Erik's Blog: August 2011

One year ago today, I got a call in the afternoon from my wife.

"Husband, don't get angry at me, but they found a dog at our warehouse." My wife has a soft spot for animals. All animals, but particularly for those in need. She's always told me she like animals better than people. In most cases, I wouldn't believe someone who said something like that, but with her, I absolutely do. Her company's warehouse is just south of downtown Detroit, in a rough neighborhood, so I feared the worst.

"Ok," I said, "What are you telling me?" I was hoping she wasn't trying to talk me into getting another dog. We'd just adopted Howie, a sweet but very skittish Bichon mix from a foster home back in June. We lost two dogs the previous year, and we both still felt that loss everyday.

"What I was thinking was that we can take her for tonight and then tomorrow we can take her to the vet and make sure she's ok. I have someone here in the office who already wants to adopt her."

I'll admit now that I was more annoyed with this then I should have been. I didn't really want to complicate things, even for one night, by adding another dog to our mix. Howie was finally starting to come out of his shell, and I didn't want that progress slowed in any way. Plus, the idea of a vet visit for a homeless dog terrified me. Who knows what was wrong with her? We were already paying off a large vet bill from the previous year, when our beloved Gizzmo got sick, was misdiagnosed by two vets, then sent home with a clean bill of health, only to die a few days later from the undiagnosed brain aneurism. Not only did this experience leave us with with a huge whole in our hearts, it left me with a slight distrust of our vet.

I told Janeen that it was fine to bring her home, and that I would give her a bath (Janeen is allergic to most shedding dogs and I wasn't sure if this dog would bother her) and that she could sleep in my room with me for the night.

Anna on her first night with us

When Janeen got home I went out to her car to help her bring Anna inside. I picked her up and immediately felt her ribcage. She seemed so fragile that she would break if handled wrong. She was also very weak. I could tell this when she wasn't able to shift her weight around the way most dogs do when they are picked up by a stranger. I took her downstairs to give her the bath. She was matted and I knew that getting her clean was going to be difficult. When I went to set her down in the tub, it happened. She looked up at me and gave the tip of my nose one small kiss. I knew at that point it was going to be impossible for me to give her up.

Anna after her first bath

We got her bathed and then fed her some food. For a dog as skinny as she was, she seemed to have little appetite. I worried she might be sicker than she seemed. That night, I let her sleep on the bed with me. It was not a good night. She had two accidents and barked at every little noise she heard.

In the morning, Janeen took her to the vet. The plan was still to give her to the woman from her work, so I left work to come over and see how she was doing at the vet. She seemed so much stronger in just one day. Once the vet appointment was over, I gave her a little kiss and said goodbye. Janeen told me later that she saw me put me head down as I walked back to my car, knowing that I was crying, and she made the decision at that point that we were going to keep her. When I got home that day, she was there with a brand new purple collar with a tag on it that read "Daddy's Little Girl".

We were fortunate that she was moderately healthy, despite all her time out on the streets. The vet estimated that she had probably been on her own a month, and judging from her condition, she probably could have only survived on her own for another week. The vet was amazed that she survived as long as she did. He guessed that her breed was a mix of Cairn Terrier and Dachshund, and that she was probably about 3 years old.

Anna 'dancing' with mom

The past year had been great, but nothing is perfect. We found that once she got healthy, she has quite an abundance of energy. She sometimes likes to pull things off of end tables and other low lying surfaces so she can 'destructo' them. For the first few months, she had to be crated when we were gone due to these destructive tendencies.

It turns out our worrying over how she would get along with Howie was unfounded. It wasn't more than a couple of months later when they started playing together. We were initially concerned, since Howie is quite a few years older, and Anna seems so aggressive toward him. She never hurt him, and those times in which she accidentally did or he wasn't in the mood to play, he would let her know with a well-placed nip. We absolutely love hearing the frantic clacking of their nails in the kitchen as they race from room to room playing. We've come up with out own little term for it- we say it's like they are yelling "To The Battlefield!" when the take off across the kitchen to play in either the front room or one of the bedrooms.

Anna & Howie

Anna is now up to 11 pounds. She was 5.5 during that first vet appointment a year ago. I often think of her before she came to us, out on the streets, dodging cars and going hungry, and it makes me want to cry. Janeen always brings me out of it by reminding me that she was on her 'journey' to us. While that period must have been horrible for her, we are so glad she found us. She makes our lives richer everyday.