The Shelter

Izzy on one of her first walks with us on the Upper West Side of NYC.

I was asked how I came to "choose" Izzy. Thinking back on it, I can’t believe this is how she came into my life, and that Bruce and I made the decision to bring her home based on so little. But thank doG we did.

Our friend Debora, was volunteering for Bobbi and the Strays, a shelter in Queens. She knew I had been jonesing for a dog for a long time, and had heard me go on and on and on about the dogs I grew up. ( A yellow lab named Maxine and a Chihuahua named Bambi. And for the record, I had nothing to do with naming either dog.) Deb also generously let me accompany her frequently on long walks with her two dogs. I would walk one and she the other as we ambled for hours all over Morningside Heights.

She called me at work one afternoon. “Hey, Jessica, no pressure, but . . . the shelter called me and said that a little dog, no bigger than a whisper has just come in. He’s a Chihuahua-Miniature Pinscher mix. They say he loves to be held and he’ll let anyone pick him up.”

I called my husband, Bruce, to see if he was up for a ride to Queens. I had wanted a dog for years, but Bruce had been resistant. He works at home and thought having a dog would be distracting and a nuisance. To my surprise, when he heard the dog was tiny and a Chihuahua mix, he said, “Well, let’s go see.” (Is there anyone in the world who has said “Let’s go see” regarding a dog and NOT come home with a four-legged companion?)

So Bruce, Debora, and myself piled into our car that evening and headed out to the Vetport at Kennedy Airport, where the shelter rented some extra space. The vetport itself was a little shocking. It’s not a pretty place—it’s a small no-frills structure out in the middle of the airport. (Think bombshelter.) There’s no green anywhere, no real place to go for walks, and there is the constant constant deafening sound of planes zooming in and out.

The place wasn’t a decorator’s dream inside either. But it was clean and the volunteers working for the shelter were incredibly happy and loving and thrilled to see us. Debora told one woman that we were there to see the little dog that had just come in. The woman walked over to a plastic carrier that sat on top of a large crate and pulled out a black, tan, and white dog that surprised us all by being much larger than a whisper. At about seventeen pounds, it wasn’t a large dog, but it certainly wasn’t the tiny dog we had all been imagining. This creature looked more like Homer Simpson’s “Santa’s Little Helper” than my childhood Chihuahua. She had floppy ears, big dark bug eyes, a graceful neck, and long delicate legs. Plus, the dog wasn’t male—she was a female, with a line of stitches on her belly attesting that she had been recently spayed. The second she was placed on the ground before us she stood up again, balancing on her hind legs. She kept her front legs folded in close to her chest like a meerkat. She stood like that for a remarkably long time checking out the place, the other dogs, and us.

And yes, she still meerkats!

When she had satisfied her curiosity, she gently lowered herself so all fours were on the ground. Bruce, summoning up everything he knew about dogs said, “Sit.” And this dog did. Immediately. He was thrilled.

The volunteer suggested we take the dog out to a run in the back and play with her there. Out in one of the rectangular cement runs, the dog just raced around with her nose to the ground. She didn’t really mind us being there, but she wasn’t interested in us either. The smells of the run were much more interesting than we could ever be. She ran back and forth following her nose as her tail bounced back and forth. Bruce and I watched the dog and then looked at each other. Then we watched the dog some more and looked each other again.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

It’s crazy to think back on this now, considering how much my heart swells every time I look at Izzy, but I didn’t fall in love with her right away. Bruce seemed to really like her, though and here was my chance to have a dog. So if the dog was one he really liked, rather than one I really wanted, I thought it would bode well for domestic harmony. And then there was the thought of saying no to this dog. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her, putting her back in her little plastic carrier and walking away.

On the way back inside we walked by a large, foxhound-looking dog who was being walked by a volunteer. The little black-and-tan dog went right up to it and wiggled her whole body with glee. The big dog rolled over on its back and the two began to play.

We all laughed watching the two roughhouse. Then I thought of Tillie, our sweet twelve-year old little tortoiseshell cat. How would the dog act around cats? Debora led us to the cat room at the shelter. It was a closet-sized room lined with twenty or so metal cages, each with a cat. We brought the dog as close as possible to a cat who was about eye level. The dog never seemed to notice, let alone care about the cat. Great, the dog was indifferent to cats. Tillie would be fine.

