When Huey first entered our lives, we were skeptical.
He arrived in Boston by way of Los Angeles: a 6-week old puppy, cuddled in our daughter’s arms under cover of cabin darkness for much of the five-hour flight. How our daughter’s search filter slipped from 50 to 3,000 miles when browsing rescue shelter websites remains mysterious — apparently it’s tough to find hypoallergenic newborns in the rescue population.
Our daughter had recently settled in with us while figuring out her next move, following a long-brewing breakup and her decision to leave the hustle and bustle of New York City. Huey wasn’t just a rescue — he had some rescuing to do too. But now my wife and I faced the challenge not only of providing literal and figurative chicken soup to an unexpected long-term-guest in the form of our daughter; suddenly we also had a dog in our midst. We were supposed to be approaching our golden — not golden doodle — years.
Misgivings about the cross-country rescue expedition eased somewhat when we met Huey (with emphasis on somewhat). He was a disarmingly cute mix of chihuahua, Chinese crested and rat terrier, but also 100% puppy—an unpredictable combination of sweet and gremlin. Sometimes he would snuggle in my lap, nuzzling his cold wet nose into the crook of my arm. At other times he would chomp hard on my hand, imprinting evil little Cheshire cat-like upside down grins on my skin with his deceptively sharp puppy teeth. I started wearing thick gloves when hoisting Huey into my arms. Our daughter suggested I was being wimpy; I suggested I wanted to avoid pain and wound care.
Other household victims of Huey’s teething included shoelaces and gloves, as well as paperback books, magazines and newspapers. He worked quickly and was clearly fond of the printed word. Perhaps we could bond over that trait.
In addition, Huey’s genetic lineage was an anxiety trifecta, each breed known for skittishness. Taking Huey for walks outside our house required coaxing, cajoling and lots of treats; scary sounds and shadows lurked everywhere. During Huey’s initial months with us, a tendency to be overprotective of his “people” — our daughter and ourselves, and even puppy pals he took under his protective wing — emerged (resource guarding, in animal behaviorist parlance). It took dedicated training, frequent visits to puppy daycare and a little help from our friends Prozac and Gabapentin to diminish those issues.
Huey gave my wife and me a new “leash on life”—something we didn’t even know we needed until it happened.
And then there was Huey’s hair. He had been advertised as a “possibly” Havanese, hypoallergenic and non-shedding dog. In fact, the only accurate descriptor there was the term “dog.” Huey’s hair attached itself to every non-porcelain surface in our home, in our car and on our persons. Somehow his hair would even sometimes appear at the end of a fork, poised to enter a mouth, at the dinner table. Cute only gets you so far in this world (for dogs as well as daughters), and an edict to start brushing Huey regularly was handed down from on parental high. (As anyone with a shedding canine knows, that initiative was a Quixotic quest, not unlike trying to get all the beach sand out of the trunk of your car.)
Despite those various bumps in the road, we grudgingly began to recognize that having Huey around had some significant benefits. Pretty much as soon as our daughter had returned home that dark and stormy November night, she had honed in on what she needed to get herself out of the doldrums, and Huey was at the center of that program. His antics, his unconditional positive regard, his physical warmth and cuddliness and his own need for TLC lifted her spirits enormously. There were many indicators that change was afoot, but probably the most telling was when our kitchen became fragrant with the sweet smells of our daughter’s frequent baking projects. She began to dabble in online dating and exploring places to live, work and maybe study in the Pacific Northwest — the polar opposite of NYC. A continental shift had gotten underway.
But there was another, quite unexpected impact. Huey gave my wife and me a new “leash on life” — something we didn’t even know we needed until it happened. As empty nesters (two children grown and journeying onward), we couldn’t put a finger on it, but we often felt invisible, cloaked in anonymity, in the wider public world. Then came Huey.
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As he became more comfortable in his own skin and brought happy do-you-wanna-play-with-me energy to our walks in the neighborhood, he made us visible again. He introduced us to an array of dogs and their owners whom we previously walked silently past, ships passing in the day. We met Poppy, Rocky, Ringo, Gandalf, Andie, Love Bug and so many other canine companions and their owners, relishing the impromptu meetups where dogs and their people would gather and chat.
It was miraculous, really: Community had been all around us — we simply needed to plug into it.
It has been two years since we first met Huey. Our daughter now lives with her fiance — and Huey — in the Pacific Northwest and is enrolled in graduate school. There were farewell tears (and, OK, some relief) when she and Huey left. We are happy to play the role of dog grammy and grampy now. Our dog walking pals tell us we should acquire a dog of our own, but we’re hesitant to take on the commitment and the many unknowns that bringing an animal into the family involves. Been there, done that.
And yet. And yet. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s observation, however overused, still resonates: “’Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.”
Lessons learned. Rescue missions accomplished. Well done, Hubert. Woof.
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