Joy Unleashed Read online

  I was also not very good at moving. I was a rooter—I liked to be in one place and was the kind of person who liked to know everyone in my neighborhood. In fact, Bob and I earned the title Icons of the Neighborhood. But now we were a few days away from closing on our house in Pennsylvania, where we had lived for the past twenty-four years. Our movers were coming to help us pack. We had reservations at a local hotel that took pets for our last few nights, as there would be no place to sleep and no way to cook once everything was in boxes.

  I was in hyper mode as the team of packers worked through the house—I took picture hooks out of the walls, found spackle to fill the holes, ran from one room to another, answered the movers’ questions, gave directions, and thoroughly exhausted myself. It felt so strange to be in what was still “our house,” knowing it soon wouldn’t be, and having everything in such turmoil. I had to keep Bella and Henry in one room so they were not underfoot, and Bella was trembling—she didn’t like the noise and confusion. I took her on several walks to calm her down, and for the last time she got to hang out with her favorite friends: Brandon, Cooper, and Lela.

  I was on autopilot and willed myself not to cry. We made it through the packing and loading of the moving truck the next day and the farewell parties. As I hugged my best friends, I told myself that I’d see them again and that we weren’t really saying goodbye. It was really strange to be staying at a hotel in our own town, but the animals adjusted and before we knew it, we were at the closing Monday morning. Henry was in his travel case, Bella had been fed and walked, and we were hoping to be on the road to Connecticut by mid-morning. They were both in the car and we had left several windows open since it was a cool, end-of-April day.

  An hour into the meeting, there was a snag with the buyer’s check. I got Bella and brought her into the room, but I was worried about Henry, as we had a four-and-a-half hour drive in front of us and he had no access to food, water, or a litter box. At the second-hour mark, I made it clear that we had to leave, and our realtor came up with a good solution—she would deposit the check for us in our bank so that we could get going. We wished the new owners the best, thanked the rest of the team, and drove out of our wonderful town on the banks of the Delaware River. Bob had Bella in his car, and I had Henry in mine. I was more stunned than sad. We did it. We were leaving, and I had no idea what lay ahead. Thankfully, we’d already fallen in love with our small coastal town in Connecticut.

  Age is a funny thing. Neither Bob nor I felt old, but we were sixty-three and sixty-five as we settled into our new home. Bella was five and Henry was eight. But in the months—really more like years—of planning for this move, we realized we wanted to do it before we were too old and the physical demands of moving became too difficult. We wanted to move while we could still make friends and find important ways to be part of our new community. We bought the house in Connecticut almost four years ago and had spent every moment there that we could—vacations, holidays, as many days as we could take off of work, Bella and Henry both making the trek back and forth with us. But now Bob had just retired, and I was in transition (the best euphemism for being laid off)—wanting to work part time, but not able to imagine my life without teaching or counseling. Bella had four months of experience as a therapy dog, so once we had a few clear paths between the endless (eighty-eight to be precise) boxes, I called our new vet to ask if he knew anyone involved in pet therapy work. He told me he did and that he was having dinner with Kat that week and would give her my contact information.

  Here in Southeastern Connecticut, I was lucky to have Kat and her two Australian Shepherds, Boo and Wren, to show us around. They had been doing this for a while. In fact, several years ago Kat was one of the founders of the hospital pet therapy program. By the following week, she and I connected and she had invited us to join them for a bite-prevention program in Groton, two towns over.

  “What exactly is that?” I asked her.

  “The local hospital launched this program to prevent children from getting bitten by dogs. It’s really good—the kids watch a video about how to interact safely with dogs, and then we bring in a few therapy dogs so they can practice what they’ve just learned.”

  Kat and I agreed to meet at the Park ‘n Ride near the highway, and as she had a van, she drove us to the school in Groton. Her dogs were in crates in the back of the van, which was perfect for Bella, as she could sniff them and get used to them on her own terms.

