Life Lesson #3: Making Room for More

This post isn't about dogs; in fact, you'll be glad no canines were involved.

Hurricane Irene rolled into New Jersey late Saturday night. We worried about downed trees on our quaint little town's tree-lined streets. We worried about not having electricity. We worried about trains being cancelled and roads being closed.

What we didn't worry about was a basement filled with a foot and a half of water. And that's exactly what we got. We were awoken at 5am by a horrible crashing sounds in the basement. We ran down to find 3-4 inches of water. The power had failed and, accordingly, so did our sump pump. We spent the next hour grabbing the essentials like contestants on Supermarket Sweep—important documents, electronics, scrapbooks. We grabbed and stacked as fast as we could, but the water kept rising. So then we started bailing water. With two small buckets, we ran up and down the stairs dumping the water into our bathtub. It was useless, but you can't helplessly stand by and watch all of your belongings go under.

The water won 16 inches to 0. That was yesterday.

Today was clean-up day. I hope you never have to wade through water with your life-long memories floating by—photos, books, each carrying a specific significance. (But maybe you have and you can relate.) Sure, we lost things of actual monetary value, such as big ticket appliances, and that hurts the wallet. But it was the little things that hit me hardest. They fall into a few categories...

• Things that survive despite the odds (and thank goodness they do):

Our extra wedding invitations were sealed in a dinky envelope. Finding some of these intact made my day.

• Things that deserve to be destroyed but are in perfect shape:

Why do I have these Pogs that went out of style 20 years ago? Even if they were in style, they didn't deserve to survive when my precious belongings did not. I hope they have survival's guilt.

• Things of $0 monetary value that are irreplaceable:



This Golden Book wouldn't sell for $0.01 on ebay, even if it were dry. Sure, I could go out and buy a copy of this same title and it would stir the memories of reading with my mom as a child, but my signature (4-year-old style) can't be replaced.

• Things you never knew you had and are glad you found (even if it took a massive flood):

Photos of my husband as a child

• Things of emotional importance you should have let go years ago:

This was my favorite doll as kid, but she's been musty and mildew-y for years. Also included in this category are just anything to do with exes.

• Things that remain as connections to loved ones who have passed:



As a kid, I took this suitcase to grandma's house for sleepovers. It's soaked through and through, but you better bet I'll be drying it with a hair dryer all day tomorrow. Letting go of this means letting go of her memory.

Sure, we've held on to some things in hopes of preserving them. But we've thrown out 60+ bags of "trash"—all things that once held significance to us. It makes me terribly sad, but it also makes us feel like we're starting fresh, especially as we begin our lives as a married couple. We're making more room in our home and in our lives for something more. What that "more" is, we're not sure, but you can bet a dog of our own and many foster dogs will be part of it. 

Life Lesson #2: Compassion

My apologies to the next person who
rents this graduation attire. I'm sure they
will wonder why it smells like cinnamon
graham crackers...

Life lesson #2 was an expensive one. I'm afraid to pin the exact cost on it, but just imagine what 34-graduate credits at a highly-priced university will run you these days.

Today I finished my master's degree in something unrelated to dog-ology—literacy education. The graduation speaker said something mildly inspirational. The rain came on and off. And I looked out upon the carefully manicured grass at the stadium thinking, "Damn, Karina would love to run circles in this yard." (Are the Steinbrenner's looking to adopt a dog?)

My daydreams brought me to the realization that these two passions of mine—at their very core—are strikingly similar. I recalled one of my professors who created a literacy program to address the needs of the hardest-to-reach readers. They're the kids with behavioral issues who get pushed to the side. They're the kids with special needs who are overlooked. They're the diamonds in the rough that need a little extra attention in order to shine.

Sound familiar? These kids are the shelter dogs of the school world. My professor offered a quote that inspired her to create the program. For that costly diploma, I can't even recall the exact words, but to paraphrase—a society should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members.

And if that's not a life lesson to live by, then I don't know what is.

Life Lesson #1: Flexibility (or, Jack Comes Back)

I schedule every minute of my day. It makes me a highly effective worker. It makes me someone you can count on. It also makes me stubborn and inflexible. Flexibility is my not my forte.

We found out late last week that Sable would not be joining us. The vet needs to keep her in West Virginia to work with her some more. As you could imagine, this threw me off a bit. I had a big sticky note with my weekend plans written on it—hour by hour—and picking up Sable was penciled it at 8pm Saturday. But now that wasn’t going to happen. After a few minutes of disappointment, I realized this was probably a positive turn of events. I reasoned that I’d have more time to do the mounds of work I’m currently buried under. Change is good. Be flexible, I told myself, before making a new schedule.

And, within a matter of hours, we got word that the arrangement with Jack and his new family wasn’t working out. So Jack came back to us on Sunday afternoon. What was the first thing I did? I ripped up my schedule into a million pieces.

Huh? Me? What did I do?

To answer your question, yes, I'm disappointed that it didn’t work out. All along we felt like Jack needed a super active family to keep him busy. But it sounds like it might have been too much stimuli for him. The family said he was fixated on chasing squirrels and birds, so much so that he jumped their fence. (This doesn’t surprise me in the least. A dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do, right?) His reactions to dogs were mixed. He got along fine with the family’s other dog, albeit with one or two scuffles over treats, but barked at other dogs in the neighborhood. Again, this is pretty consistent with what we’ve seen at adoption day. His reactions to people completely surprised me, though. The family told us he barked at people on walks and toward visitors in their home. I have not seen anything but love and affection from this dog at adoption day or when we’ve had visitors in to our home. I mean, he can be bossy with us by barking for food or attention or telling us he doesn’t want to do something, but he has never crossed the line to aggression.

So what do you think happened? My trusted dog adviser Amanda thinks these reactions were based out of fear. The new stimuli were too much to take in at once—living with a new dog and family, strange people and dogs approaching him, etc. And that makes sense. It took us several weeks for him to get over his fear of stairs alone. What’s unknown is scary, and when he's scared, he tries to defend himself. Plus, we’ve had him in very structured, predictable environments (save for adoption day) where we’ve kept him on a short leash—figuratively and literally. Maybe this was just overload. 

For those to subscribe to the “pack philosophy,” which trusted dog adviser Amanda says is a bunch of bologna: Was he establishing himself as leader of the pack? (He had nothing but love and kisses for the family members.) Was he trying to find his role and, being that he has a dominant personality, was he showing the family that he would take charge of protecting them?

This experience has served as a reminder that as far as Jack has come, he still has a way to go from being the perfect pet. He needs work, but doesn’t any dog? We’ll try to find some rewarding and less-than-stressful ways to expose him to new experiences. I’ll just have to pencil it into my schedule.