Snowy's Ballad

My first shelter dog

I’ve been writing about dogs and cats since the early 90’s when I began my first column in a local paper, The Chatham Courier, now long gone. My mission was to lure people to the Columbia Greene Humane Society (CGHS), a shelter in Hudson, New York, to adopt a dog or a cat. I had recently done so and become quite passionate about this shabby little shelter with the big heart. I hung out there every weekend visiting the animals and eventually wrote a book about the place. Shelters are like ER’s; there was drama everywhere.

This story begins when I naively adopted the cutest dog in the place, a poodle mix, who grew into a most difficult creature. I adored her.

Here is a piece I wrote about her covering our first and last days together. It was published in a local paper, OURTOWN, now also deceased.

Snowy’s End

My attraction to dogs surfaced unexpectedly, like a patch of weeds that appears out of nowhere, takes over a meadow and turns into a blanket of color. Dogs are loosestrife—gorgeous, but invasive. The seed that started it all was my first shelter dog, a shaggy mutt, who moved into my heart never to leave. To this day, I think about her, write about her, close my office door and stare at her photos. I miss that face, watching me. Somehow, I wrapped my identity up in this dog, and I really don’t know why. Beautiful, she was. But deeply troubled. She preferred children to adults and bit a number of people including friends as well as strangers. Studies have proved that shelter dogs display a distinct preference for either men or women. My dog’s disdain for humans was universal.  

    Her story, from my point of view, began with our purchase of a handyman special at the end of a dead end, dirt road in East Chatham, New York. The surrounding fields had amazing views, hundreds of wild blueberry bushes, and tangled black raspberry vines. Walking in the meadows required the company of a dog, to bound ahead, frighten off unwelcome critters, chase a stick, and have a quick swim in the small ponds and streams scattered about. My dog paid no attention to the brambles, eating the berries right off the vines, her muzzle stained purple for days.  

   But before that, we were three: my husband Peter, our daughter Kate, and me. It was 1989. The Wadsworth farm house, built in 1850, or earlier, had not enjoyed much attention over the decades. The Wadsworths had lived in Columbia County for more than a century, claiming relatives and a land grant that went all the way back to England. The actual document was periodically found and then lost again. I never saw it. The land had been sold off, piece by piece, and the house had survived with only fourteen acres. The place had gone so far downhill the realtor referred to it as “the white elephant on the hill.”

     At first glance, the house looked big, boxy, and daunting, as if it didn’t belong in this idyllic landscape. But Peter felt a chemical attraction to the place. He had no trouble imagining us there—in full color—immersed in this painterly, Hudson River School landscape. Peter saw pink sunsets and starry nights. I saw black flies and hornets. We walked around the overgrown fields and through the woods with our four-year-old daughter.  A city girl to the core, she asked, “Where’s the park?”

      The flora and fauna made our jaws drop.  A towering line of weeping willows edged the property, bending and squeaking in the wind. An orchard of hollow apple trees housed birds, squirrels, and chipmunks. Hundreds of peonies bloomed. The first time we saw the house, we stayed for hours. As the sun went down, the darkness sparkled with fireflies in a show that we thought was better than any Hollywood might create. This was Nature! Who knew? 

     It took only one more visit. Peter pulled our noisy Jeep into the driveway, and we leapt out, starving for fresh air. All three of us inhaled the unmistakable scent of lilac, lanky and visible around the house. With wistful conviction, Peter pronounced, “We’re home.” I had to admit the breeze was sweet that day.

    Peter is stubborn, and occasionally practical. When he admires a person—or a house—he rarely changes his mind. The Wadsworth house spoke to him. That first day, he planned to paint the walls, cultivate perennials, get the abandoned mower working, bake fresh fruit pies in the old Garland stove—and get our first family dog. Ironically, it was his idea. “When we get a dog—this will really be home,” Peter commented, as if he knew what he was talking about. It seemed like finding a house and getting a dog went together, like pasta and sauce. But our fantasies were getting ahead of us. In reality, the old house smelled like mothballs and mold, had visible holes in the walls and ceilings from which old newspaper used for insulation peeped out, and was infested with wasps, flies, and mice. Inside, trails of droppings criss-crossed the floors in a chaotic map of exit strategies.  As it turned out, a variety of species also called our house home. We didn’t know about the bats in the attic until we bought the place and moved in.

