Joy Unleashed Page 3

  For the first time it occurred to me that this wasn’t going to be easy, that I was entering uncharted territory. This was a new world to me where my instincts—to touch him, find out about him, ask if he’d make it—weren’t allowed. I turned away, but his face stayed with me for weeks.

  “Here’s the infusion room,” said my guide, and I noticed a row of reclining chairs lined up along the length of the room. All the chairs were filled and everyone was connected to an IV. A few were asleep, one or two were reading, and the rest looked at Bella as if they’d never seen a dog in their lives. The nurses behind the desk looked startled, but the receptionist quickly introduced Bella and explained to them that she would be visiting on a weekly basis.

  “Good girl,” I said to her, to cover my nervousness. We approached the first chair.

  “Would you like to see Bella?” I asked.

  A woman about my age nodded. “She looks sweet. Is she a puppy?”

  “No, she’s five, but we’ve had her since she was about four months old.”

  Then I realized we had a logistical problem. The patients couldn’t reach her, so very carefully I had Bella put her front paws on the seat of the chair. I lured her into this position with a treat and then asked the woman if she’d like to give Bella one. She nodded and we had our first routine worked out.

  We worked our way down the line of chairs, being careful not to touch the tubing that was carrying the chemo from the IVs to the patients. One woman had beautiful red socks with green Christmas trees on them. I admired them and, after a few weeks, came to look forward to seeing her collection. An elderly man told me about his dog—turns out this was a dog he had when he was in his twenties—and a few others wanted to know about Bella—what breed she was, who trained her, where she came from, whether or not she was my dog, and how she became a therapy dog. I realized her story was part of the healing. She was a canine Cinderella, or as one patient put it: “She hit the jackpot!”

  The nurses were wary, and I was careful to stay out of their way and to always check in with them. I understood they were working and we were extra, like icing on the cake. But by our third visit to the Cancer Center, they had become our biggest advocates; they started asking the patients themselves if they’d like to see Bella. Once Brandon joined us, they fussed over him just as much. He was so handsome—a collie, Rottweiler mix, all soft fur with a swaying gait that seemed to say aren’t you lucky to see me? Bella adored him, and on our way out of the infusion room, she often licked his mouth—a sign of joy and submission. This made some of the patients laugh.

  “True love,” I told them. “She’s crazy about Brandon.”

  Like many males, he also liked the attention, but didn’t let on that it mattered in the least.

  As Cathy and the dogs and I returned week after week, we often saw the same patients. Some looked the same, but others became more thin and haggard. I dreaded seeing their chairs empty, knowing that this horrible disease may have won out despite all their efforts. But we could never ask or discuss medical issues. We showed up, observed, let the dogs do their thing, and because we were now part of the routine of this place, we told the patients if we had to skip a week. That was it. I thought of my friend Nancy going through this week after week, and my cousin Linda who died of breast cancer at barely fifty, leaving behind her husband and two teenage daughters.

  But the dogs made seeing this okay. They brought so much joy into the room that they balanced out the fear and sadness. After only a few months, this place—this front line of a terrible battle—felt normal. In fact, it had become my favorite place in the hospital.

  Every week, before we left the hospital, Cathy and I went to the cafeteria. As volunteers, we were given vouchers worth five dollars. One of us stood in the hall with the dogs, who weren’t allowed in the cafeteria, and the other got drinks and snacks. Then we took our stash to the volunteer office and had a little party, talking over who we visited, how it went, and what we learned. Bella and Brandon were very interested in this part, as food was involved, and after helping us eat the snacks, they often stretched out under the table and fell asleep.

  I was lucky to be with someone like Cathy. She was warm, funny, accepting, and excellent company. She was a freelance clothing designer of outerwear, and so she not only had a flexible schedule, but also understood on a deep and personal level what it was like to be out of work. I realized much later, after we had moved and were no longer working with Cathy and Brandon, what a gift that time with her had been.

  I thought Bella had similar feelings about Brandon and much preferred visiting the hospital with him rather than with just me. Together they were a pack—somehow more than two dogs. They generated even more attention from staff, families, and patients than they did individually, and they quickly learned that one dog could approach the bed, or wheelchair, while the other held back, waiting for his or her turn. I was convinced they learned from each other, Bella picking up on Brandon’s laissez-faire attitude, he on her energy and enthusiasm. And once we were back in the hall, they were just dogs—curious, strolling along together, somehow making sense of this place that was packed with strange noises, stranger smells, and lots of activity.

  I never liked to admit it, but there were days when I was lost. When the world felt confusing and I wasn’t sure what to do, who I was, or what was next. It’s a cliché to say that change is difficult, but there I was at age sixty-five, having lost my job of sixteen years, and I was resentful. Why did they let me go? Why couldn’t I have turned in my resignation when we were ready to move out of the area? Why didn’t anyone I worked with remember me? No one had called, or emailed me, or checked in to see how I was doing. I felt as if I had died. As if that wasn’t enough, we were in the middle of trying to sell our house where we had raised our children and built a community for the past twenty-four years. The day the For Sale sign went up in January, I flipped out. This was my house, my neighborhood, my trees, my yard. But without selling it, we couldn’t move. Bob was still working so he couldn’t dwell on it. But I wasn’t working, so I did.

