The Rescue Dog

Part I -The Rescue Dog

K.C. was our timeshare dog, lovingly cared for by Kathy, but living the high life through our credit cards. The vet bills seemed to escalate for the 15-year old pooch, culminating in the $800 tumor removal the Christmas of 2007 reminding us that, “You know, dogs grow old, and then they get expensive.” Considering that K.C. only lived with us for about 3-4 weeks out of the year, we calculated that it actually cost us approximately $50 per day to have her stay with us in the mere effort to give the kids the illusion of having a dog. “Mom, can we get a dog?” “You already have one.” “Where?” “With Kathy. She’s your timeshare dog – she lives with us a few weeks of the week, but we pay for her the entire year.” “That’s not fair mom, we want a full time dog, not a time share dog.” “But time share dogs, while more expensive, are easier to take care of.”
And before we could fully explain the benefits of owning a timeshare dog with the kids, K.C. was gone. As Dave was doing his dead-dog duties, which apparently included Dave bringing home the deceased dog to the dinner table, Dave made an appointment with the grief counselor at Blum. As Dave says, “Well, I brought K.C. to Blum Vet and in an effort to look forlorn and shaken up over K.C.’s passing, they sent in the grief counselor. And frankly, she was kinda hot, so I just tried to be more sad and pathetic.” Well, the one thing the counselor said was when telling the kids, don’t beat around the bush, just be direct. Perfect, Direct-Dave, with his wife, Indirect-non-confrontational-Su could get the job done.

“Kids,” Dave said, “sit down, we have something to tell you.” “Are we getting a brother or sister?” Umm…no, that wouldn’t be it, I swear I have to start that Weight Watchers thing soon. “How about a new Wii game?” Are you giving up your allowance money? “Well kids,” Dave continued, “K.C. was a well loved dog and has been with our family for a long part-time. K.C. won’t be coming back to visit us anytime soon.” Nice Dave, leave the kids with ‘soon’ to wonder if K.C. is going to be making a reappearance in an urn or on the dinner table, again. The glazed look on our three kids would imply that this conversation was not going as well as planned. Plan B – use the Counselor’s approach, be direct. “Alright, fine, K.C. died. She’s never coming back. Do you get it, do you understand, she’s dead. Really dead.” Ah, clearly the direct approach worked as the waterworks began. After dabbing the kids eyes with tissues, Dave asks the kids, “Do you want to talk about this? Do you have any questions?” Only one question, that they virtually all said in unison, “Does this mean we can finally get a real dog?” And so began the journey to The Rescue Dog.

I will admit that I was relieved to be freed of the responsibilities of doggie duties, even if we only did it a few weeks of the year. Months passed with the constant pleads from the kids, for anything that they did that remotely smelled of being good (i.e. report cards, not teasing, Max wiping his butt, etc), “Does this mean I can get a dog?” Please Max, wiping your butt on your own is a skill that your college roommates and future spouse will be grateful for, not something that you should do simply because you want a puppy.

After much discussion, some behind-the-back ‘let’s go pet the puppies after church at PAWS’ maneuvers, we (Dave and I) decided that yes, we could get a dog. I, for one, preferred the small yippy lap dog, Dave on the other hand preferred the 100-Pound Burmese Mountain Dog (just in case he wanted to scale Mt. Everest and needed a dog to be his Sherpa), but city living dictated that we both compromise and search for the 40-50 pound dog. And the kids, if it had four legs and licked them, that was all they wanted.

On December 20th, Dave and I had managed to get rid of all of the kids for assorted sleepovers in an attempt to escape the Christmas rush and head downtown for a night at the Sofitel to celebrate our anniversary. Oh, what the heck, “Dave, we can’t check in to the Sofitel until 4:00, the kids are gone, do you want to go see puppies at PAWS?” And with hardly a twist of the arm, we made a pit stop to PAWS at 3:30 just prior to closing, to see the latest dogs that were in need of a home. After circling the rooms a few times, Dave longingly looked in the window of a room with a wee-little, barely born, Lab-mix puppy. “Look Su, he’s perfect!” He? What about our agreed upon non-shedding, she-dog who wasn’t a puppy? “Please, please, please can I have the puppy?” Geez, this is like bringing your four year old out on date, but with sadder eyes and a bigger pocket book.

