Personal Essays


I glance back at the blue dog strapped into my backseat and sigh. I thought it was going to be easier than this. He is looking backward. He turns and gives me perhaps the most pathetic look a dog has ever leveled in my direction and returns to his rear-window vigil.

The first rule of being a foster-dog parent is that you simply cannot fall in love with the foster dog. You must care about him enough to want the very best home for him, you must care enough to treat him as your family while he is there, but you must not love him. Loving him will lead to the inevitable result of keeping him. I failed to follow rule number 1. I failed extremely quickly.

Falling in love with Taz wasn’t difficult. You see, I am a bit of a clumsy, klutzy, dorky, quirky sort of person and he is the same sort of dog. In fact, he may very well be the dorkiest canine I have ever met. Taz, within a week, had racked up a list of ridiculous “bad behaviors” that were for some reason entirely endearing at the same time as they were frustrating.

This list included, among other things, bashing his head into the car window to try to catch passing motorists, sitting below the bird cage drooling and whining at them for hours on end, stealing an entire tray of unbaked cookies from the top of the oven, “heeling” bicycles, and protecting the house from passing squirrels, cats, birds, dogs, people, and cars. Yet, he did all of these things with an exuberance and joie de vive that was unmatched, and then repented with the biggest puppy dog eyes known to dog. It is hard to battle such an onslaught of adorable.
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