Beginnings Are Furry And...

Arriving a few minutes late at Newark International Airport, Byron and I felt a bit illicit. After all, who had ever heard of shipping a dog through American Airlines? At least with children they had those tags around their necks that said "Unaccompanied Minor" and someone held their hand. As far as we had been told, Lola would be arriving in a crate and we would pick her up in an office somewhere in the bowels of the terminal.

Byron and I decided to get a dog sort of haphazardly because of the confluence of housing - we were placed in the only graduate student housing that allows pets - and Byron's long hours in the city each day where he commutes to teach middle school history. I had felt for a while that there was a creepy emptiness to the apartment - a one story tract style group of three apartments stuck together - and longed for another presence that would remind me the world exists beyond my graduate school heavy mental lifting.

Of course, being the one to consider future effects, Byron worried about time management on our parts and the expenses. I assured him we would figure it out, as so many of our friends in the grad school community were doing, and things would be great! He consented in part because it was true, he does spend long hours in the city and maybe something that was happy to see me when I came in would be nice.

Both Byron and I had had dogs growing up. Byron's parents had a mutt named Scooner and had in the last two years said goodbye to a 13 year old golden retriever named Misty. In my house, we had short runs with two dogs, a chocolate Lab named Chloe, and a chocolate poodle named Coco. I say short because my brother and I were disinclined to take care of them, and neither lasted more than a year or so. The reasons were of course more complex than that, but as Byron and I were soon to find out, the habits and behaviors of our youth would not do with a dog in our small apartment and in a community full of children and families!

I have allergies that are easily ruffled, so we knew that we had to have a so called "hypo-allergetic dog" with a poodle being my choice. Byron showed me pictures of fluffy silly stupid cuts on poor dogs being paraded around Dog Shows and declared he wanted no frou-frou dog! After digging around and finding pictures of Labradoodles, in their curly, floppy, but non-shedding coats and gentle eyes, Byron saw where he would be ok being seen in public with a dog like that! Thus, clutching our Barnes and Noble dog guides, training regimines, and advice on proper walk technique, we scoured the internet looking for a dog to adopt.

In New Jersey Labradoodles are apparently something you should consider the same way you consider the purchase of a used car or a cruise to Tahiti, because the costs were insane with dogs in the coco colored variety we sought running as high as two grand. So it was with trepidation and not a little fear that we sought breeders in other states. One heartbreaking adoption fell through with a breeder in Tennessee, but now we know it was because we were really waiting for Lola...

In beautiful pictures the breeder sent to us, Byron and I drooled over her rolling in the grass with a soccer ball, playing with her siblings, playing with the breeder's children, and glowing with cuteness! With warnings from the Humane Society ringing in our ears - Never Buy a Dog You Haven't Met The Parents Of! - we asked to speak to the breeder's veterinarian and previous happy adoptive doggy parents. After many happy returns and investigative work on our part, we bit the bullet and sent the deposit and knew we would need to be at Newark airport at 3:40pm... we were there at 3:45pm.

In the parking lot and elderly couple passed us by with a crate and a puppy on a leash. Excited and nervous we asked them about dogs shipped and if they felt it as weird an experience as we did. Laughing they said yes, but that their dog was fine! Navigating to the office to pick up Lola's crate we were shocked to discover another three dog crates waiting. Lined up along one wall, the office looked like a doggy jail. At least until we peered into the crate and saw that little face! Taking her down to the parking area, we consulted our notes, spread treats on a blanket in front of the open door of her crate, and sat a few feet away to wait.

Eventually her small curly brown head emerged and tentatively approached us. Feeling a sudden and overwhelming sense of panic and lack of confidence, I could not pull her immediately onto my lap. Trying to imagine how I was going to avoid making a disaster of this little life I knew we had made a mistake. What had I been thinking! I could barely keep myself in clean socks and t-shirts, how would I keep this little life from being a miserable mess? I don't know if Byron felt the same way, but his natural ease and effortless ability to exude calm eventually calmed me down as well. And wrapping her in a soft towel, we headed for the car and home...