  On good days, I remembered our plan. I remembered that we were moving to a special place. We would be living near a salt cove just outside the most beautiful New England fishing village. We had a house there that we bought four years ago and it already felt like home. The sea breeze and salt air were amazing, there was a rack down by the water for our kayaks, and the neighborhood was really a park. But we didn’t know what it would be like to actually live there. And what about work? What would I do? How would I find a job?

  Bob planned on retiring and was so close he could practically taste it. He was so excited, so ready for a new chapter. My job seemed to be to get rid of stuff so that our move would be easier, to get Bella and Henry out of the house every time there was a showing, and to keep the house spotless. I bought fluffy white towels that we never used. I swept things into drawers and closets. I removed our photographs. I got rid of the furniture that Henry had destroyed with his sharp claws. In short, I made our home not really our home. I was at the whim of realtors and their clients. I had no job to go to. I wasn’t part of a company. My car knew the way to the office but I couldn’t go there.

  I obsessed about strange things. For example, a man was parking his car across the street from our driveway so he didn’t have to pay the one-dollar fee in the lot around the corner by the train station. At first it was nothing. Then I got angry that his car was there. Then I happened to run into him one morning while walking Bella.

  “Excuse me,” I said, in my loud, I-know-what-I’m-doing voice.

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “You taking the train?”

  He hesitated then nodded.

  “Why don’t you park in the lot? This is a dangerous corner.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Don’t park here,” I said, preparing to keep walking.

  “No sign that says I can’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s a good ide
a!” and I left, smoke curling from the top of my head, fantasizing about leaving dog poop on the hood of his car.

  Bella followed me, and I didn’t enjoy or even see anything on our walk. When we got back to the house, I called the police and told them his car was a nuisance. An exit from the bank was located just beyond his car, so cars coming down our street didn’t have a clear view. The policeman humored me for about a minute and told me he would check it out, but said there was nothing he could do if it was a legal spot.

  Later, when Bob got home, I told him how mad I was. I told him I called the police.

  “You what?” he asked. “Why?”

  “Because,” I shouted. “It’s wrong! He shouldn’t be there.”

  “But Jean, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s not your job.”

  “Yes it is!” And I burst into tears.

  Bob took me in his arms, and for the first time since I was let go, I cried. I had been so proud of my work, the relationships I built with my clients, the classes I designed, the teams I facilitated, and my book on how to recover from job loss. One former client—one of the few people who had reached out to me—said a funny thing: “Jean, did you read your own book? You know better than anyone how to get through this.”

  “This sucks,” I said into Bob’s shoulder.

  “It does, but once we move, you’re going to find other work. You always have.”

  I thanked him, but what I was really thinking was I don’t want to! I want my old job back!

  My friends asked me how I was doing and I told them I was fine. I was efficient. I got stuff done, and I also had a book deadline to meet, so I did have work. There were days when I wondered where I belonged, moments when I was sure I’d been put out to pasture and would never work again. Henry curled up on my lap and Bella sat under my desk, hoping for a walk. But every Monday, Bella and I went to the hospital with Cathy and Brandon, and that bright spot, that one chance to focus on something else, pulled me through.

  Chapter 5

  BABY STEPS

  July 2007

  Yardley, Pennsylvania

  It’s hard to remember now how wild Bella was. In those early days, everything was unsettled. The one amazing thing she learned right away, though, was not to eat Henry’s food. She somehow understood that she could only eat out of her own dish—but if one tiny speck of cat food fell from Henry’s dish onto the floor, then it belonged to Bella. She was the cleaner-upper.

  Our early successes included getting her to sit on command, to go into her crate without a struggle (which was always made easier by a treat), and to walk on our left side without darting in front of us. The pulling continued, even with the Easy Walk harness, but was bearable. Although I knew to stop walking every time she pulled on her leash, I was too impatient to keep up this routine, so Bella pulled and I yanked her back and we lurched down the street during every walk.

  Having grown up in the country where we had thirteen acres of woods and no nearby neighbors or busy streets, I believed that dogs should be able to run free—a leash was a necessary tool, but not one that should be used all the time. When we walked Angus, we carried his leash with us but didn’t put it on unless we were worried about a busy part of the road or another dog.

  “Can you imagine what she’d do if you let her go?” Bob asked once.

  With her dominant Whippet genes, she’d be gone in a flash. But at least she had our backyard to run in and was getting to be friends with Cooper, Brandon, and another neighborhood dog, Lela. Lela was so well trained that Kim could open her car dog and Lela would wait beside the car. And when we went hiking together, Lela was off-leash. Was that too crazy a goal to hope for? Would I ever be able to trust Bella like that? Bella was only a puppy, while Lela was three, and I knew that made a huge difference. Another challenge was her reaction to other dogs: there was no middle ground, no neutral. Bella loved them or she hated them. Two houses down from us lived a couple with German Shepherds—large, aggressive dogs. The man who had them thought of himself as the Dog Whisperer and never had them on leashes. Walking by his house was a challenge. I often pulled Bella to the other side of the street and tried to get past his house without the two animals charging us. When I saw them coming, I screamed: “Get your dogs! Get them out of here!” which had mixed results. Sometimes he came out of his house and gave a loud whistle and they returned, other times he was out of ear shot and did nothing. Bella bared her teeth and tried to bite them, while I did my best to stay between her and them and kept shouting, “Go home!” I’m sure I made things worse.

