Three years (and counting) of joy
I rescued Sophie from the animal shelter. She rescued me from everything else.
Three years ago, I hightailed it out west from visiting family on the East Coast, intent on getting a dog. I had been dreaming about it for many years, and planning it for one.
I hadn’t told anyone; a year earlier, I had embarked on my new life as a full-time RVer, wanting a dog then. But it had been 17 years since I had an RV, and I had to be sure I could take care of the rig, and myself, before taking more serious responsibilities. So I gave it a year.
That was up (and then some), and I was ready. It was time.
Several RVers I had met during that first year had adopted dogs in New Mexico, and recommended I do the same. After weeks of going through the heartache of browsing Petfinder from afar, I had narrowed it down to municipal options (many private groups won’t allow RVers to adopt, or set up many barriers). When I got out there, I visited the City of Albuquerque Eastside Animal Shelter.
It was tough to go through. Narrow, chain-link and metal cages, with a small indoor portion and a somewhat larger outdoor one, a little passageway between the two. Row after row of cage after cage. All full. About 750 in all (although its census can get much higher). Each dog a good dog, each worthy of life and of love.
I could only adopt one, though. And RV life isn’t the same as in an apartment or home. Not every dog can adapt. This could take time.
Shelter policy said you couldn’t just take the first dog you liked; you had to visit with at least three. When I heard that, I knew I would follow that rule, and do my best to honor its spirit, but that I would know when I saw The Dog, and just go through the motions with the other two.
That’s just what happened.
Walking through the shelter and seeing the dogs there, three categories emerged: those who jumped up and barked and snarled and let you know they didn’t like it one bit and had to get out and weren’t too keen on anything else; those who’d lost hope, and didn’t even look up—curled tight, protectively, or splayed out, dejectedly—on the bare concrete floor; and—the rarest—the ones who did neither. Mine would come from those.
One, a black-and-white Australian Cattle mix of about 40 pounds, was lying on her stomach, forelegs out in front, just on the other side of the passageway. Head up, alert, but calm. Not aggressive, not passive. Just there. Hanging. Waiting.
When I first saw her, I couldn’t even see her face; she was looking over her shoulder at something that had gotten her attention.
I would later find out she had been in the shelter the longest out of all the dogs there at the time (about six weeks), passed over again and again. She had just delivered a litter, but the staff didn’t know about her pups. She had lived on the streets. Animal Control Officers had been trying to catch her for a year. They had named her Rhubarb. They didn’t tell me she had been badly abused.
All of that came later. Right then, all I knew was what appeared on her card, which wasn’t as complete as some others. No assessment, no information about her personality, activity level, disposition, etc.
I said, gently, “Hi.”
She came right over. Calm, hopeful, even. But with her ears pinned back, almost sheepish.
I said again, sweetly, “Hi.” I added, “Rhubarb.”
That relaxed her ears, and she sat.
Had someone trained her? Had they surrendered her? Had she escaped?
I put my hand up to the middle part of the fence (unlike many other cages, the lower portion had a solid cover) and Rhubarb delicately put her paws on the chain link and rose up for a sniff.
She seemed to like what she smelled, so I moved my hand a bit to give her a better angle, and that startled her a bit. She sort of froze, in a pose I would later understand would mean “Maybe if I don’t move they won’t do anything to me.”
I was familiar with the feeling. Maybe that’s one of the things that drew me to her: we resonated.
Keeping my voice sweet and soothing, I said, “That’s OK, Rhubarb. You’re good.” And I moved my hand back a little. That seemed to work, and she once again was interested in it. In me. But she hadn’t yet made eye contact, and I wasn’t pushing it.
I put my hand down and moved my head over to my left, closer to the fence, trying to keep the camera on her, interested to see if she would follow me.
She did. And she stretched to get closer. She was already breaking my heart. And winning it. Completely. Perhaps 20 seconds had elapsed since I had first seen her, but I knew it already. Rhubarb was The Dog.
I think maybe she knew it, too. She followed my face back to the right, lifting her nose, and looked me right in my eyes. Which were getting blurry.