  Kat parked in the shade, left Boo in the van in her crate with plenty of water, and with Wren and Bella we entered the school and went down the hall to one of the kindergarten rooms. When we walked into the room, all the children turned to see the dogs, excited by this unfamiliar event. The teacher managed to keep them sitting on the floor, and then introduced the woman from the hospital who showed the video. There must have been fifty children in the room. I was wondering how Bella would do with so much stimulation. Before the children were allowed to pat the dogs, we were asked to tell them a little bit about their history and what they do.

  Kat went first and told them about Australian Shepherds and how smart they were. Wren did a few tricks, the best being lying down on his side and closing his eyes when Kat said, “Time for bed.” Now it was our turn.

  “This is Bella, and she was born in Puerto Rico. She didn’t have a home and was living on the beach with a lot of other dogs. But a woman found her, took her into her home, and a little while later, Bella flew to an animal shelter in New Jersey. We adopted her when she was about four months old and now she’s five years old.”

  “Me too!” said several kids.

  Bella sat quietly by my side, looking around the room.

  “She just started working as a therapy dog so she’s a beginner. We both are. One thing she doesn’t like is to be patted on the head, so when it’s your turn to say hello, please pat her on the back. She likes that.

  “Bella is a little shy and there are still a lot of things she’s afraid of. But what’s neat is that she learned how to be a therapy dog—how to be a dog that visits sick people in the hospital. And just like me, she likes having that job. It makes her feel good.”

  The hospital woman made a few more comments and then it was time for us to work the crowd. My grandchildren—Molly and her two siblings, William and Lucy—were six, four, and two at the time. Bella was good with them, so I was hopeful that this would all work out. Slowly we walked through the sea of children, and Bella decided that what most of them needed was a good lick on the face. She ducked her head and, before they could turn away, planted nice, wet kisses on their faces. They screamed—mostly with pleasure. Just like with the Girl Scouts, these were her puppies.

  After that, the children stood up in two lines—one for Bella and one for Wren. They had to first say, “May I pet your dog?” Once we said yes, they could do it. Bella didn’t like this routine, so to keep her from backing up and hiding behind me, I put a treat in each child’s hand and let them give it to her. This worked. By the end of forty-five minutes, we were both exhausted. The teacher and the Bite-Prevention woman thanked us and the children yelled, “Goodbye, Wren! Goodbye, Bella!”

  “She did really well,” Kat said, as we went back down the hall and exited the school.

  Her feedback meant a lot to me, as she was an evaluator of therapy dogs—the one who decided if they got certified.

  “That was intense,” I said, watching Bella prance down the school hall next to Wren.

  Once outside, we chatted a while as the dogs sniffed around in the grass and did their business. We arranged to visit the local hospital together once I got all the paperwork done. We had successfully made it through our first assignment in Connecticut. It felt really good and I liked Kat. She was down-to-earth and very good with her dogs. And it was the first thing I’d done in our new community that made me feel as though I belonged there. That made this place seem permanent—and it was a wonderful change from unpacking boxes.

  In those early weeks, I was still
in shock, asking myself many times a day: “Do we really live here? Don’t we have to go back to Pennsylvania?” and “How am going to find a job?” I found another dog therapy team: Deb and her lab, Shelby. Deb attended my church and was introduced to me by a friend who had moved from Yardley to Stonington several years before we did. Deb gave me the name and number of the volunteer coordinator at a local rehab facility, The Starfish Home, where she and Shelby volunteered every Wednesday. I called Starfish and sent in Bella’s paperwork.

  On Wednesday, June 6, we met Deb in the Starfish parking lot in Mystic. Bella was not sure she liked Shelby, a large, calm lab, also a rescue. Her hair rose and she let out a low growl. I kept myself between the two dogs and asked Deb about Shelby. She was found in Tennessee—a stray—and Deb adopted her at what her vet thought was about age two—which turned out to be more like four. We kept them away from each other as we walked around the parking lot, although Shelby was so laid back it was hard to imagine that anything could upset her.

