For the Love of Dog

It’s been less than 48 hours since we picked up Laszlo from MARS (the animal rescue, not the planet) and I am already feeling the pangs of regret that come with any big life decision. I am a person who is notorious for having buyer’s remorse. It doesn’t matter if I am really happy about the change, miserable about it, or somewhere in the middle. I am a tinkerer and never feel satisfied. I have songs I wrote and recorded more than 15 years ago that I still revisit. Some even older. I spent two years writing a novel (that is pretty good, I think) and yet can’t seem to feel like it’s “done”. My point in this isn’t to say I really regret bringing Laszlo into our lives — I don’t — but it feels like I do.

Lasz is a special case. He was neglected by whoever was supposed to be responsible for him during the first 7 months of his life. He came to us severely underweight. You can feel every rib, every bone in his spine, and his hips. His body has the profile of a really bad Instagram THOT photoshop. He did nothing but sleep quietly for the first 24-hours we had him. He was clearly exhausted and unsure of what was happening. But sometime around 6 pm last night, that quiet, sleepy dog disappeared. In his place was a dog who is absolutely racked with anxiety. And farts. My god, the farts.

On his first night with us, he slept peacefully in a crate. Didn’t whine or make a sound. My partner and I were relieved because our first dog, Lola, had really bad separation anxiety. The second night, once he was rested and his true personality began to emerge went very, very different. He was quiet for the first few minutes. Maybe ten. But then he started whining. No biggie, we thought. Some dogs will whine for a bit and then settle down. But the whining grew louder and louder, eventually crescendoing into what can only be described as a wolf-like howling. I tried putting on a talk radio station, thinking that hearing the voices might comfort him. And honestly, it did work for a bit. But the trick wore off and he started up again. After 20 minutes or so of his howling, we decided it best not to wake the neighbors we just moved next to by having our wolf-dog calling for his mates up North.

After frantically searching the web for ideas, we agreed that maybe he was just lonely. He’d been through hell, after all. Not only was he neglected for months, but he’d made a long journey to Minnesota from either Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas. We’re not sure where he’s from or his backstory. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to send the first 6 months of your life in terrible conditions and then spend days on the road being moved from shelter to shelter. The only thing we do know is that he was one day away from being put down when the Minnesota rescue got him. One day from death.

Thinking that maybe he just needed some comforting, we dragged his crate to our bedroom upstairs and let him try sleeping up there. He would not be content to merely be IN the room with us. He needed to be on the bed. As midnight approached, we were desperate for sleep. So we caved and let him come up. He didn’t make a peep the rest of the night. And aside from the occasional leg kick, we got a decent night’s sleep.

To be clear, this is not our first rodeo with a dog who has a mental illness. Lola was a nightmare when we got her. This was mostly because we were ignorant about how to raise a dog with issues. I chronicled some of this in my eulogy for Lola. We both felt confident that whatever baggage a rescue dog came with, we’d be able to handle it. What’s that expression? Man plans, God laughs? Hardy-har-har.

The thing is, and any parents with multiple children (or dogs) can attest, is that they are all different. The tricks that worked on one might not work on the next. Lola loved her crate. She demanded we keep it available for her all the way until her death. Even though we didn’t have to crate her after the first six months or so of us using it, she still found comfort in it. That’s pretty common. Laszlo does not seem to enjoy the crate as much. And granted, it’s been 48 hours. Not even that long. Trust takes time. Lola was a lifetime of experiences and training. He’s good for about three minutes before the whining starts. Which is fine. I’ll take three minutes and grow it to five, then ten, then twenty, etc.

The trap that I’ve fallen into is that because I became so accustomed to a dog that knew and understood me, I just expect Laszlo to be the same. When I tell him to go lay down, he looks at me like “huh? Bro, you haven’t taught me that yet” and I think oh yeah, that’s right. We’re at square one. Not even square one. Because of his neglect, we’re at square negative three. And that’s when the buyer’s remorse starts to creep in.

Am I really ready to start this process all over again? Do I have the patience and energy to pull it off? Will it work again? All questions that I thought I knew the answers to. As a theoretical concept, rescuing another dog seemed like a no-brainer. We’d been missing a dog’s presence in our family and we still have plenty of love to give. When we started our search, we came across the photo above. Look at that face! Tell me that isn’t a face to fall in love with. And we did. And so we have.

The doubt comes from feeling helpless. When he whines for no apparent reason it feels like the floor disappears from beneath my feet. He can’t tell me (in words) what’s wrong. It’s frustrating because the things that would soothe Lola don’t seem to work on him. I worry about him: what he’s feeling, if he’s OK, if he feels safe. I want him to love his new life. I want him to trust us. But again, as Mariah said, Love Takes Time.

It would be wonderful to get a dog that comes with no baggage and is fully-trained. Talk about easy. I’d love one of those dogs trained in Europe who only knows commands in German. But aside from not having $10,000 to drop on a dog, I think that misses a big part of the journey. Maybe the best parts.

I didn’t love Lola because she was fully trained (she wasn’t). Or because she could self-soothe. My love for her grew because of the journey we took together. From broken dog to mostly-OK dog, we learned from each other, about each other, and that was the really good stuff. Knowing that out of the billions of people on the planet, Lola trusted us, was rewarding beyond measure. By the time our journey came to its end after 13 years, we were so close that we could communicate with a look, a gesture, or even a sigh.

And so the journey begins anew. There will be times when I am at my wits-end with Laszlo. There will be times when I feel utterly helpless and lost. There will be a lot of research and refresh courses in dog training. We will figure it out, together. Patience, for all of us, will be required. And in the end, we’ll be closer because of it. Anything worth having is hard to get. Especially, the love of a dog.