REX IN THE CITY, Part II: Having Second Thoughts

When you rescue a troubled dog on impulse and start to have second thoughts....

Here’s the second installment of the column that ran for several years in the late, great BARK magazine. (I’ll keep repeating that fact for the new subscribers to MUST LOVE DOGS, just as I’ll keep repeating that many of these columns became chapters in my book—the memoir REX AND THE CITY which was published by Randon House in 2006).

BARK magazine, rightly so, imposed a word-count limit of about 3000 words for each of my installment of this series. I am not one of those concise, Ray Carver-ish writers who can say a lot in a few words. (It’s quite possible I say very little, using thousands of words in the process, but people are too kind to tell me this!). I’m verbose, and I have one of those minds that likes to pull in lots of ideas, tangents, hypotheses, parallel universes, etc., and weave them all into one central point. (I have one friend who says talking to me is like talking to a cosmic magnet—whatever that means). So this installment is explores those moments of having second thoughts—and even regrets—after having adopted a dog on impulse. I wanted to write about this syndrome because I think—I know—this is a very common phase for people to move through after adopting a dog, or fostering a dog, or purchasing a new puppy from some online breeder, or even agreeing to take care of your friends INSANE toy poodle mix for a couple a weeks. We’ve all been there. We’ve all asked ourselves, “What have I done?”

To me, bringing a dog (or any kind of domestic mammal) into your life constitutes a major life change. To me, this Life Change should be included on those bullet-pointed charts listing such life-changing events as marriage, new job, illness, buying a house, having a child, trying to figure out how to upgrade your iPhone (and losing all your now-deceased father’s voice mails after said upgrade), etc. Making a commitment to take care of another living being—and/or a needy, traumatized being—is a huge deal, right? It’s not only a shock to the lifestyle; it can be a shock to the system. And, for those of us whose nervous systems are already saturated with old traumas, this sudden shock of lifestyle change can actually be experienced as traumatic. I didn’t know this at the time, of course. There is sooooo much I did not know back in 1997, and so much I still do not know. (To paraphrase Socrates: “My wisdom lies in knowing that I know nothing.”) All I know is that after Ed and I adopted to Wallace, my system went into freeze response for the first few days and I felt completely overwhelmed. Ed, I suppose, went into Fight (and I say this with love and compassion). That was his go-to response. (And note that pairing a Flight with a Freeze—in an era when there was little-to-no awareness about such matters as trauma responses and attachment styles—is not a win-win situation.) But the good news is that we really loved and cared about our new dog and we really wanted him to be normal and happy and carefree. We wanted that for ourselves, too. And for all sentient beings. So we persevered and moved through that painful phase of doubt and regret and eventually we were rewarded with a normal happy dog. The way out is always through, right?

Many of us have minds that try to convince us that to avoid change is to stay safe. That sticking to routine, to one’s own definition of “normal” is to progress. But we live in an ever-expanding universe—so, theoretically, we must always continue to expand as well. If we fight this, if we resist this, we will suffer. (And if you were wondering what that “cosmic magnet” comment meant above, just re-read this paragraph.)

Back to dogs—in one sense, nothing has helped me expand more that being with dogs. Nothing has taught me more about human love than being with dogs. That also might sound a bit too cosmic-magnet for some, but in my case, in this lifetime, this is how I learned the truth about love. By adopting an abused dog. And loving him back to wholeness. Ed and I also learned to love each other is new ways.

So I just wanted to be honest about this short phase of our lives—that period of a few days in which we actually did wish we could bring Wallace back to the shelter. If I had known then that this was a common phase that many (all?) peopledog-adopters go through, I imagine it would have been easier. I imagine my own guilt at even having such thoughts would have been assuaged. In so many ways, the guilt was the hardest part. It always is.

In the past twenty years, I have witnessed a lot of friends going through this syndrome. Friends who, knowing I love dogs and write about dogs, will consult me about what kind of dog to adopt, and send me pictures and ask questions about the various shelter dogs they have their eye on, and keep me updated throughout the whole selection and adoption process, and ask me to write letters of recommendations for the adoption committees—which I gladly do. Through the years, readers have also reached out to me with the same questions, the same requests. I’ve become a sort of informal dog-adoption coach. And it’s always a joyous day when they are finally able to adopt their dogs, and I love seeing those pictures of their new dogs in the back seat of the car; the big smiles as they drive away from the shelter. And then I wait for the inevitable “Holy shit!” messages that come to me in subsequent days. The messages of overwhelm. The pleas for help. Maybe this is why the shelters, foster groups, and breeders all tell us that if there are any problems, you can always bring the dog back. They understand that this reaction is not uncommon. For some, these intitial feelings of overwhelm— the trauma-response of wanting to go back to normal, to “familiar,” to “safe”—is also not uncommon.

But within the “problem” is always the cure. (This is the Cosmic Magnet talking again). And, given that dogs are the cure for many human ailments—depression, anxiety, loneliness, sadness, boredom, isolation, attachment disorders, freeze response etc.— I’m here to say: stick it out. The rewards are always huge. Wallace ended up changing my life for so much the better. Just as the ever-expanding Universe knew he would.

This installment of REX IN THE CITY appeared in Bark magazine, Volume 15, Summer 2001, Copyright © Lee Harrington (writing as Lee Forgotson)

“We decided to call the shelter and find out some specifics. If we knew what kind of parenting he had had, we might be better able to work with him.”