According to the guys in charge at PAWS, they are serious about their adoptions and have ‘rules’ in which they must follow. “Well, if you would like Comet here, you’ll need to start the adoption process immediately and take the dog home with you…today.” “Oh, and don’t forget, we don’t let the dog leave until he meets every member of the family.” Let me get this straight – I figured out how to get rid of every child of mine to have a single overnight in the city, and now I’m looking at picking them all up to meet a dog, forgo our night at the Sofitel, simply to get a non-she-definitely bigger than 40 pounds-shedding-male dog? These are dogs that need to be adopted, right? It’s harder to adopt a dog in Chicago than it is to get a mortgage. “Dave, I think we need to sleep on this. As in, sleep at the Sofitel, keep the kids at their overnight, make sure this is what we (or I) really want. We can come back when they open at 11:00 a.m.” And with that, and some relative assurances that since PAWS would be closing in 30 minutes, most likely Comet would be ours in the morning.

At 10:55 a.m., Dave patiently waited on one of the coldest days in Chicago, to be let in to PAWS. “Is he here? WE WANT COMET! MY WIFE CAVED IN! I WON!” (I can only assume this is what he said as I sat in the car too cold to move). And out came sad, pathetic looking Dave – probably giving me the same look he gave the ‘hot’ grief counselor (but this was genuine) – “Someone adopted Comet 15 minutes after we left.”

After following Mopey-Dave around the house on Sunday, and feeling a tad bit guilty for not pulling the trigger when asked, I simply said, “Why don’t you go to the Chicago Animal Rescue with Delaney, they have a herd, I mean litter, of lab-mix pups that look kinda cute. And while you are there, I will sift through the 10MM listings on Petfinder.com for our perfect adopted dog.” Dave ran out of the house like I gave him a new lease on life with Delaney in tow, while I did what I do best – sat on the couch with the computer and searched away.

When Dave got home, with the reports about Belle, the 21-pound 7 week old puppy (“No honey, she’s not going to get that big”…right) I narrowed the list of possible on-line pups for Dave to look at. I can only imagine searching on-line was probably like using match.com or eharmony.com, but for the canine set. “Too ugly.” “Too big.” “Too small.” “Bad teeth.” “Is that their real hair?” “Too high maintenance.” Truth be told, I was looking for a big enough dog to satisfies Dave’s desires, not too big so I wouldn’t freak out, a dog that wouldn’t bark, one that could tell us when it needed to go outside, one that wouldn’t shed, one that would be good with the kids, not jump up on the couch, not sleep in our bed, not need too much exercise, a lap dog, a lazy dog, etc. Frankly, I think I was looking for the perfect stuffed animal, while Dave was trying to mend his PAWs broken heart with a canine companion. So, while Dave tracked down the next steps and lengthy application process for Belle (please – home visit, phone interviews, referrals and recommendations – even Roland Burris did have this lengthy of a background check to be seated in the Senate), I tracked down the whereabouts of Daisy the Wonder Dog.

“Dave, I was just interviewed by Chicago Canine Rescue. Apparently, I answered all of the questions correctly because we were approved to adopt Belle. But just one small…umm…big thing we should talk about. Belle is going to be 80+ pounds when she’s fully grown, not really sure if that is going to work in the ‘plan.’” So, with that one “I’m apparently going to continue to break my husband’s heart” phone call, it was full speed ahead to find out if Daisy the Wonder Dog was available, and if the FBI would now be doing our next application check.

Dave made the journey with a couple of kids from the Friendly Confines to Highland Park where Daisy the Wonder Dog was being fostered by a way cool family, while Su enjoyed an evening out with the girls. I raced home (okay, not really) to find out that unbelievable, but Daisy actually met all of my crazy requirements for a dog. She was the live stuffed animal I was looking for, but hadn’t met, and guess what, Dave is smiling again which made everything well in the world. And with a few more phone calls, some random but easy paperwork (sure you don’t need to come to our house, what about fingerprinting us, background checks, hey we’ll even offer up one of our kids in exchange for the dog), Daisy made her way home on Christmas Eve and was the perfect Christmas gift for the family. We have all fallen in love with her- even though our lab-mix…err, actually pitbull-mix…is trying to kill me. One has to wonder who actually needs the rescuing, but that’s a story for another day.

COMING UP SOON, PART TWO – HOW I BROKE MY BOOTY (or How is Daisy trying to kill me today)