My First Little Girl

       Eight and a half years ago, I moved from the Bay Area of California to the River District near downtown Asheville. That area of town had only just begun its journey towards gentrification, and the neighborhood was, and may well still be, a bit rough around the edges. Down the street from my new home was a ramshackle brick house that epitomized "no pride of ownership," my realtor's diplomatic expression for houses that were complete and utter dumps. It had a large unkempt yard surrounded by a chain link fence, but despite the enclosure, there were two dogs who were constantly chained, just far enough apart so that they could observe the other's misery but not close enough to offer each other any kind of real companionship. One of the dogs was an old hound mix, chained under a lean-to shed with a roof that was falling in. The other was a black cocker spaniel mutt, with matted, curly hair and big brown eyes. I would pass the house often on my runs, and both dogs would bark at me. I am usually nervous about petting chained dogs, but there was something about the black mutt's bark that seem more excited that malicious, and so I took to approaching the fence to pet her, keeping an eye on the front door of the house, always half-expecting some angry resident to yell at me for trespassing. When she saw me coming, the black dog would jump up on the fence and pee with excitement, and it was that fact, that she was so starved for affection that the mere thought of it made her pee, that touched me more than anything.
        I had just gone through some pretty major life changes. A few months before I had sold the red Cabriolet convertible that I'd had since I graduated from college and that had taken me across the country to California (and back) several times while I tried to figure out what to do with my life. I bought a bare-bones Toyota pick-up, with no power anything, had a yard sale, packed the rest of my possessions in the back of the pick-up, and drove one last time across the country to Asheville, North Carolina and a new house, new job, new life. I knew no one, but within a few months began dating, rather tumultuously at first, the man who would become my husband. Don was a huge animal lover, and when I told him that every time I saw the little black dog I wanted to take her home with me, he was encouraging. I was wary of the commitment; he thought only of the love. Plus, I was no longer really foot-loose and pet-free, since three cats had adopted me when I moved into the 1920s Dutch Colonial I had bought from California after seeing it only once on a brief visit to the area. And so, with heart in hand, I approached the garbage-strewn stoop of the black dog's house and knocked.
       After several minutes, a large African-American woman answered the door, and I could almost see her thinking, "Jesus, what in the world is this little white girl doing at my door?"
       "I really like your dog," I blurted out. "I was wondering if I could have her?" There was any number of righteous things I could have said about the conditions in which the dogs were kept, but I was afraid that if I offended her, she would never let me have the dog.
       "It's my son's dog," she said. I waited. "But he's gone to college. I'll ask him."
        I thanked her and walked home, imagining their conversation. Would he welcome the chance to give a dog he rarely saw a welcoming home, or would he bristle at my presumption and cling to ownership?
       A week or so later, I returned. "I just wondered," I began, "if you've had a chance..."
     "You can have her," she said brusquely. "You can take the chain, too." She shut the door.
       And that was that. I didn't find out the dog's name, her age, whether she'd been spayed... Honestly, I didn't think to ask. I unchained the exuberant little dog and walked her home, casting a regretful look at the other dog still chained under the shed.
      At home, it was as if I finally had the chance to live all the animal rescue stories I had devoured as a young girl. I gave her a bath, cut dreds bigger than my fists from her tangled hair, bought her a collar and dog bowl, and named her Dulce, since "sweet" was the word that she brought immediately to mind. That evening was my 30th birthday party, and in the pictures of slightly drunken revelry taken that night she is strewn across my lap and licking my face as if I'd been her human forever. The next day I took her to Bent Creek, a local forest, and she enjoyed what I assumed was her first run in the woods. In the weeks that followed, I walked her twice a day, in the mornings before I went to work and in the evenings after I came home. With Don's help, I put up a picket fence around my small back yard, so she would never have to be tied up again. And as I spent more and more nights away from home, she came with me, joining Don's two dogs in his yard.
       More than my move from big city California to small town North Carolina, more than my new home ownership, more even than my new community of friends and of cats, Dulce made me feel changed in some intangible way. This was it-- I was finally settled. Having Dulce made it all real: I lived here, and meant to live here forever. I had a dog. This was my life now.
