Page 6 of The Goode Girls of Maple Lane
After a few minutes of digging through papers while muttering to herself about a desperate need to fully digitize, Nora tells us she’ll grab “the boss.” Then she disappears through a swinging door labeledEmployees only. While we wait, I flip through a year-oldModern Dogmagazine while Everett fusses with the wilted plants, plucking off dead leaves, patting the soil with the pad of his index finger, and sneaking water from a nearby cooler using an empty mug he grabs off the desk. I remind myself to ask about his midnight houseplant routine later, when I’m not about to make what could be a literal life-or-death decision.
Nora soon returns with a tall, lean, serious-faced man who looks to be around forty or forty-five, and who she introduces as Andy, the shelter manager I spoke with on the phone. We all shake hands and make the kind of preliminary small chat I usually try to bypass, but Andy’s clearly attempting to make us comfortable and deflect the gravity of the situation, so I ride it out.How was the drive, so glad you could make the time, did you find the place okay, etc., etc.
Soon enough, he’s guiding us down a hall and into a brightly lit room lined with partitioned cages on each side, stacked two high. Almost all are occupied, most with smaller, mixed-breed dogs who wag their tails or bark at us as we pass, looking eager for treats or attention. A basset hound with particularly large ears rests his head on a dish while following us with his eyes. A scrappy Chihuahua mix with a funny tuft of hair between his ears spins in giddy circles.There’s a dog with a bright pink cast on one of its back legs, and another missing an eye.
At the end of the aisle, in the bottom cage on the right, on a padded mat covered with an old, striped towel, a russet face rests between two paws, looking straight ahead with lifeless eyes, and my chest constricts so tightly, I forget to breathe.
A gentle hand finds me for the second time today, this time resting low on my back.
“You okay?” Everett asks, his voice quiet and tender.
Absolutely not, I think. But I can do this. I can do it for every dog I hope to treat in my professional life, assuming I actually do finish my degree. I can do it for Lady Marmalade. I can do it for this beautiful, unhappy dog, who so desperately needs someone to love her.
I take a deep breath and crouch by the cage. The dog doesn’t even look up.
“Does she have a name?” I ask.
Andy shakes his head. “We keep trying. She hasn’t responded to anything yet.”
“Treat?” I say to her. “Walk? Dinner? Ball? Squirrel?”
Nothing. Just a blink, and after a few seconds, another blink.
Andy opens the cage and I move closer, dropping onto my knees. I suppose there’s no worry about the dog running out through the open door, and not only because she’s currently unresponsive. She’s very overweight, and according to Andy, barely mobile, only able to inch herself onto her haunches with a great deal of effort. Between her girth and her long hair, her back legs disappear against her sides, while her sweet little face looks like it belongs to another dog entirely, like a mix-and-match that wasn’t put back in order.Sections of her fur are missing where they’ve been chewed away, eroded by her living conditions, or affected by sores and illness. But she has a perfect little black nose, and long, reddish hair that curls up in the cutest way at the base of her floppy ears. Her brows twitch when she blinks, and while that might be as expressive as she gets right now, it’s not nothing. Some days, all I can do is twitch a brow, too.
“Hi, girl,” I say, and when she still doesn’t respond, I reach a hand forward for her to smell before running it over the top of her head and rubbing her ear. She’ssosoft, despite the problems with her fur. And her coloring is beautiful, a deep red tone with a lighter undercoat.
Everett crouches beside me, eliciting another twitch of the dog’s brows.
“Goldie?” he tries. “Rusty? Fozzie? Bear? Winnie? Ruby?”
“Bella?” I chime in. “Lucy? Lucky? Daisy? Gracie? Lola? Ginger?”
Again, the dog merely blinks, her head still resting between her paws.
I ask Andy if I can give her a more thorough examination. He fetches a rudimentary medical kit before removing the entire front of the cage so we can pull the tray-like bottom forward and into the center aisle. The dog lets out a low groan of discomfort at the movement, so Everett rubs her back while Andy and I move the tray together, easing it forward more gently. This is quite the process, with three of us, making me all too aware of how unprepared I am to manage a dog like this on my own. I could use a sling to lift her, but getting her in and out of a car, or even in and out of my building’s elevator, would be a serious challenge.
I check her heart rate, ears, eyes, mouth, joints, and glands. Herheart rate is weak. Her breathing is shallow and labored. Her nose is crusted with discolored mucus and her temperature suggests a high fever. Aside from the more extensive sores I find on her legs and haunches, one of the most obvious signs of her poor living conditions and treatment is her bald and scabby tail, which looks almost ratlike with only a thin layer of golden fuzz running down its length. It’s not surprising if her thyroid isn’t functioning properly, and if she’s been sitting on her tail, pinned between concrete and her substantial weight, but it’s still discomforting to see. Another mix-and-match that doesn’t seem quite right, because, of course, it isn’t.
I want to tell Andy and Everett all she needs is a little TLC. Or even a lot of TLC. A carefully monitored weight loss plan. Dedicated, long-term physical rehabilitation to rebuild her mobility. A soft bed to sleep on. Toys and activities to help her reengage. I want thatsobadly.
Instead, I brace myself and tell them, “We need to get her to an emergency vet. Now.”
Chapter Three
Six hours later, Everett pulls into our underground parking garage. We don’t have a dog with us, though our situation does have an actual bright side. The dog is in intensive care back in Syracuse, receiving the attention she needs. The vet confirmed she has pneumonia, and there was no way I could care for her at home. Everything happened so fast. After my announcement, and a brief, heartbreaking conversation about potential expenses neither Andy nor I could afford, he made some calls and got ahold of someone at Ruff ’n’ Rescue, a local rescue organization in Ithaca. They didn’t hesitate, telling us to get the dog to emergency and we’d sort out the cost later. I didn’t hesitate, either. Andy, Everett, and I got the dog into the back of Everett’s station wagon and across town immediately. The emergency animal care staff took over from there.
I check my phone for the millionth time.
“She’s in good hands,” Everett assures me, also for the millionth time. “They were optimistic. And theywillcall if there’s anything to report. Dr. Kong was very clear about that.”
I pocket my phone and blow a frustrated breath toward the vinyl-covered ceiling.
“I’m trying really hard to not hate the people who did this to her,” I say. “But I hate the people who did this to her. If I knew who they were, I might hire a hit man. Or if hit men only exist in movies, I’d at least slash some tires.”
Everett pulls into a parking spot, shuts off the car, and turns to face me.
“Not that you need it,” he says, “but you have my full permission for murderous rage.”
