
Then one day a friend dropped round to find my make-up tracked with the tears.
‘Listen to this: some guy who evaluates foreclosed homes goes into this dank, dark property, uses the flash to photograph the bathroom because there is no light and when he gets home and reviews the pictures he sees there is a dog huddled in the corner – he didn’t even know he was there, didn’t make a sound. So he returns and finds this weak little puppy, so skinny his ribcage is showing. He hasn’t had any food or fresh water in a month because the owners just shut him in the bathroom when they left the house. Can you imagine?’
‘That’s awful.’
‘It gets worse!’ I continued with tale after tale of abandonment and abuse until my friend couldn’t take any more and finally rallied in exasperation, ‘Why don’t you just get a happy dog?’
This concept literally stopped me in my tracks.
Up until that moment I thought the whole point of getting a rescue dog was that you found yourself swamped with compassion at his tragic story and then took his trembling, fearful frame and lavished him with love until he was all better.
That had always been my approach to human relationships, after all – my (clearly flawed) theory being that if I were the one to make a sad heart happy, they would never leave me.
The idea of teaming up with a being that was already happy and didn’t need fixing, just a home… Well, that was a revelation.
The very next day I was heading for the Farmer’s Market in Studio City when I spied a street adoption set up on the corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Basically a dozen or so crates draped in blankets to shield the occupants from the sun. I didn’t know at this point that Pryor’s Planet was founded by comedian Richard Pryor, or that the attractive woman with the black pixie crop was in fact his widow, Jennifer.
She was sitting over with the small dogs, destined for people other than me. Scanning the rest of the crates my heart did a little leap as I spied a Chow. With one eye. Double whammy. Instantly forgetting my vow to ditch the sympathy vote I all but fell to my knees at the base of his cage, eager to show respect for this most ancient of breeds. Naturally he ignored me. Next to him was a stocky, short-haired mutt who in turn I ignored.
Another woman, Trudy, introduced me to both. The Chow promptly turned his back on me and yes there was the issue of my landlord’s ban on Chows but, really, I wasn’t going to let either of these minor details deter me. I could hear Trudy saying how the other dog, Bodie, would be ideal for a first time owner, ideal for someone who lived in a small apartment, ideal for someone who liked to travel – he was always game for a car ride.
‘Mmmhmmm…’
‘Would you like to meet him?’
I said yes more to be polite than anything and to give the Chow a little more time to come around to me.
She led Bodie over to the low brick wall, I sat down and then he did the same, planting his furry behind on my bare flip-flopped foot.
And that was all it took. One move and he’d won me over.
‘He’s such an easy-going fellow.’ Trudy told me as she smooshed his face until it wrinkled into a Shar Pei. ‘You can do anything to him and he doesn’t mind a bit.’
Sold and sold. I’ve never liked those irritable animals that squirm and writhe away from your touch.
‘Do you know what he is, breed-wise?’
She hesitated.
‘You can tell me anything and I’ll believe you – I’m very new to the dog world.’
‘The ears suggest Shepherd,’ she ventured, inviting me to feel their thick velvet.
Large, pointy and ultra alert. That sounded about right.
‘The barrel body?’
‘Pitbull,’ she said, almost under her breath.
‘It’s okay,’ I assured her. ‘I watch the Dog Whisperer. I’m not prejudiced.’
‘The truth is, everyone sees something different in him: Akita, Cattle dog-‘
And then he yawned extensively, tongue rolling out like a stretch of moist Hubba Bubba. And that’s when I saw the bluey-purple stripes underneath, spots on top.
‘Is there a little bit of Chow in him?’
‘Most likely.’
I grinned back at her. A Chow that doesn’t look like one and isn’t classed as one. It’s so cunning, I loved it. We had a winner!
While I took in every fleck of his fur, Trudy told me a little about his history – how he was picked up as a stray on the mean streets of South Central LA, possibly as the result of his owner losing their home – the homeless shelters don’t accept animals so he may well have been turned loose to fend for himself. It doesn’t bear thinking about – this smiley chap wandering around gangland LA, hot sun bearing down, barely a blade of grass to be had. Where did he sleep? What did he find to eat while foraging in the street garbage? He had a cough and a sniffle when Animal Control bundled him in their van and took him to a shelter that only allots one month for collection or adoption. No one came to claim him. No one wanted to take him home. So he was sent to death row. Literally hours before he was to be put down Pryor’s Planet swooped in and rescued him. Since then he’s been with a mix of foster families, most recently a bunch of musician guys.
‘They say he loves to run.’
I looked down at him sitting so patiently in the sunshine, eyes closed now, maybe dreaming of the same buttercup field as me.
‘What do you think?’
My heart was beating fast. I knew I wanted him. Pryor’s Planet wanted me to have him. Was I being rash? Suddenly the magnitude of the decision hit me: this is all day every day for the next ten years or so. It’s all happening so fast! I spent longer picking out my last toothbrush. And yet I heard myself say:
‘Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.’
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