        Looking back, as a new mom of three little children, my mind frames it differently: Dulce made me a mother for the first time. (Yes, there were the cats, but cats are different; it's as if they condescend to let you care for them, rather than that they truly need you.) Dulce needed me with a dependence and a loyalty and a love that took my breath away. She was mine, and I was hers. I will never forgot the moment when that became crystal clear to me. Don and I, newly married, were backpacking with our three dogs: Dulce, an Australian Shepard named Mary, and our new puppy, Soca. Unfortunately, Dulce and Mary had never gotten along. Both females, both jealous, any sign of affection from Don or me for each other or the other dog would set them off into an unstoppable, and often bloody, battle. Neither Don nor I wanted to give up our dog, so we had found a way to manage their fighting by only allowing one or the other to be around us at a time. One day, Dulce would be allowed inside, the next, Mary. "Every dog has its day," we joked.
       But backpacking, this routine separation was harder and, although we had brought the tie-outs, we had not yet tied the two of them up. We'd assumed, I suppose, that they'd be too interested in exploring the woods while we set up camp to fight. We were wrong. When the fight was over, Dulce was bleeding profusely from her muzzle. Mary's teeth, it turned out, had completely torn the tender flesh between her nostrils. She must have been in a lot of pain, and there we were, miles from the trail head, never mind a vet. We belatedly tied both dogs up, as we assessed what to do. I think I half-expected Dulce to sulk away, licking her wounds and suffering her pain in private. Instead, she stretched her tie-out to cuddle up to me, climbing into my lap as she lapped the blood that dripped from her torn nose.
        It seems natural to me now, that she would seek me out for comfort in her pain. But at the time, I was deeply touched. It was the first time anyone-- human or canine-- had come to me with their physical suffering, as if my very proximity offered her some relief. In that moment, my love for her overwhelmed me. It is a love I recognize easily now: Dulce was my first baby, my first little girl.
        And so it went. She was there through everything that was to come. She comforted me when I cried my heart out again and again through the seemingly endless years of trying to conceive a child. Her head rested on my growing belly when it finally happened, and it was her picture that we brought to the hospital as my "focal point" during labor. I was nervous of her jealousy with all my infants, but she graciously conceded her place in my lap, even when "Get down, Dulce. Go on," seemed a constant refrain. She went on fewer walks, got petted and cuddled less as the relentless needs of infants rained down on us. Trips to the woods became a rare treat rather than a weekly occurrence. But through it all she was my sweet girl, her loyalty immutable, her love complete.
      When, three months ago, the painful lump on her forehead was diagnosed as cancer, probably of the sinuses, we decided not to subject her to chemotherapy, the only treatment option. Instead, we opted to try to maintain her quality of life as long as possible with antibiotics, pain medicine, and anti-inflammatories. Three months after her diagnosis, we marvelled at her apparent good health. Her appetite was, at times, diminished, but she still played with Soca, still ran around the yard, still climbed into my lap as we sat on the couch.
        But then, on Thursday night, she refused to eat. In the morning it was the same, and when I made her scrambled eggs with cheese and tried to coax her, she walked to the door and wanted out. By afternoon, she was lying unnaturally in the sun, her muzzle scrunched against the grass uncomfortably. She wagged her tail when I approached, but staggered when she got up to pee, her urine red with blood, and collapsed by the door when she tried to go inside.
       A little over an hour later, she lay in my arms in the parking lot of the vet's office, pushing her muzzle against me, gazing at me with her big brown eyes. Even at the end, in more pain than I like to imagine, she was my sweet, sweet girl, once again taking some comfort, I hope, in my presence. "You're my good dog, Dulce. You're my best girl," I told her again and again. She gazed back at me with those beautiful eyes, adoring as ever, even as the sedative relaxed her almost to sleep and the vet found a vein for the final injection. And then, in an instant, she was gone. Nothing in her face had changed, but her light was out, her soul departed.
       "She's gone, " the vet said kindly, listening for her heart, but I knew.
        My best, sweet dog, my first little girl-- gone. The vet had used an expression that struck me: her soul mate dog, she had said sympathetically, had died while she was in vet school. Dulce was that for me-- my first true soul mate. She had found her way into my life unexpectedly and loved me with all her enormous heart.
        Yesterday, as I ran through the woods on a trail near our home, the wind rustled the fallen leaves. The sound brought Dulce back to me. In my mind's eye I could see her furry black paws disappearing in the leaves, the crinkle and rustle as she sniffed and ran. I sobbed, of course, out of selfishness-- I would never feel her love again, never love, I am afraid, another dog like I love her. But imagining her like that, her spirit running through the woods again, unencumbered by her sick body, her painful flesh... If there is a heaven, I thought, let it be that. Let her spirit run in those woods forever.