  I was nervous about going inside since I had almost no experience with nursing homes. My first impression was that these institutions were housing for people who were waiting to die, and that most of the residents wouldn’t know a dog from a chair. I told myself this was simply an experiment and if we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t return.

  Bella sniffed the grass and seemed to forget about Shelby, but I told Deb (like the parent of a gifted but difficult child), “Bella doesn’t do well with new dogs. I think she’s afraid.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Deb. “They’ll get used to each other. Let’s go in.”

  We followed them and watched as she pressed a red button that unlocked the front door. We entered a cheerful entryway with a large sitting room on the left, and another straight ahead. They were empty. We walked past these and went down a long hallway. I smelled some kind of cleaning chemical and noticed how the sun shone through the windows that lined the hall. Not so bad, I told myself. Plants sat on the sills—some fake, some real. A purple orchid.

  Deb and Shelby had been coming here for several months, and they were both pros. I quickly learned that Deb was fearless. She poked her head into a room and said in a loud voice (because almost always the TV was on and many residents were hard of hearing), “Would you like a visit from the dogs?”

  Bella and I hung back like shy children as Deb strode into each room announcing, “This is Shelby. And we have new friends today—Jean, and her dog, Bella.” Shelby was perfect for this work. She loved everyone and nothing upset her.

  We were in Jane and Mary’s room. Shelby sat beside Jane’s chair and let her head be scratched and patted while Bella pranced nervously around. “Are they sisters?” asked Mary.

  “No,” I told her, a tiny woman in her arm chair. “They just met today.”

  “Oh, but they look alike.”

  “You’re right—they’re both part lab.”

  “But,” added Deb, “Shelby is the big one. She loves to eat!”

  I’m guessing Shelby weighed more than ninety pounds, while Bella, with her dominant Whippet genes, was forty. They could be sisters. Their coats were almost the same color—Shelby’s was a bit curlier and redder, but they both had brown noses with pink spots, and that lab sweetness to their faces. After a few minutes, Deb told them that we’d be back next week. I had been breathing through my mouth, as the smells in the room were strong—a mixture of human waste, chemicals, and who knows what. I wondered what Bella made of them. I wondered what they told her about the residents. As we worked our way day down the hall, most of the rooms were fine, but a few made me gag. This was more challenging than the hospital.

  I watched Deb and Shelby, so comfortable, so unafraid, and noticed how their presence made the faces of the residents light up. This was clearly the highlight of their week. I coaxed Bella with treats and got her close enough so the residents could pet her. She seemed to instantly like some people, and others she was not so sure about. Just as we were about to leave a common room where we’d visited with four or five residents, Bella jumped up on the lap of a large man in sweat pants seated in a recliner.

  “Oh,” he said, clearly pleased that this creamy white dog had landed in his lap.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “She wasn’t supposed to do that.”

  At least Chuck—this man—wasn’t frail and Bella hadn’t disconnected any tubes. Before I could get her to jump down though, I noted how his face had softened and that he was slowly running his fingers down the length of her back. He couldn’t talk, but he was looking at Bella, holding her. He was no longer alone. She sat still, somehow knowing her place and that this was what she was there for. The pain and frustration of whatever ailed him evaporated in this unlikely connection.

  Deb had her mouth open, clearly as stunned as I was. “Isn’t she something?” she said.

  I nodded and told Chuck that we looked forward to seeing him again next week. He looked at me as if I was speaking a strange language, but nodded, the brightness in his face fading. I put my arms around Bella and lifted her carefully off his lap.

  Once we were back out in the hall, we laughed. “Oh, my God,” I said, “I was afraid she’d hurt him.”

  Deb told me not to worry about it and then added, “If Shelby did that, his legs would be paralyzed for life!”

  The rest of our first visit was uneventful. We followed Deb and Shelby—the very best teachers—and paid very close attention. That was all we needed to do.

