Tests will come to press upon us on our limitations, forcing us shed the shame that we don’t particularly want to take on any more projects of humanity. Through the two years in his neighborhood, I felt like I was an empathic magnet to the dysfunctional ecosystems that produced strays; metaphorically with the meth head Din Din and literally with the stray cats. I was also looking squarely in the face my blindness to red flags with men, finding myself in an energetic output exchange that wasn’t mind to take on. I would wonder why the rest of the world seemed to have gotten the memo who and what wasn’t their problem, and I was out there with the red bucket and bell, yet the vessel was my heart.
When the stray Husky appeared, I was acutely aware I was stretched thin by my energetic outputs. As a single mom to two teens who ran a business, I didn’t dial in life. I was all in, so any project that appeared, whether it was a man who needed healing, or a garage renovation (yes, that demolition had just been launched), I was coming around to the idea that people would not suffer if I didn’t appear and save them from their problems. I had to save myself from emotional meltdown and burnout. I couldn’t bear to turn a blind eye to problems that appeared in my energetic space, but I was going to have to be more judicious. I heard in an AA meeting once, “Get off the cross, we need the wood” and I had to chuckle. That was me. Extending myself to the fullest, giving so much of myself, and later asking, how did it get to this? I thought I was taking it slow.
On a situational level, and definitely on any kind of long-term level, I wasn’t taking on any more pets. I didn’t care how sweet Julia Roberts was with her ranch and rescue dogs (which in some way in my mind also contributed to her fame and long term marriage). I was one year from half empty nesting with a senior in high school, and I wanted to drop responsibilities of caretaking not add more. I also didn’t want to feel shame about carving more time out of my schedule that wasn’t dictated by a notepad shopping list. I knew a pet was a lot of work, and my past experiences with pets were laced more with regret that I didn’t know I wasn’t that cut out to be a pet owner. I had a lot of shame to say that. I had a mini Aussie in my twenties who was a constant companion but insanely anxious and would eat ¾” gaps into the wall while I was at work and decimate potted floor plants. I would take her out hiking for hours, come home and sit down to finally relax with a cool drink, and she would be back, nose on my lap, nudging, urging play time. I didn’t learn my lesson after her, and in my forties, got persuaded by an ex-boyfriend to rescue a cat, who eight years later I still reluctantly own. He is really my older teen’s cat but guess who has been the primary caretaker of all vet appointments and litter scooping. Exactly, ol’ el chumpo over here.
My older teen was elated with the stray Husky as she tries her hand with an infuriating persistence to add more pets into the house to help the South LA stray population (or “give Suess a friend.”) She has a way of making you feel incredible uncharitable if you don’t sign up to her viewpoint even though she will not be the one paying for or ultimately attending to the problem. If one of the stray cat mothers brings her kittens over to our yard to stake any claim, I scare them away despite my daughter’s joyous screams of “Kittens!”
“Get away from them!” I yell. “No kittens! Kittens are not cute!” Because we are one of the fenced in yards without a dog, the APB goes out we are a yard to raise cats which is code for “poop on your grass.” I am not having it.
I had also just recovered from thinking in pandemic boredom I needed to trap and neuter the stray cats on the block (it took one You Tube video for me to go, what am I thinking?). I felt I was free and clear of any distracting or time-sucking animal activities. Aside from the occasional squirrel eating the guavas and dropping them to be mush in the grass, we were just one mom, two girls and one cat for infamy. I wouldn’t even entertain a goldfish.
The stray Husky shot like a ball of fire shot into our world to force me to finally stand by my standards and deal breakers in life. No more rescue projects. If I ever contemplated adopting a baby with a man I may one day meet who is younger, after he three days with the Husky, that would be a big fat no… I don’t care how nice your abs are or if you are a bitcoin millionaire. I want to be around creatures who can put their own food in their mouth.
When the Husky first arrived on the scene, he was playing in the neighbor’s yard with their new pit bull who had been acquired after the incident with the meth head Din Din. I assumed the Husky was a visiting friend’s dog. Then, I saw the Husky later chained outside on their fence. I thought, that’s odd, and I should have just ignored it and let it go, but because I was lost for so long, looking for my forever home, I feel the pain of any creature that is not yet found. We all want an open door to our forever home.
I asked my neighbor about the dog.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He just showed up.”
