Tuesday, February 23, 2010

To say we adjourned on the promise of a non sequitur would only be partially correct because, well, I’d like to think of it more as a fun sequitur. We’re talking about a dog, after all, and dogs are fun, are they not? They can also be loyal. Demanding. Dirty. Noisy. And, as a stark alternative to buying a yearlong supply of oatmeal, a dog would be a far better use of my time, chiefly because raising one would require I learn how to share my minutes, rather than spend them all on myself.

Back in December, during a regular trip through the kennels, I spotted the perfect specimen. Lab mix, six weeks old, and, whether because of her gimpy leg or by sheer dint of personality, mellow. This last point was particularly important. I know what energy level I evince, and I ain’t jogging with anybody, man or beast, unless a flash flood or alien invasion necessitates it. Certainly younger dogs change as they grow, but she was unmistakably low-key, especially when compared to other puppies, and I decided to commit. Thirty minutes later, as they led her from the meeting room back to the kennels, I signed a form and was given a simple directive: be there in the morning, 11 AM sharp, and claim my dog.

I was set, or so I thought, and the rest of the afternoon was spent locating a vet and hitting the brick-and-mortar circuit for my doggie sundries. It felt horrible to do this, but I also asked and answered the question of how much, exactly, the health of this animal was worth and accordingly earmarked an amount to fix her leg. I wanted to make this thing work, you know?

The next morning, on the big day, I was late. I left work late, ran into mid-morning traffic with multiple goddamned trucks sitting on the left lane, and, in a fitting coup de grâce, followed some old dude who was going 35 in a 45 for a few miles off the exit. At 11:12, I peeled into the shelter, only to find another family with the dog–my dog–in the meeting room. A dozen minutes. We’re talking 720 seconds here. What followed was an agonizing hour of waiting and hoping the family would pass on her, but that door slammed shut when one of the daughters cloyingly declared, “No more pound for you, puppy.” Obviously the puppy in question couldn’t even understand this, since I had yet to teach her vocabulary.

I had lost her. There were no five stages of grief. I had basically told Kübler-Ross to suck it and skipped straight to acceptance. That same day, I canceled the vet appointment, returned all my puppy provisions–bed, bowls, food, leash, collar, brush, toys, cleaner, treats–in a wretched epilogue to the whole affair. Perhaps I could’ve kept some items, but the food would’ve gone bad eventually, I reasoned, and the collar was bought for her color, and tying up a couple hundred dollars in depreciating canine assets wasn’t the best use of income.

There was one refrain in the postmortem that I found patently ridiculous. Now, I understand the sentiments came from a good place, but after being assured multiple times that the puppy had gone to a good home, that maybe this arrangement simply wasn’t meant to be and that I’d eventually find the right pet, I had heard enough. I found the right pet. And I failed. I could’ve taken a different route, left work earlier, done a thousand different things to shave off 12 minutes, but I didn’t. It was incompetence, not fate, at the wheel.