One Sunday morning in New York, my room mates and I grabbed some coffee and started a trek uptown to the 101st street ASPCA. We’d been tossing around the idea of getting a dog (much to Katie and Amy’s dismay, but they were studying abroad at the time and we wanted a puppy, dammit) and we thought we’d go check out the goods. It was just post 9-11, the world had changed, and we needed what we called “a new leash on life.”
We didn’t have any idea what kind of dog we wanted, and I don’t think any of us were really convinced that we’d be coming home with a living breathing addition to our household that day, but one look at the tri-colored basset hound puppy with the crooked smile and we were done for. We waited in the smelly lobby of the ASPCA as they tried to track down a reference for us, finally reaching The Gube on his cell phone who assured them (against all better judgment) that we’d make great dog parents. The Gube can be rather convincing, so they packed up our little hound dog in a kitty crate and sent us on our way.
Sophie The Dog (as she would come to be known, if only to differentiate her from Sophie the Bar, and Sophie the Girl) whined the entire subway ride home. That night, as we groggily gathered in the living room at 3am to the howls of a puppy that had no idea where she was, we couldn’t help but wonder if we’d made a huge mistake. This was, after all, a living breathing creature that we were to be responsible for. I remember Sara and I marveling at the cuteness as McHound finally curled up to sleep, and realizing that this beast would be in our lives for a long time coming – that this new leash on life would still be ours when we had children…although we were certain she would be crotchety and old by then, and hobbling around on her hound legs, half blind, biting anything that came near her. (Thankfully, despite two shoddy hips and a little graying under the chin, McHound is still quite spritely.)
On the day Dashiell was born, Scott and I had to catch a 6pm flight to Arizona for my cousin Andi’s wedding. Time and traffic were not on my side, but I threw caution to the wind and raced over the hill as soon as I got the call from Sean, desperate to catch some time with the little guy on his first day in this world. As I approached the maternity ward, I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that I was about to meet Sara’s son – a child that I would watch grow up, and who would grow up with my children. A child that as predicted, would crawl around on the floor with Sophie The Dog as she mistook him for a puppy and tried to get him to play with her bunny toy. Every moment I spend with Dashiell is amazing to me. My HLP has a child, and he’s perfect.
In just a few short months, there will be a new addition to that cross-species game of tug-of-war. And I’m pretty sure that the 3am cries of a scared puppy are about to seem like child’s play to me. But somehow the territory doesn’t seem so uncharted…I’m lucky enough to have Sara there to lead the way. (…Or at least to come over to commiserate and hold my baby when I’m delirious from exhaustion and have forgotten to feed myself for days.)
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