The Travels of Zoe, the Wonder Dog
By Carrie Jacobson
James turns off the highway and onto Route 6. The pavement looks soft and blue in the moonlight. Zoe feels the change in speed and lifts her head. She looks toward him even though, he knows, she can’t see him.
He pats her head, strokes her fur, and she nestles in again.
They’ve been together for a long time, James and Zoe. They’ve been together longer than he and Susan have been together, and not for the first time, James thinks that he and Zoe should just take off. He could get back on 84, they could head west and see if there’s a new life out there. A grammarian and a scruffy, blind, old dog, yeah, right.
He remembers seeing Zoe for the first time. It was about 1 in the morning, and he was at work. The first editions were out, and he was leafing through the feature pages, looking for must-repair typos, when he saw the Pets of the Week page. There was Zoe. She was just a pup, but she’d been abused. She already was blind in one eye, and the shelter workers thought she was deaf in one ear. She couldn’t be around other dogs or young children. Her hair stuck up wildly. She’d been beaten and mistreated, ignored and abused, and yet, she was defiant, and this touched James. He woke up early, headed to the shelter in Sullivan County, and claimed Zoe the next morning.
On the ride home, she sat in the passenger seat, trembling and growling. He let her out of the car at his house, walked her up and down the street, let her do her business, and then unlocked the door to his little house. She looked at the step and the hallway inside, she looked at him and then she walked in and wagged her tail for the very first time.
Their relationship did not develop overnight. Zoe, James realized, might be a mutt, but she was mostly a lhasa apso, with all that that implied. She was loyal and protective, a fierce watchdog with an explosive attacking style. It had taken a lot of training before James could even begin to control her. But as they worked together, she began to trust him. The first time she jumped up into his lap, he’d stayed still for hours, until both legs fell asleep.
And now, old girl, now I’m about to abandon you. My friend, my little guardian, my true-hearted little dog, I’m going to leave you behind. You’d never do this to me, he thinks, and the tears fill his eyes, and Zoe looks up at him again, cocks her head, puts one paw on his leg, and James nearly loses it.
I can’t do this, he thinks. I can’t.
But what choice do I have? Dear God, what choice do I have?
He turns in to the road to the shelter, and he has to pull over, he’s crying so hard. He picks Zoe up, pulls her to him, buries his nose in her rough dry fur and hugs her to him. She licks his face, licks the tears from his cheeks, and this brings a whole new wave of grief, and James just hates himself, hates himself more than he ever has – but he has no choice, he tells himself, for the thousandth time. They have no place to live if they don’t live with Susan’s mother. They will lose everything, everything.
And so he starts the car, drives down the road to the shelter in Shohola, and stops the car by the gate.
The night is warm and clear, and James is thankful for that. He clips Zoe’s leash to her collar, and they get out. He unloads her dog bed and her blanket and her favorite rubber chew toy. He makes sure the note he’s written is still attached to her collar.
“My name is Zoe,” it reads. “I am 12 years old, and blind, and deaf in my left ear. My owner has lost everything and can’t keep me. I am a good dog. Please find me a good home.”
He puts her dog bed right up beside the gate, and puts her in it. He covers her with the blanket, and ties her leash to the gate itself. Daylight is not too far off. There’s no other way to do this. James can’t hand her over in person. He can’t do it. This, this horrible thing, this is the best he can do.
He pats her one last time, and as he drives away, tears streaming down his face, he pretends he can’t hear her barking for him to come back.
Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com
Tags: Carrie Jacobson
June 15th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
OMG. The tears are running down my face – for both James & Zoe.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:16 am
They were running down mine as I wrote it. And while I made this up, it’s happening to a lot of people now. It makes me very sad. But in addition to this story, I’m doing something else about it. Check out artforshelteranimals.blogspot.com to see.