Later that night when I brought my older daughter home from a late theater rehearsal, the Husky was still on the fence and had no food or water. It was ten PM and I made the next error of pointing the Husky out to my daughter. She was engrossed on her phone so I could have very easily just ignored the dog but I have a mouth that is clearly not wired to my brain.
She was immediately out of the car and approaching the Husky and the whining began.
“Mom, we can’t just leave him out here all nite!”
I am thinking, yes we can…
“He has no food or water…”
She already had the leash the dog had dragged in her hand and was walking him towards our house.
“Woah, woah, woah… where do you think you are headed with that dog?”
“We have to give him shelter.”
I saw the writing on the wall and knew the best I could do was get this dog to a shelter. My daughter ran in to get my younger daughter who was not yet in bed, and they were now double ogling the big dog. She was cute with black and white coarse fur and stunning blue eyes but I recognized that wild look. My Aussie’s face flashed in front of me and I shuddered. I started to make calls as I stared at this massive dog tied to our orange tree. I got in touch with a shelter in Hollywood that said they could do a chip scan on her, and maybe find the owner.
“Get in the car!” I yelled, and at 11PM off we went, the three of us and a massive shedding Husky to East Hollywood on a Friday. Well you can only imagine, the dog had no chip. After the vet nurse complimented me for being such a wonderful animal person (I had to work hard to not correct her), I agreed that we would take the dog now named Kayne by my daughters home for one night.
“But he sleeps outside in the yard and he goes to the shelter first thing Saturday morning,” I said to their vigorous nodding. I ran into a 7-11 to buy a can of wet food and we headed home.
I don’t sleep a wink that night. It was like having a newborn. When I decided to cut my losses on a terrible night sleep, I saw that the tree she was chained to was right in the path of the sprinkler system and the poor dog was soaked. This was February so the mornings were pretty chilly in LA at 52 degrees. She was shaking like a leaf. Now I felt terrible and I dragged out towels and dried her off, and then took her for a walk in the neighborhood while calling the shelter.
“No ma’me, we can’t take strays on weekends during Covid. You have to make an appointment to come Monday.” Oh shit. Now I have this massive dog for the weekend. Okay, I think. We will tie the dog to the tree for the day, and the girls can visit it with some toys and then at night we walk it to the teen’s bedroom where he sleeps two nights, and we can get him to the shelter on Monday.
Both girls were beyond excited but I could not reiterate enough, “Do NOT get attached to this dog. Do you understand? Nothing, I mean nothing, will have me adopt this dog.” They would nod their little heads and I would think, they have no clue how determined I am. No more pets, no more kids, no more rescue projects. I wished I could be this vigilant with men I date and adopt after three dates, despite a neon sign behind their heads blinking “Dysfunction.” The more broken you are, the better suited for a romantic project. What if love truly wasn’t a project but rather a standing in your values and standards. I was making a stand with this dog. I would help her, but she would need to move along to find a more willing owner. Just like if a man shows evidence of needing five years of therapy, make a referral, thank him for the coffee and move on. Don’t fall in love with the project. I had productive projects right before me that produced rewarding evidence, not tears. Renovating my garage (profit), raising my kids (family love) and publishing my book (professional accomplishment.) The elevator was full and we are going up. Catch the next one.
I tried to work at my desk, but the Husky howled all day. Like a “baying Husky on the tundra but there is no sled to mush” kind of howl. I felt bad but luckily for once living in a neighborhood where a howling dog, blasting music, or fireworks is the norm, no one was incensed but me. I abandoned my work and instead set to making posts on Facebook about her, with pictures. I called my dog loving friend Jill for advice and she would have taken her on, but she already had a full house. I even contacted a few Husky rescue organizations. I was considering making fliers and putting them around the neighborhood, but it was just one project too many. I had this baying dog with tons of energy to deal with in front of my house, staring at my window like she was looking deep into the recesses of my soul.
When nite time came, we had to trap the cat in one room, to slip the Husky down the hall, slipping and sliding on her first voyage on hard wood floors to my daughter’s room where she immediately pooped (three walks and no poop) and now I am at the store buying animal stain cleaner, poop pads and more cans of dog food. Luckily this night I slept because if she kept anyone up, it would be my daughter. But in fear she would pee on the rug in the morning, I was up at 5 AM and took her for another walk and back to the tree.