I leaned back over to my left, got in real close, and asked the question I have since asked about 6,500 times.
“Wanna go out?”
By which I meant, “Wanna go to the visiting space, check me out, see if you like me? Wanna wait while I go through the motions with two other dogs, giving them a chance but knowing I’ve already found you? Wanna make me your Person?”
She did.
We went out to the little cinder-block “meet” area, the shelter staff member leading her. We got in, closed the door, and unhooked her leash. Rhubarb looked up at me expectantly (I had put away my phone by this point; I wanted to be as present as possible for all of this).
I said, “Go ahead” and she happily, methodically sniffed every square inch of the place, going around the perimeter, her paint-dipped tail up and wagging the whole time. I crouched down like a catcher to watch.
When she finished, she came over to me, put her nose to mine with a soft snort, then did something I hadn’t expected. She made a U-turn into me, and sat with her back pressed against me, looking out and around.
My grandfather would tell me, decades before, that’s a way you know a dog trusts you and feels safe with you.
It was decided, then. Mutually.
Even the staff member could see. We’d found each other.
But I still had to follow procedure. After returning Rhubarb to hr cage, I picked out two other dogs I genuinely liked, and in turn we visited the meet area.
One, Bud, who had been there about a month, seemed to love being out of that cage but showed no interest in me at all, despite my best efforts. (OK; despite my good efforts.)
The other, Precious—there about two weeks—nipped at my ankle the moment she was unhooked, ran to the opposite side of the area, and parked herself, looking all around, but never once at me.
The policy satisfied, we returned Precious, and I said bye-for-now to Rhubarb (I had chosen her new name by then, but waited to pick her up to officially name her).
Disappointed to have to wait two more days for that, I completed the paperwork, learned a bit more about her, and scheduled her spaying.
And then I left. Without The Dog. To live the interminable period of about 45 hours before we could see each other again and start to make our new home and life together.
Other than going to a pet store and buying, well… everything, I don’t remember much of what else I did that night—Tuesday—nor the next day, night, or third day.
I know I got tacos (at a Jack-in-the-Box… yeah, in Albuquerque… I was beside myself and needed familiar comfort food, thank you) and stayed in a Cracker Barrel parking lot (no real RV options in the city, and I wanted to be close). I kept staring at the few photos of her I had taken—and, my photo history shows, downloaded one of my previous dog, from 20 years earlier, Scout.
Thursday afternoon at last arrived, and I went to pick up Sophie.
In 1998, Linda and I had named our dog after a character in a favorite shared book, and I knew as soon as I saw Rhubarb’s sweet face and calm disposition I would name her after a character—Colonel Potter’s horse—in a favorite shared TV show.
It hadn’t sunk in until I was getting post-op instructions from the vet tech that she would be coming out of anesthesia from her spaying right before I picked her up (they were full, and had no room for recovering dogs). As I was absorbing what that meant and how it could affect our first days together, they brought her out, wobbly and shaking.
But she greeted me much as she had the first time, nose to nose, although, understandably, with somewhat less of a vigorous tail wag.
We made it out the door and into the RV and down the road.
In the three years since, we’ve driven across the country, coast to coast, and northern border to southern border, nine times so far, visiting many dog parks and state parks and county parks and national parks and city parks. And many pet and sporting goods stores. And some parking lots. And four houses, along with the family members and dogs in them.
I’ve seen Sophie through a rattlesnake bite, a months-long G.I, problem, and various smaller maladies. She’s seen me through what we’ve all experienced in the US: later COVID, and recovery; and hope, and decline, and destruction. And the deepest, most profound, most lasting grief I’ve ever felt.
She’s given me countless reasons to go on, to get up each day, to get back up after each failure or loss. And love, and affection, and some of the deepest, most profound, most lasting joy I’ve ever felt.
I love her the way Linda taught me to love, the way I think Linda would love her. The way she loved Scout. The way she loved me. Freely, openly, adoringly, without condition.
Thanks for letting me be your Person, Sophie.