  Chapter 9

  ONE STEP FORWARD AND FIFTEEN BACK

  Spring 2008

  Yardley, Pennsylvania

  The title of this chapter was one of my mother’s favorite expressions of articulating how difficult progress—true progress—could be. When she said it, I always imagined a person walking up a steep hill, taking one step up and fifteen back, and wondered where on earth they’d end up. As a child I was very good at walking backward so I didn’t see this as a bad thing—just more proof of the odd things grownups expected.

  But in 2008, as Bella neared her first birthday, she was still wild, and I was envious of my friend Kim whose dog, Lela (a Vizsla), could be let off-leash. When we took a hike on a nearby trail, Kim opened the car door and Lela jumped out and stayed close to her. And deep in the woods she let her run, knowing that when she called, Lela would return. This was both inspiring and discouraging; it didn’t seem possible that Bella could ever be trusted, but I longed to see her run flat out, her Whippet speed making her a white blur. I often said, as she dragged me down the street on our walks, “She was born to run.”

  Cathy and Kim, who were neighbors and good friends, reminded me that this would take time, and even at her worst moments, when she ate goose poop and didn’t heel, I knew she wanted to please us. She had a sweetness and tenderness that were undeniable. She loved to have her body plastered up against mine or Bob’s, her warmth, her muscular body, slowing us down and comforting us. When she was asleep and we’d pet her head and play with her soft ears, she’d roll over to expose her black and pink belly.

  When I thought about it carefully, Angus had his moments too; sniffing endlessly under a bush, racing around like a banshee after a bath, and once pooping all over the living room rug when we took a walk in the neighborhood without him. I knew I had to get my expectations in line with what was possible, not with what I wanted—not with my timetable. So in a way, we were teaching each other: I worked to have her obey basic commands, and she let me know what she could and couldn’t do. It was like trying to domesticate a very fast two-year-old child with sharp teeth and an insatiable passion for going after the neighborhood cats.

  My vet had a surprising idea when I told him how frustrated I was. He said, “She’s a perfect agility dog. She’s fast and can turn on a dime.”

  “What’s that?” I asked him.

  He then explained that agility training involved jumping, going through tunnels (made of fabric), see-saws, weave poles, and a number of other obstacles tha
t dogs competed in during timed trials.

  “Some dogs,” he added, “are a lot happier and easier to train if they have a job. I suspect Bella is one of these.”

  “Who offers agility around here?” I asked. He told me about a local dog club and suggested I look them up online. I found out they met in a barn nearby and offered classes for beginners as well as for dogs who were already competing. A few weeks later, I signed us up for the beginner class and tried to get Cathy and Kim to do it with me, but they weren’t sure they were interested. So on a cold night in early March, Bob and I found the barn, walked Bella around outside for a few minutes, and entered a small room that served as a waiting area while the previous class went through their paces in the large, indoor horse ring.

  Bella was not happy to be this close to other dogs she didn’t know, but I kept her on a short leash and told her “Leave it!” when her hair rose like some prehistoric monster. Just like an embarrassed parent, I wanted to tell everyone nearby that she was afraid of other dogs and not really aggressive, but I kept my mouth shut. Finally, the other class left and we were asked to enter the ring and walk our dogs around the perimeter without using any of the equipment.

  Bella quickly discovered that manure was a delicacy, but other than that, she did a good job. After about ten minutes, the two instructors, Gail and Tina, asked us to line up. There were about twelve dogs in the class and they explained that there was zero tolerance for any type of aggression. I was eyeing a huge, unneutered Rhodesian Ridgeback and hoped that he stayed clear of both Bella and me. His owner, a woman about my age, had no control over this huge dog and laughed when he jumped up on her, nearly knocking her over.

  “You will be using your leash for a long time,” announced Gail, “as we can’t have dogs who aren’t under control running around the barn. But eventually, as you saw in the last class, each dog will have a chance to run the course off-leash following your commands.” Then she looked at Bob and me and said, “Only one of you can do this. It’s fine if the other wants to observe, but a deep bond is established between a dog and his trainer in this work and it isn’t effective to switch back and forth.”