Damn you, wife. You’ve made me love the animal I'd always hated. Dogs. That’s right. The smelly, time consuming, barking, whining monsters have become my favorite creature.
How has my wife done this? It all started back at Christmas. We had had a relaxing week. My wife’s family was over, some of whom hadn’t been to New York in a long time or ever. So we’d taken them to all the sights and had a damn good time. But by New Year’s Eve they had all left. Little did I know that I was about to gain a whole other family member…
My wife showed me a picture. It was of a dog with a beaten up face, looking incredibly sad. My wife then told me that it was staying in a nearby animal shelter, that it was scared easily and that it was medium sized. The size might seem like a weird point to tack on, but it was important. For several years, we had argued about dogs, with me making it clear that they weren’t my favorite animal. Eventually, I agreed that we could foster a dog, and if we enjoyed fostering, we could adopt one. My main prerequisite was that it had to be small. I couldn’t deal with a big dog. Far too much work. After my wife showed me the pictures of this dog, I relented, just as long as it was not big.
The dog was giant. We had got out of an Uber and walked into the shelter. The first thing the guy that looked after the dogs said was “You realize that it’s medium to large, right?” My wife nodded while I pulled a funny face. Then he opened a cage, and a huge 50+ pound dog emerged. Seriously, it could barely fit in the cage! The dog, Loween, looked at us timidly, sensing my hesitation. He no longer had any bruises on his face. He was a tall handsome blonde jindo. The only clues to his dark past were a slight scab on his forehead and his scaredness.
The guy that worked there handed the dog’s leash to us and told us to go for a quick walk. This would ensure that we were happy to take him in. The second Loween went outside, he brightened up, darting in every direction. My wife said she wanted to take him in. I looked at Loween. He was charming but too big. I said that we had to take him back. I just wasn’t comfortable with him. We were walking back to the shelter, when the dog did something. He had been running out ahead of us, but now he darted back, pulling on his leash. We thought he’d seen a slice of pizza, or something, so my wife pulled the leash, bringing him back in tow. But then he did it again. What was he doing? It dawned on my wife. She told me, “He doesn’t want to go back.” I saw it immediately. He really didn’t like that shelter. He was desperate for anything else.
“Just for the New Year fireworks. He’ll hate those, and I don’t want him to be in the shelter. Then we can bring him back,” my wife told me. I agreed. Next thing you know, we were all trudging across the park, all four of us. Wait a minute, who was the fourth? The huge, heavy cage that I had to lug from the shelter to home. Yes, I’m assigning objects that annoy me as a living entities now.
A few days later, we were Skyping with my parents. My former dislike of dogs had come from them. However, I twisted the phone camera to Loween. “Awwwww,” said my Mum, loudly. “That’s not a dog, it’s a fox!” said my Dad. They both instantly fell in love with him, even though they were 3000 miles away and watching through a pixelated screen. “The best thing is, he’s so well behaved and never causes a problem,” my wife said. Immediately after that, my dog threw up on the carpet, heavily. But I wasn’t pissed off. By this time, I’d fallen in love with the dog too.
Being sick once was really Loween’s only major inconvenience. Oh, wait, no. There was one other thing. Every morning, you’d wake up from foul smelling air blowing into your face. Then you’d open your eyes and see Loween’s face staring at you, trying to get you out of the bed. You’d turn away, hoping he’d get the idea. Then he’d walk back to his dog bed. About 10 minutes later, the same thing would happen again. So you’d get up and give him a long walk. In the evening, without fail, the same thing would happen again, only we were on the couch this time. Two long walks a day. But hey, I got used to it.
I just thought of a third annoying thing the dog did, but why even mention the terrible constant hair shedding?
When we were collecting the dog, the person working at the shelter warned us. He said that due to Loween’s past, it would take him a while to warm to us. But the opposite was true. Within a day, we were petting him, hugging him and playing with him like a happy family. Bliss.
As Loween was a foster, we knew that our relationship with him was temporary. However, nothing can prepare you for when he left. Another couple had been to see him. I was at work, but my wife met them. She didn’t think that they were going to adopt him. The relief. After a few days, she was proved wrong. They liked him and were going to take him in forever. Damn. He’d found a forever home. I remember the last morning I saw Loween. I hugged him, told him I loved him. He didn’t really get it.
Overall, it was an incredible first experience. Loween is such an incredible animal. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long to find another dog. However, this one was much more difficult but just as lovable...