     Two months later, a photo in the Chatham Courier of a dog sitting at the local pound caught my eye.  A Disneyesque terrier-mix, white and fluffy like a marshmallow with bangs, looked right into the camera—at me! I had to meet her (and change her name) immediately. “Snowflake” looked like a movie star, a Benjy-dog, the type every child wants to bring home. Transfixed by her comely portrait, I rushed down Route 66 to Columbia-Greene Humane Society. 

     The drama of this little shelter enclosed me like a bubble. Several carriers full of mewing cats sat on the front counter; a teenage boy dragged a reluctant basset hound past me, his overgrown nails screeching on the floor. It was hard to tell who was bringing animals in, and who was taking them out. Dogs and cats were in the air, which tasted of dander. I liked it.

     Eager to show me the dog-in-question, and get me away from the front door, a red-haired woman led me to kennel number three, where a dirty brown, matted dog jumped up and down, as if on a trampoline. Confused, I asked, “Where’s Snowflake?” The woman said, “You’re looking at her.”  I looked again, hard. The magic of the photo was clearly missing. There was no calm there, no bedroom eyes, and the dog’s shrill bark made my eardrums hurt. I wanted to leave—quickly. But for some reason, I shouted out her name in an effort to get her attention. Snowflake silenced herself,  approached the door of her cell, and looked me right in the eye.  There was no mistaking that look. I recognized her, but more than that, I felt her crazed, caged frustration. She desperately wanted out of the kennel and there was only one relevant question: Would I take her out? Yes! Now, the redhead and I were on the same page. She motioned me out the door with a sweep of her arm and said, “Just wait.”

      I went outside and sat on a bench in the parking lot. A few marigolds in a pot were shouting out for water, and a cloud of gnats hovered far too close to my head. Then Snowflake came bounding out and jumped all over me, like I was her long lost friend. At the other end of the leash, a woman named Kate pulled the dog off me and asked her to sit. The dog sat, much to my surprise. Kate handed me the leash and said, “Do not let it go. If you do, you will never see this dog again.” Then she bent down, eyeballed Snowflake and told her: “Behave yourself, or you will be here for the rest of your life.”

     Snowflake and I walked so far up the road that the shelter diminished to the size of a speck. She led, I followed, gripping the leash. Occasionally, the dog turned her head to look at me. Grateful for any acknowledgment, I submitted to her will. We were working out something; a contract between us was forming. I knew nothing about dogs, especially this one. But she sure was cute. Eventually, I managed to turn her around, against her will, and head back to the shelter. Sitting outside on the grass, I stroked her head and talked to her. Suddenly, she lay down and rolled over onto her back, paws in the air. That’s all it took. I went inside and filled out an adoption application.

    The shelter director handed me Snowflake’s file, which contained an intake form, a medical report, and a curious, hand-written note from her previous owner: “This dog is very nurotic. [sic] Good luck.” I had no idea how to interpret this message. Are dogs born crazy? Had this one been abused? “Make sure you really want her before you apply for her,” the director added. “We don’t want her back.” Ten days later, we took Snowflake home.

    During the honeymoon period, we sat around admiring her springy legs, maple syrup eyes, cotton-soft coat, long pink tongue. She didn’t walk, she pranced, proud and poodlesque. A poodle/wheaton terrier cross? More like an accidental mutt, straight from Central Casting, born to entertain. We quickly taught her to jump through hula hoops and play dead. Those were the TinTin days and Snowflake soon became Snowy. My friend Rudolf said, “How could you ever be unhappy with a creature like this around?” It was true. Snowy had enough personality to fill any room.   

