Must Love Dogs

As I write this, my Boston terrier, Maggie, is sleeping on her bed just a few feet away from my desk, snoring louder than any grown men with a cold. It’s hard to believe such a sound can come from such a tiny creature, but I like to think it’s because she finally feels safe in our home.
   Before we found her she went through three homes in as many months. She was probably one of the thousands of pets that find themselves homeless when their owners move and can’t take them along. This is something that just didn’t make sense to my fiancee, Eric, and me.
   Months before the lease was up on our first apartment together, we knew we wanted to get a dog. The only problem was our condo association didn’t allow pets, so we started two very long and arduous searches; one for an apartment that was pet-friendly, and the other for a Boston terrier we could adopt.
   Finding the apartment turned out to be the easy part. About five minutes from where we were living, we found a new place with a park nearby, a grocery store across the street and neighbors who knew each other not on a first-name basis but by the names of each other’s dogs.
We signed the lease and moved on to the next part of our search. We knew we wanted a Boston terrier because they’re small, playful dogs that are happy being indoors and part of a family of humans. Besides, it wouldn’t have made sense to have a Great Dane in our one-bedroom apartment. Instead of going to a breeder, we were determined to rescue a dog from a shelter or from animal services. Many are euthanized every day; others wait for months in a dark kennel to be adopted from a shelter.
   Every morning, when I woke up and turned on my computer, I ran a search through the local Humane Society and my county's Animal Services web site. Their records are updated daily with photos, and you can search by size, age and breed. We went to one of their adoption events at a pet store and fell in love with every dog there. We went to PetSmart on the weekends, where animal-rescue organizations bring their dogs so that would-be pet owners can interact with them before adopting them. After the first month, still not having found the right pet, I decided it was time to expand our search. On Petfinder.com, an online database of shelters and rescue organizations throughout the country, I searched not only my county but also neighboring counties.  Still no Boston terrier. Eric and I had started packing our pots and pans and books and clothes, but we had yet to find our four-legged little one.
   “It’s probably better this way,” I said. “We can have some time to settle into the new place before bringing the dog home.”
   Then a week before our moving date, I was on Craigslist looking through the Pets section (I had a routine after doing this for four months; I’d check the shelters first, then Animal Services, then Craigslist). “Female Boston terrier, one year old, needs a home,” it said. The ad had been up for no more than 20 minutes, but when I called the woman had already gotten several calls with people ready to pick her up. It was a Wednesday, but I needed until Monday, when we’d be in our new, pet-friendly home. I was convinced that she would turn me down when I told her this, but she felt more comfortable with me than the other people that called. She said she wanted to make sure she was choosing the right home for the dog. 
   That Monday, Eric drove. I sat in the passenger seat with an envelope where I’d scribbled the directions. Excited as we were, we’d agreed that we would meet her first and then decide if we’d take her home. After all, what if she didn’t like us? What if we didn’t interact well together, or she gave me allergies?
   We reached our exit and pulled into the neighborhood. “I think it was the next street down,” I said, and I started rummaging through my purse for my phone.
   But Eric stopped the car and pulled into a driveway. “Oh, we’re taking her with us,” he said immediately. I looked up. Outside the door stood a tiny black dog with pointy ears that rose upward like a bat. When we got out of the car and into the woman’s home, Maggie was ecstatic, jumping against our legs and licking our hands until she was out of breath from the excitement. She rolled over onto her back as if to say, “scratch my tummy, please,” and 15 minutes later she was asleep on my lap. She didn’t snore then. That was a surprise that would come later, in the months that we got to know her and she really became “our” dog.
   Since then, we’ve learned a few things about Maggie. She considers lizards an acceptable snack. Squirrels are her sworn enemies. She can rip a toy to shreds in less than an hour. Her ears perk up when we’re talking about her. And, most importantly, she absolutely must sleep in the living room if Eric and I plan to get any sleep. That we learned the first night we brought her home.