The dogs, bites and chases that made me fall in love with a tail-wagging animal
Huddled in a chestnut brown kitchen, clinging to the wall, I stood next to the large, white garage door of my friend’s home, met by a new face. Hershey, a chocolate lab, was an innocent puppy trying to play with the stranger who entered her territory. She was a beast to my 9-year-old eyes, and I stood frozen and cowering. Trying to make a sudden bypass around the lab, Hershey’s mouth chomped my right forearm between her upper fangs starting to grow in and her bottom jaw, clenching and then releasing within a seconds passing.
It took a while before I resumed associating the word “Hershey” with the sensation of sweet, soft chocolate melting on the tongue. Before it became a signal of a sweet and satisfying treat, it struck a sense of fear that my childhood friend’s dog left behind, right on the forearm. Hershey’s bite was when my fear of dogs really began. Though alive before her, she ignited a terror like wildfire, to the point where I couldn’t be in the same room as the animal.
As a tween trying to build friendships, this created a problem of sorts. Most kids love dogs; most kids own one. But unable to be around them without salty water bubbling to the surface of my eyes, friends no longer wanted me over if it meant locking away their precious pups to keep me calm. Take my friend Tara. Every year she threw a summer swimming party, which included her two tiny dogs. For my sake, she tried locking them away, yet they always escaped, running to the backyard, sparking a game of hide and chase (me hiding, them chasing).
But two incidents, when I was 10, occurred within the confines of my neighborhood—a place I thought of as a safety zone—that solidified my fear. Two years younger than my sister, I arrived home from school before her. On the afternoon of “the incident,” I met Shayna, even more scared of canines than myself, at the bus to walk her home. Rounding the curve of our street, about two houses from our own, a German shepherd cut loose from its yard and charged us. We huddled together, the dog barked loudly, and we screamed from our little 4’9” frames. Cheerleaders, we knew how to yell, which came in handy when the mutt’s owner finally heard our cries and called the pup home.
A few weeks later, in our backyard, where the German shepherd couldn’t reach us, the second incident happened. “RUFF. RUFF. RUFF,” cried Duke, the blonde Labrador living behind us, deeply and loudly. Still scarred from the shepherd exchange, we knew there was only one thing to do. “RUN,” Shayna shrieked. “GET INSIDE.”
I didn’t just run to find safety. I Olympic-style, 100-meter dashed, running for the patio connected to the interior of our Pennsylvania, two-story home, when “splat,” my face met glass, my bottom met deck, and an egg shape quickly crept onto my forehead. Duke remained in his backyard.
I grew weary of this fear—shredding my throat from screams, cowering from beasts that lacked any interest in harm, and forcing friends to lock pets away so I could enter their homes. With a pounding head I chose to abolish my fear and decided I needed a dog of my own. I pleaded and begged my mom, who remained highly uninterested and acutely aware of Shayna’s anxiety. So I got to work, creating a five-page dissertation, hand-drawn pictures included, which outlined all the reasons we needed a dog, with close attention to how a puppy would benefit us all. At the end, I included my most powerful argument: Shayna, terrified still, “wanted” one, as evidenced by the signature I forced her hand to write at the close. “After Shayna’s Bat Mitzvah,” mom said, which loomed more than a year away, “we’ll talk.” She thought I would forget in a year, but I took it as a memory challenge, willing myself to remember. A day after her celebration, I asked once more, and a few weeks later, Whimsie, a curly-haired labradoodle, became ours.
Though she stole lots of socks and demanded all our attention, Whimsie let us doll her up in cheetah jackets and teach her tricks such as yelping “love.” Connecting with the pooch and completely unafraid, I decided to try going to a friend’s house again, without the need of the dog being locked up. “I’m not afraid,” I told myself, and I found that I really wasn’t. I petted my friend’s 10-pound white dog just like I would my 50-pound doodle, scratching her ears and then her belly, when chomp. The dogs mouth clamped over my chin. As blood rushed from my face and I stopped myself from fainting, I thought the fear would bubble to the surface once more. But when I got home to the wagging tail of Whimsie and she too grabbed my arm between her teeth, she tugged only my sleeve as she pulled me into the blue-carpeted family room to chase her. A black blur darting up and over the tan suede couches, she collapsed after a few rounds. Sitting down beside her, she licked my arms until I pet her face and scratched her belly. As she panted and yelped, her entire body bounced up, landing right on my lap.