     My daughter and I were consumed with the pleasures of having this dog. Peter reserved his approval, hoping Snowy would earn his affection. He didn’t want her on the bed, on the couch, under the table during dinner, or in his lap. Snowy appeared to understand him. When Peter entered the room, she leapt off the furniture and grinned. 

    Of course, we were not living in a Disney movie and Snowy had not been designed by Pixar. As she began to relax and feel more at home, the trouble began. First, a few random things—a shoe chewed, a plate of food mysteriously emptied. How could I blame the dog for being a dog? But one unlucky day for Snowy, I caught her noshing on my favorite gloves. Furious, I grabbed one from her mouth and almost lost a finger. How could she bite me? 

     Over the next month, a feral dog emerged from a perfectly civilized one. A thief and a biter, her mischief had a dangerous edge. When she bit her veterinarian, the doctor suggested we hang her by the neck from a tree limb to teach her a lesson. We immediately changed vets, but we were also beginning to understand that we could not change the dog: Dominant terriers remain dominant. They require firm boundaries. We had to change! On an average day, Snowy chased cars up and down the road, disappeared for hours, killed a few birds, threatened bicyclists, ate a few books and harassed a porcupine who had lived peacefully in a tree near our house for years. Finally, one afternoon, the porcupine took her revenge and we had to admit—as the vet extracted dozens of quills from Snowy’s throat—she deserved it.

    Once, we heard a round of shots and ran down the road to find her sitting outside a neighbor’s chicken coup, a rifle pointed at her head. I begged for her life. She was constant trouble. And I had to admit—I loved trouble. Snowy had a knack for survival. Over nine years, she only had one serious illness, but it was very serious, and hard to diagnose.

    Three veterinarians missed the problem. Admittedly, visits to the vet were filled with agony (mine), and anxiety (hers).  She was cleared for bladder infections, kidney disease, cancer, and all viruses. Still, she could not digest her food. Now, we had specialists watching our dog grow thinner and thinner.  Finally, one of them diagnosed her with a rare (for her breed) form of canine hepatitis. Her liver, all the while, had been failing.

    For the next two years, a special diet and a variety of small pills kept her relatively healthy. She rallied, but her usual hysterics diminished. Illness made her calm, too calm. We longed for the old pain-in-the-ass Snowy, the one who united us in our frustrations with her. We waited for that Snowy to return. She never did.

    When the vet had run out of pills and the poor dog was growing weak, we debated whether to end her life. Not yet. One more day. Then another. We carried her around the house, and took her for walks in the wheelbarrow. Day by day she felt lighter and lighter; her extraordinary coat was drying out. I pureed bite-size pieces of chicken, her favorite food (dead or alive), and brought bowls of broth to her bed, coaxing her to take a sip. We showered her with squeaky toys hoping to make her feathery tail wag. But her tail grew too heavy for her to lift.       

    Peter left on a trip while Kate and I watched Snowy walk into walls, curl up in odd places, trip over her graceful legs. She slipped away into a strange and unreachable place. We wondered about her thoughts as we huddled with her under blankets. She licked us without spirit. Kate and I were bracing ourselves for her death.  Still, though, it was, just one more day. And then one more. 

   “Euthanasia is a privilege,” I muttered to myself. I needed to pick up the phone. I clung to the idea that she might die a natural death, peacefully, without drugs and needles. But animals do not wander off into the woods for a peaceful end. Nor do they die in their sleep without suffering. I made the call.

    My great friend Cydney Cross came early in the morning to help us end Snowy’s misery.  Cyd wrangles reality to turn it into what she calls “a blessing.” But the bitter end is … just that. Kate carried our paper thin dog outside into the sun. Cyd said a few things while unpacking her needles and serums, but I can’t remember her words. Snowy’s end came so quickly.  She let out an unrecognizable howl, almost a whistle, before taking her final breath. And then she was dead. I kept looking at her, waiting for her to move, defy the odds, leap up. But the old Snowy was long gone. This one was still as a rock. I took one last photograph and then we lifted her into the car. 

Top photo by Val Shaff; this one’s mine.