I had a moment of compassion around noon on Sunday. The poor dog was about to go to a shelter on Monday, and while they had assured me Huskies get adopted really quick and they don’t kill dogs unless they are really old or sick and no one adopts them for a year, I felt we needed to give her like a sendoff party. I called my friend Meta who lived on a park, had a small dog Penny and would probably be up for meeting this crazy dog.
“Sounds like fun,” she said. “I have some doggie weed and bones that don’t fly with Penny. I’ll bring them.” I was ecstatic.
When we got to the park, Kayne was on fire with the other dogs. As best as she could on leash, she played and zipped around, wild with energy. It was like she had never been taken to play before. Then it kind of dawned on me when one pet owner asked how long I had owned her that I knew nothing about this dog. She could have kennel cough or some kind of contagious dog disease and here I am giving it to all the lovely well-vaccinated fancy white neighborhood dogs. My shame at being from the hood and having the unruly stray dog struck me but I had to do the right thing when Kayne was practically mouth to mouth with some gorgeous shiny cocker spaniel with a millennial owner in Lululemon.
“You know, this dog is not mine. We found her and are just holding her till tomorrow, so maybe we should limit the contact.” The owner grabbed her dog swiftly while trying to be PC about her panic. I mean, we were in Covid so everything felt infectious.
Then what happened next made me laugh so hard I actually did pee my pants. Kayne got loose from the leash and took off. And when I mean took off, took OFF. I have never in my life seen a dog clock a park so fast. My 13 year old and her friend, both impressive athletes, had nothing on the speed of this dog. And of course she ran right smack into the middle of some bougie picnic spread which my daughter had to extricate her from with one thousand Sorrys. Clearly the doggie pot, despite double dosing, never took hold.
Later that night, when I took her out to pee, she got wild with me, and went up on her back paws. We were in the muddy front yard, and as she covered me with mud in the darkness, I felt that raw uncontrollable fighting anger of an abuser survivor. A door of my past cracked opened and the residue of a history of violence seeped through a crack. She was taller than me standing, and in my panic, I smacked her on the head and she yelped. I am not proud of that behavior but what it told me was I was at my limit. Deep wounds were being triggered in my exhaustion and pushing myself to give this dog the best before I had to turn her away. Why did the neighbors have no qualms keeping her chained to the fence, and then probably letting her go, when I was here in the night sky, battling demons.
Before I even raised one more finger to this dog, she would have to find a home that had better bandwidth for her. It’s humbling to know your darkness still exists, but when your boundaries are crossed, face them. Here on the front lawn of my house, I let go of shame of not having the capacity to adopt more dogs and cats, date more men who are projects or extend myself to prove I was good enough and of value. I had been really high strung lately with an energy that I was never enough to be truly loved, and I didn’t belong to anyone. I had attracted that kind of energy in this lost creature. We match energies and attract what we are. When she came to me at this house, I was like her, wild eyed about my life, tongue hanging out, untethered, panting. I knew I had to take a deep breath and start to calm down the energy within me and around me.
That night while Kayne did not miraculously poop in the bedroom, she did manage to decimate and consume many lead pencils.
On Monday my younger daughter didn’t want to go to school.
“I want to take Kayne to the shelter with you,” she said, tears rimming her eyes.
“Oh no honey, you have to go to school.” I felt like an ogre, but the truth was, her attending math class that she was struggling in was more important that seeing the dog off. “It’s going to be really not emotional. I am just dropping her off. I will text you when it’s done and we will see her profile on line and can keep a track of when she is adopted.”
I brought her to the shelter nearby and for all intensive purposes, aside from the cacophony of mad barking from behind the gates, it seemed like a well-run place. I got in my car with Husky hair flying everywhere, and a few bits of doggie cookie on the seat, and drove home in a reverence and silence. I said a prayer for her and I thanked God that I was able to probably divert her future by giving her shot to be adopted from a better family. It seemed in the way she was on her leash when we found her, someone just let go. With the speed she had at the park, she was fast. She could have come from miles away. We had done our part. When I checked her profile on the site a few days later, I discovered she had already been adopted. I said a little prayer for her and thanked her for coming into my life in this short time. I was proud I had stuck to what worked for me. A bit of service, but no more pets in this house.