Puppy Love

Shortly before the pandemic, I adopted a puppy.  She could fit in my cupped hands.  She got fur on my camouflage dress, and it didn’t matter. I’ve had dogs before, large ones, when I was a kid in my parents’ house in Queens.  I knew what it was to love a dog.

When I was in the sixth grade, we moved from an apartment to a house.  Because we no longer had a doorman to protect us, we got a Doberman Pinscher a few months later.  My brother, Dorian, was enlisted to pick up the dog from the breeder. He took a long time.  I watched for him out the window with my friend Maya. Finally, Dorian walked in the door and put the new black puppy in my arms.  The dog had giant paws, an oversized belly, short legs, and floppy ears that felt like velvet.  We put him on the floor, and Maya put her hand out for him to sniff, and he sneezed in it.  We fell back laughing.  My sister, Debi, suggested the name Fonzie.

I cradled Fonzie in my arms, wrapped him in a blanket.

Dorian said, “Don’t baby him! He’s a guard dog.”

My mom said, “Don’t let him go upstairs!”

He was supposed to sleep in the little room off the kitchen, but at night I sneaked him up to my bedroom.  I hid him under my covers, and we slept cuddled together, his little head on my pillow, while I breathed the sweet mustiness of his fur.  In the morning, I brought him back to his room before my dad got up to make his Turkish coffee.  

After my day at school, I rushed across Queens Blvd. and down the four blocks on 68^th Drive. I couldn’t wait to see Fonzie and take him to the park. Often Dorian and I took him for long walks in the neighborhood and let him run free in the fenced-in track area of Forest Hills High School. 

Even though I coddled him, Fonzie was a good guard dog.  He didn’t let strangers ask me for directions; he made such a racket that they had to drive away.  At Flushing Meadows, if a man walked towards me on an isolated path, Fonzie growled until he passed. 

By the time I was 18, both my siblings had moved out to apartments nearby.  When I was 20, my dad announced that we were getting another dog.  One day, I came down to the living room and saw a very large mastiff puppy lying by the front door, with his chin on the beige tile.  Upright, he was taller than Fonzie, like a colt with lots of loose skin. His body was the color of a lion, and his face was black.  Debi suggested the name Cujo. 

Cujo grew to be massive, broader than Fonzie.  He weighed more than I did.  When people saw me walking both dogs, they crossed the street. 

But Cujo was a fearful dog with a look of worry on his crinkled forehead.  He was startled when the traffic light on Jewel Avenue clicked from red to green.  He was just as startled when a dry leaf blew by. 

When I was 25 and still living at home, I went to Mexico on vacation. Dorian cared for the dogs while I was away.  When I returned, only Cujo greeted me. I figured Fonzie, who was 13 then, was looking for his tennis ball, which he loved to have in his mouth when someone came home.  “Fonzie!” I called.  My mom was playing cards with a group of friends in the living room. “Where’s Fonzie?” I asked her. She stood up. “Call Dorian,” she said. 

I ran to the kitchen phone that was on the wall.  “Where’s Fonzie?” I said, instead of hello.  After a long pause, Dorian said, “He died,” and started sobbing.  He told me that they were at the high school.  Fonzie had eaten something and came over to Dorian and lay at his feet.  And then he stopped breathing.  Dorian tried to lift him.  He told me how he struggled to get Fonzie into the car while holding onto Cujo and crying all the while.  Now I was crying, too.  I coughed out sobs, twirling the phone cord around my fingers until my chest hurt. 

Cujo and I became inseparable. I was able to give him my undivided attention, which he had always craved. I brushed his teeth, gave him medicine, cleaned his ears, bathed him.  He was gentle and open to anything I suggested.  When my nieces and nephews came over, he stood stock still while they petted him, staring down.

On one glorious spring day a few years later, I brought Cujo to Central Park, and he stepped on a shard of glass near the Bethesda Fountain.  He held up his paw for me to look at.  It was the size of my fist, with soft fur between each digit.  When I found the glass and pulled it out, blood spurted.  I didn’t know what to do.  I ran with him through the park to 68^th Street and Central Park West.  With each step, he left behind a bloodied pawprint. On the street, no cab would take me with such a big animal.  I finally spotted one at a red light and explained that my dog was injured.  The cabbie said he would take us to an animal hospital on York Avenue.  I held Cujo and clasped his paw in my shirt as we sped across town.  He leaned against me, and I kissed his ear, whispering, “It’s okay, Cuji.” He got stitches while I sat in the waiting room for hours.

When he was 10, Cujo needed two surgeries on his hind legs; he could no longer support the weight of his body. I knew he was in pain. By then, Dorian had moved to California.  After many discussions with him and the vet, I decided to put Cujo down. In the waiting room, they called his name.  The aide took his leash and said I could go. But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.  I said I wanted to stay with Cujo till the end.  The aide said I couldn’t.  I got on my knees, hugged Cujo, and wept into his fur.  I looked into his kind eyes, kissed him all over his grey speckled face, and told him what a good boy he was. When they led him away, all I had left in my hands was his leash and collar and no dog.

I thought of Fonzie and Cujo often.  I missed them.  Dorian and I talked about them.  He said he was sorry that he’d tried to contain my love and affection for them.  That they were probably such great dogs because I loved them so much.  That my babying them the way I did was probably the best thing. 

Decades passed.  I got married and had two sons. I told them all about Fonzie and Cujo.  I showed them pictures.  I told them how I used to wrap Fonzie in a blanket and carry him like a baby.  When Aaron and Oliver talked about Fonzie and Cujo, it was as if they had known them.

I never thought I would get another dog.  My husband, Val, was allergic. We discussed getting a dog when our boys were small, but the allergy issue always arose, and we didn’t like the hypoallergenic breeds.

Then one day, out of nowhere, Val texted me a picture of a black lab puppy with the name and number of the breeder.  He said that a work colleague had used this breeder and had forwarded him the picture.  He said that he would love this kind of dog and that she was available.  Black labs are not hypoallergenic, I reminded him: They shed; he would be ill; his eyes would itch.  Val said he didn’t care.  He would medicate himself and get an inhaler. 

“Val, are we really doing this?”

“This is the dog I want,” he said. 

Before he could change his mind, I arranged for the dog to be delivered from Pittsburgh to our house in Pelham. 

That morning, I felt nervous and excited. I was jittery; I dropped things; a receipt I needed flew out the car window. 

Then I was standing with my family on the curb waiting, as a guy with missing teeth pulled up in front of our house on Clay Avenue. In the back of his truck was a tiny puppy with the shiniest black fur, soft floppy ears, and caramel-colored eyes. When he handed the dog to me, I felt like I was going to burst. I couldn’t speak.  By the time Debi came over from Queens that afternoon, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. “Maybe I should get a dog,” Debi said. I looked at her, confused; I’d never seen her pet Fonzie or Cujo.  When I asked her why, she said, “Because I want to be as happy as you are right now.”

I named the puppy Rhoda in honor of Valerie Harper, who had died that week. Harper had played Mary Tyler Moore’s Jewish friend Rhoda on a sitcom.  Debi loved the show, and I watched whatever my big sister watched.

Aaron and Oliver babied Rhoda, like I did. I carried her around until she got too big.  Val carried her around even when she was full-grown and was surprised at how much he loved her.

I sent Dorian a picture of me and Rhoda. “Lucky dog!” he said. He said that I looked just like I did when I was 12 – the same joy, “like the day we got Fonzie.”