  Which was why, when this man suggested one day that the dogs “play” together, I agreed. I thought that if they got to know each other, we’d be spared our walk-by attacks. He brought over the younger male—a beautiful, dark Shepherd who immediately went for Bella’s hind end. She had other ideas about how to meet and greet and ran as fast as she could. He charged, flipped her into the air, and pinned her down.

  “This isn’t good,” I said, hyperventilating.

  “Don’t worry,” said the neighbor, watching his dog like a proud parent, “they’re just establishing dominance.”

  “Bella, here!” I shouted, once she wiggled out from under this huge animal.

  She ran and hid behind my legs, the other dog in hot pursuit.

  “No!” I told him. Again, useless and no doubt making everyone more tense.

  After a few more agonizing minutes of this, I told the neighbor that this was enough for now. Bella was small, and his dog, while well-meaning, was too rough.

  “You have to let dogs be part of the pack,” he said.

  I wanted to bite him, and say “Not your pack!”

  But I managed to thank him for stopping by, and I’m not sure who was more relieved to see them go—Bella or me.

  Our classes with Trish, the dog trainer, continued on a weekly basis. We practiced walking with a loose leash; commands such as sit, stay, right here or come, as well as useful ones like in your crate, and do your business. The good news—Bella was smart. The not-so-good news—she had so much energy and such a limited attention span that she was like someone with a severe learning disability. Every day we practiced. When we were out walking and saw another dog coming toward us—one of many she disliked—we introduced the leave it command. This meant she should ignore the dog and continue her walk as though nothing were happening. It was a good idea in theory, but Bella had other ideas; her hackles rose a good three inches, she bared her teeth, growled, and lunged at the passing intruder.

  “No!” I told her, hanging on to the leash, struggling to prevent a dog fight.

  I told Trish, the trainer, about this, and she suggested more practice and taking her to places like PetSmart where she would have to interact with strange dogs. I didn’t need to think about this for more than a minute to know that Bella wasn’t ready. Trish sure knew a lot more than I did about dog training, but I knew Bella better. What I didn’t realize, because I’d never had a puppy before, was that they grow up quickly. By the time Bella was almost a year old (we adopted her in May when she was about four months old), she began to understand and finally passed her test with Trish. We were given a bright green certificate that read, “Bella Baur has successfully fulfilled all the requirements necessary to complete PUPPY LEVEL I EDUCATION, December 12, 2007.”

  Because I was the one doing the training with her, she got my last name. Oh, boy! My goals at this point were simple: to make her more like Angus—a polite, well-trained dog. A dog you could trust. I tried not to compare her to Cooper, who was more mellow and loved everyone. But then I remembered where she came from, and in a handout from Trish about puppy development, I saw that the early weeks of a puppy’s life were critical. They shouldn’t be removed from their mother or litter mates, and they should be introduced to humans carefully and should not be exposed to loud noises, aggressive behavior, or other threats.

  Bella’s early life, whether born or dumped on Dead Dog Beach in Puerto Rico, was wors
e than anything in this handout. And while we didn’t know the specifics of what happened to her there, we knew enough to assume it was a dreadful place for a puppy. (I picked up a book called Rescue at Dead Dog Beach that provided horrific details. It took me a month to read it as it gave me nightmares.) I asked the shelter in New Jersey how they got Bella and learned that they partnered with a group in Puerto Rico called Amigos de los Animales PR (Friends of Animals Puerto Rico.) The name Mary Eldergill was on Bella’s inoculation records — the woman who had saved Bella and two of her siblings from the beach. She fostered them in her home while Amigos de los Animales PR made arrangements for the forty dogs rescued from Dead Dog Beach to be flown to Newark Airport and sheltered at St. Hubert’s in North Branch, New Jersey. Upon arrival, she was de-wormed, given her shots, spayed, and micro-chipped. One month after that, she came home with us. That was an awful lot of change for the first four months of a puppy’s life. Change and loss. I didn’t know what happened to her mother or her siblings except for her brother, who had also been at St. Hubert’s. For one fleeting moment, Bob had thought about adopting him, too, but we knew that was a mistake. One puppy was enough.

  Give her time, I told myself. Be patient. These were not qualities that came easily to me, but I worked on them, as Bella had clearly made her way into my heart.

  Chapter 6

  DEALING WITH THE UNEXPECTED

  March–April 2012

  Yardley, Pennsylvania

  Just when I thought I had this whole hospital thing down, and that Cathy, Brandon, Bella, and I knew our way around and were doing good work visiting patients, I was accosted by a teenage volunteer, a girl in a blue volunteer jacket. Cathy and Brandon were still chatting in a patient’s room, and Bella and I were walking toward the next room, when this young woman came barreling at us. I quickly put myself between her and Bella.