Personal Essays
Bringing Up Tazzy
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He is crying. This grown man is crying in front of me as his dog happily hops into the backseat of my car. He utters something that sounds like “you be a good boy now”, his voice cracking, and turns away. I don’t know how to deal with tears. “We will find him a wonderful home. I promise.”
The first thing that I discovered is that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had dreams, big dreams, of opening up a dog rescue one day. A small one, on that great plot of land that we are going to have, where several lucky canines get to be members of my pack for a short time, and find forever homes beating down my door to greet them. Where do you begin with a dream like that?
If you have no impulse control, like myself, you begin with Tazzy. Perusing the internet classifieds one day, I happened upon a post that screamed of desperation. There was a picture of an Australian Cattle Dog staring at me, the text discussing that the family had to rehome all of their pets, all of them, and quickly. I am not sure I hesitated even a second before responding. You see, this breed is massively overrepresented in shelters around here. They are intelligent, active, and mischievous dogs. I saw that poor dog and I saw his future laid out bare before me. He would find a new home quickly, because he is so cute. He would be too much for them. He would go to a shelter, and he would not come out again. Perhaps I was being overly dramatic. Perhaps it was not anywhere close to life or death. But I did it anyway. I had found my first foster dog.