As Bruce and I stood there trying to make a final decision, the shelter workers and Debora assured us that we could bring the dog back if we decided it wasn’t going to work out. Debora said that little dogs have much better odds than big dogs to be adopted and at the very least we would be socializing this dog and helping her move on. Whatever. I knew we wouldn’t bring her back. If we took her home that night, she was ours.

It was funny, even though I was the one who had been pushing and pushing for a dog, suddenly when faced with one, I wasn’t sure I wanted one. We had a nice rhythm, Bruce, Tillie, and I. Bringing this dog home would change her life. What if this was a huge mistake?

We walked out to the car as the dog, oblivious to the fact that she was on a lead, careened and jerked around desperate to explore ever little piece of gravel in the parking lot. As we piled into the car, I suddenly felt guilty. I felt as if I was about to ruin our lives and couldn’t bring myself to hold the dog on my lap.

So the little dog sat happily with Debora in the back seat. She perched on Deb’s lap and looked out the window.

Bruce and I babbled a little bit about names (I kept my “buyer’s remorse" to myself) and we bounced some around. Bruce wanted to call her Spike. For some reason—I still have no idea why— “Izzy” popped into my head. Bruce still lobbied for “Spike.” And to prove his point, he called her, “Here, Spike!” She didn’t respond. “Izzy,” I corrected him and the little dog jumped into the front seat. And that was that.

(You can see pictures of the room at the vetport and read more about Bobbi and the Strays, the shelter Izzy came from here )

Scents and Sensibility

Competition Obedience Scent Articles

I have been training with Izzy since she came home from the shelter. At first it was basic stuff: sit, stay, come, down, leave it, drop it. Then as I learned how much fun it was to work with her, we started doing more and more. Getting our Canine Good Citizens Certificate from the AKC was our first major accomplishment. And then we began competing in Rally-O, Obedience, and Agility.

Our competition career has been very roller coaster-y. We started out strong in Rally, than hit a long stretch of ring nerves (won’t mention the soul searching and tears that accompanied this period) and then wandered out of the NQ (non qualifyng run) desert and won several titles including our first Competition Obedience title, and are on our way to our first Agility title. Two weeks ago we earned our first Rally Championship title: our ARCH.

Even with these successes, it’s still easy to feel like we’ll never get to the next challenge. Especially now, when we’re in the middle of a big training slump. OK, big is a bit of an understatement, it’s a gargantuan training slump. Ginormous, even. We have been practicing scent discrimination for months and are stuck, stuck, stuck. Did I mention we are stuck?? Quicksand stuck. Some days I think Izzy is really using her nose to find the correct scent article. Then there are the days that she just runs over to the articles and grabs the one closest to her. Those are the days that I feel like we’ll never get it.

It’s always the simplest things that stump us. Teaching Izzy “stand” was excruciating. It took FOREVER and when she finally learned it, it seemed she couldn’t believe that was what I wanted. She looked at me as if to say “Really, are you sure that’s what you want me to do? ‘Cause that’s so easy, it’s ridiculous. Are you sure?” And then she’d “sit pretty.” Because that was something she had to work hard to learn. And as a result, it always got applause and she was showered with treats.

And I think she’ll have the same “Are you kidding me?” thought once I figure out how to clearly explain to her what I want her to do with the scent articles. Dogs’ noses are so damn sensitive, it’s hard for us mere mortals to even understand how they experience the world with those things. And I know she uses her nose to ferret things out all the time. Damn, that dog can smell a discarded chicken bone (as well as other assorted and sundry things too disgusting to mention) in Inwood Hill Park from miles away.

Once I am able to figure out how to clearly communicate to her that all she has to do is find the one scent article that smells like me, she’ll look at me and think, “Fer cryin’ in my beer, that’s so easy, she can’t be serious. What does she think I am, an idiot?”

That’s the way, isn’t it? It’s the easy things that trip us up. We can’t believe that just doing what we’re good at is enough.