I guess I have a type.
Of dog.
It started with my childhood dog, Oliver. The day we got Oliver my parents told me we were going to Adventureland, an amusement park in Long Island. But we weren’t .We were going to the North Shore Animal League, a shelter, to pick out a puppy. They had told this lie a few years prior too, using the same fake destination, when they got me a kitten. I don’t remember if I actually fell for it twice or if I just like surprises.
Oliver was perfect. He was teeny tiny, face of an angel, big, beautiful floppy ears. I had to have him.
LOOK at those ears. Look at them. Delicious.
Many years (and two cats later) in March 2020 COVID was getting scary in New York and I had a very original and totally unique idea. Dog fostering!
I actually did have luck finding a rescue at first that wanted to work with me. But they told me I had no choice but to come inside a small shelter with other people to pick up the dog, and when I asked if we could maybe meet outside (this was when I still thought you could pick up COVID from looking at elevator buttons) they said they would just find someone else.
I kind of gave up after that. When it was meant to be, it would be.
That is, until Joni —err, Aja — came into the picture.
“Congratulations on being accepted to our foster program!” The email read. By now it was fall and I’d applied — and this time gotten accepted — to a different foster program, thanks in large part to help from a co-worker who volunteered with the organization. The rest I don’t remember exactly, but I’ll paraphrase.
“This is Aja. She’s 70 pounds and incontinent. Here’s a blurry photo. She killed a cat once. She might have lameness in one of her paws. Can you let us know today?”
Yes. Yes. YES. Of course. I’ll take her. I responded without thinking, as I do, with the same enthusiasm one might have for an apartment in the East Village that has no oven to speak of and mold growing on the walls (if by one you mean my friends and I in our early twenties).
If I thought about it for a few more minutes, though, I probably would have felt like like I couldn’t foster this dog. Not really. All dogs are good dogs and I love every single one of them. Don’t get me wrong. And I feel badly that I felt that way. But all I had to go off of was a side profile photo of a dog I couldn’t really picture other than the image of her pooping all over my more grown up, oven-having and mold-less apartment.
I don’t know if you’d call it being catfished when it’s with a dog. Or when it’s the opposite experience as normal catfishing. Her name wasn’t Aja, her previous owners explained when they dropped her off, it was Joni.
She had, you guessed it, the face of an angel, big, beautiful floppy ears. So. Cute.
She had baggage, of course. She was big, bigger than she looked in her photo. She was slightly incontinent due to nerve damage from getting hit by a car. She was scared and anxious and didn’t really want to be left alone but also didn’t really want anything to do with me. She can’t use her tail so I never knew how she was feeling. One day early on I saw blood in her pee. I ran her to the vet where she had a full blown breakdown and couldn’t be examined. I drove her from useless appointment to useless appointment, her anxiety making it impossible to do a full exam. A vet appointment is scary enough without having been given up after seven years and COVID protocols in place that didn’t allow me, her only slight semblance of familiarity at this point, to go in with her.
I became, obviously and quickly very much in love with her. I couldn’t believe how much I dreaded walking Oliver as a kid. Walking a dog is a treat! We walked all over the place together. I changed her food so her incontinence became more manageable and didn’t hurt her stomach. I gave her space but couldn’t resist kissing her little face when we were stopped at a crosswalk (still can’t). We had a few scary situations where she snapped at friends dogs, sort of a combo of being fearful, in pain and territorial, I imagine.
On December 31, 2020, she permanently became mine.
That’s when I did a kind of creepy thing. I searched her previous name in the Facebook group I’d been accepted into when I officially rescued her. And there it was.
Teeny tiny, face of an angel. Big, beautiful, floppy ears. She reminded me so much of Oliver I quickly made a side-by-side and sent it to everyone I knew.
You know what happens when a dog has big, beautiful, floppy ears like these, though? They are apparently more susceptible to ear infection.
Two weeks ago Joni started yelping whenever I touched her ear. I realized she had always been a little weird about her one ear, since I got her. But it was getting worse.
Last week was… shitty. As in, there was shit. Everywhere. The vet declared her ear “weirdness” as an infection and prescribed meds and drops. One of the meds caused “soft stools.” I’ll let you picture how that impacts a dog who already has impaired control of her bowel movements.
And the drops. Holy moly, the drops. I cried more times trying to administer dog ear drops than I have over any man, ever. I have not cried over that many men, but still. Even with anti-anxiety and pain meds she was impossible to wrangle long enough to get them in. She thrashed, screeched, snapped. She tried to bite me, poop would come out, I’d step in it. And repeat.
“It’s really a lot easier if you can do the drops with another person,” the vet, Facebook, and Google, who are all apparently working for my nana, suggested. I wanted to scream.
I’d always thought about getting a dog like I thought about watching “Game of Thrones.” That I’d do it once I had someone to do it with. I got over the latter and I’d thought I’d gotten over the former. But this whole thing, on top of all the other things, made me feel like I’d gotten in over my head.
This is a pattern. I say yes to things because I’m afraid to say no because I’m afraid of people leaving me if I don’t just go along with it — no questions asked. I don’t think things through, and it has led me to feel like I can’t trust myself to make the right decision. With sweat, tears and dog shit caked all over me that feeling started to creep back in. I had said yes too quickly, I don’t know how to say no, how to protect myself. I had betrayed myself again.
Having a dog by yourself is really hard. Having a rescue dog by yourself is really, really hard. But I can do hard things. And, after a lot of calls and emails with the vet and a lot of butt wipes, this morning, right before we got in the car to drive across the country with my mom, Joni let me put the drops in. I can’t explain to her that I’m just trying to help her, but I can shower her with love and kisses and treats and build a bond with her that helps her trust me, and helps me trust myself. And that feels like a great decision to me.
If you’re reading this when it comes out, I am en route to Louisville, the first stop on our big cross country adventure. You can follow along with us on Instagram, and next week’s newsletter will be a dispatch from the road.
Honestly the only other thing I have to share that I love this week is my new wallpaper. It’s from A Street Prints and it’s perfect.
OH. Also, the silicone-bottomed ice cube trays my mom got me from TJ Maxx changed my life. As did a pastrami sandwich I ate from Leibman’s Deli in the Bronx that I learned about, yes, on TikTok.
Sorry about the clickbait headline, by the way. I guess old habits die hard. At least I delivered on the cute pics.
Love,
Jamie AF
I luv the pictures