Old Dog, New Dog
A short story about the animals we love
“What are we going to do?” I asked Ava as I knelt and scratched the puppy’s soft fur behind his ear. He looked like a husky-retriever mix, but that was just a guess. Whatever breed he was, this cute, friendly doggie loved to lick our faces.
And we loved that, too.
We’d been driving along Route 212 outside Woodstock, New York on our way home to Kingston when we noticed rustling behind a thicket, though we quickly concluded it was a fox or raccoon. Ordinarily, we would have driven on, but something about the way the bushes rustled as the animal moved within them piqued our curiosity. When we pulled to the side of the road to investigate, we discovered the puppy, who approached us warily, eyes wide with apprehension, desperation, and hope.
The dog was about the size of our thirteen-year-old spaniel, Chloe.
For an hour, Ava and I sat on the forest floor next to the dog. October’s last crickets chirped, invisible as always. A few mushrooms with caps that looked like clouds above mountains stood tall near our feet.
A large yellow-eyed snowy owl watched us from a nearby tree. I wondered how the owl was here because the Catskill mountains were far south of this bird's range.
I offered the puppy a Ritz peanut butter cracker which he hurriedly ate, licking the last crumbs off my hand.
Ava gave it beef jerky, also a hit.
I held my water bottle for the puppy, who slurped the water, half going into its mouth, half onto the ground.
The rest of the time, the puppy sat between us, thumping its tail against the soil. Whenever I petted it, the puppy wagged its tail faster and harder. With each thump, I felt soulful vibrations in my bones.
“We can take it home, Brian.”
“I wish we could.”
“We have to, babe. We can’t leave it here, and the shelters are all full. Look at that face. How can you say ‘no?’”
I shook my head. “How? How can we afford to care for another? The puppy will become a big and hungry adult dog in no time. Your waitressing job doesn’t provide much, and I’m still looking for work. I’ve been looking for months, and we have to be realistic. We can barely afford one animal, let alone feed ourselves. Chloe’s thirteen, she’s got diabetes and kidney problems, and the insulin alone is eating into our own food budget—”
“Hunting season starts soon. You’ll find free food in these woods.”
“Maybe, but we have rent, electricity, water, clothes, gas—so many expenses.”
“We can do without two phones.”
“And when you go to work? You’ll do that phoneless? I need a phone in case I get a job offer,” I said. I scratched around the puppy’s head; I couldn’t get enough of touching this dog. “If I get a job offer. Plus, the car. It’s a miracle it’s still running, and if it breaks one more time—” I sniffled.
Ava squeezed my hand.
I looked into the puppy’s chocolate brown eyes, then into Ava’s eyes, which were identical in color. “I’m not going to win this argument on logic, am I?”
“You know we have to.”
“I guess we take him home and somehow afford a second dog. He does like you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
How do we feed another living being? We will, somehow. We will scavenge dumpsters behind restaurants, line up early at every food bank, and save electricity by reading at night in the moonlight. We’ll turn the heat down as far as we can and snuggle Chloe between us to keep her aged bones warm.
The door of our ancient Ford Fiesta groaned. Even before I patted the seat to invite the puppy, the dog jumped in as if he had ridden in it many times before.
The puppy stuck its head out the window for the twenty-minute drive to Kingston.
The owl took flight, also headed toward Kingston, trailing a wake of air like water behind a canoe.
“We need to figure out—”
“Let’s not talk about anything like that,” Ava said. “Let’s enjoy the ride with our puppy. Can we do that? We have so few pleasures, babe. We need this moment.”
“Okay, but between here and home, let’s name him.”
“Maybe Chloe should name him.”
“Then his name would be ‘Bark.’”
“That’s a great name! After all, we found him in the woods. Bark is perfect.” Ava’s lips rose into a crescent moon. She was momentarily blind to falling further into the well of financial darkness.
“Chloe and Bark has a nice ring to it.”
A deer and fawn ran along the dirt road before dashing into the woods.
Bark woofed at the animals.
“Do we have enough dog food for tonight?” I asked, but before Ava answered, I suggested, “We can feed them our leftover chicken.” I patted my belly and lied, “I could stand to lose a few more pounds.”
“We have enough food.”
I stopped the car about a dozen feet from our trailer in the space between homes where we could temporarily park. I’d need to move the car within the hour, but first I wanted to give Bark more food and introduce him to Chloe. And definitely a wash, too.
The three wooden steps wobbled and creaked as Bark ran up them. He sat in front of our house trailer’s aluminum door, his tail drumming against the metal, panting in anticipation of being inside his new home. He gave us a hurry-up glance.
An owl landed on a maple tree to the side of our trailer.
There must be some kind of snowy owl migration. That can’t be the same bird.
“Coming, coming, boy. We’re not puppy-fast like you.”
As I approached, a profound silence from inside struck me. Bark was panting, but what about Chloe? Why was she not barking at Bark’s scent? Why wasn’t she scratching against the door with a happy I-can’t-wait-to-meet-the-other-dog whine?
I slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
Bark dashed in and sat next to Chloe, who was curled into a circle on our narrow bed on the trailer’s far side.
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through dust-coated windows, shrouding the room in a mist.
After a few steps, Chloe came into focus. Her soft, fluffy ears were still, her non-stop wagging tail, motionless. She was dead.
Bark rested a paw on Chloe.
I wrapped my arms around Ava. We cried until oceans formed beneath our feet and had no tears left.
Ava laid on the bed beside Chloe.
I saw the snowy owl take flight through the window, its enormous wings filling the sky. The owl turned into a cocker spaniel for an instant before returning to its owl form. It flew into a puffy, white cloud hovering just above the tree and disappeared.
I stroked Chloe’s head and whispered, “Thank you for making room for Bark.”
If you enjoyed Old Dog, New Dog, I think you’ll like my story, The Dawn of Dogs. Please feel free to subscribe, if you’re not already a subscriber. Subscriptions are free; readers inspire me to write.
I live in a Buddhist country and in the case of a tale like this people would say that Bark was probably the reincarnation of Chloe.
This might sound far fetched but I have adopted puppies shortly after the death of a beloved dog and the puppies have been remarkably like the diseased animal in temperament, likes and dislikes. I have one bitch now called Buck who is so similar in behavior to an diseased bitch called Puppy that the cleaner and other staff actually call her Puppy.
Poor Chloe.
I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I found a puppy in the middle of nowhere. At the very least I’d hold on to the dog until I could get someone else to take care of them.