The Year of Disasters, Or How I Spent $15,000 On My Dogs in a Matter of Months
Posted: Wednesday, October 19, 2011
by Rebecca Epstein
March
It actually started on March 3rd, 2010, not in January. That was the day my dog Casper, which I'd had since I was thirteen years old, passed away. I was twenty-eight years old when he died in my arms, but I cried like a child. He had been in heart failure for two years, but one day in February it became clear to me that Casper was no longer happy or even comfortable. My little white fluffy guy was dying, and so I had him put to sleep.
If I wasn't me, the story in all its florid drama might have ended right there. But I am me, and so I craved a new pet to fill the ragged hole Casper's death had left in my life. Some people lose a pet and know that they could never replace it. But I believed that nothing would temper the pain of loss like a new creature to love. Nevermind that I already had another dog and a parrot. I knew it wouldn't be long before I got another pet.
April
Somehow, I made it a whole month without acquiring any new pets. At the end of March, my young dog Lux and I drove about two hours north to Strawberry Point, Iowa, home of Backbone State Park. The drive was gorgeous, the sky achingly blue and the corn fields infinite. Lux stuck her head out the window and the wind blew through the car as we sped across the highway.
Backbone was downright mystical in its beauty and solitude. I was thrilled with my independence--I rented a cabin for us, and we relaxed and hiked and generally enjoyed how isolated we were.
But I should tell you what happened the night before Lux and I left. I had this friend--a lovely middle-aged woman who was a little wacky and a lot in love with dogs. She forwarded me an email she had gotten through a volunteer organization that transfers rescue dogs across the country to their new homes with the help of private pilots and foster families. A woman was looking to find a place for a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel to stay overnight between legs of a trip from the Midwest to the east coast. My friend's home was already brimming with pets, so I volunteered. I think I knew that I'd end up keeping the little guy, but if I'd really known what was in store, I would have certainly passed up the opportunity.
It rained at Backbone, and the woods raised up a mist that reflected the light like a prism. Lux and I roamed the park, stopping at a bridge that was level with a creek, a trail partially blocked by a downed tree, and of course, the Devil's Backbone trail, which was as its name implied, the spiny outcropping of a cliff.
The weather cleared up in time for us to drive home, and again, I smiled the whole way home. It was difficult not to, with the high-speed breeze whipping my short hair into peaks and Lux wagging her tail at the blur of scenery. I dropped her off at home, and drove back up to Cedar Rapids about a half hour away, to retrieve the Cavalier.
He was a darling puppy, chubby, a blunted face. He chewed on my fingers before he did anything else. He came home with me, and I quickly discovered that he was sick. I was only supposed to have him until the following morning, when another private pilot would continue his journey to the east coast, to a Cavalier rescue there. But he had a terribly upset stomach, and so the rescue lady and I decided he would stay with me until he got better. That's when everything got crazy.
I poured 700 dollars into getting the little guy better. On the second day that he was with me, I was so taken with him that the rescue lady and I decided I would keep him forever. I filled out the adoption paperwork and waited eagerly to get the signed copy from her.
It never came. Instead, she started to call me and scream at me on a daily basis. Her voice took on this hoarse, terrible quality, and I was so shocked I could do nothing but weep. Most of the time, it wasn't even clear to me what she was screaming about. When I'd had the puppy for about a week, she called me and demanded that I bring him to the vet's office, so she could arrange transport back to her the following day. It was stupid, I realize that now. But she threatened to call the police if I didn't do it, and I complied.
May
The ensuing battle was so complex, so interwoven with attacks, counterattacks, and horrified discoveries, that it does not even lend itself well to being written out. Instead, I can say this: I tried desperately to hang on to my puppy. I had been scammed, and I found out that she was pulling the same scam in other places in the USA, as well. She picked out sick dogs and had people pay for their veterinary care while believing that the dogs were theirs to adopt, then yanked the dogs away when they were doing better, so she could sell them to other people. She had another nearly identical legal case going on in the Northwest.
I hired a lawyer. I dug. What I found out was that she had a history of drug abuse, crime, and animal neglect and abuse. She had once been an attractive, loved, sociable person. Then she had disappeared for seven years, and had resurfaced a twisted sociopath.
My May was a time in which I thought of nothing but the impending trial. I longed for the return of my puppy, who lived out the days in a cage at the vet's office. I was not allowed to visit him.
Well. I won the trial at the end of May. The puppy was mine again. I don't think I've ever been so happy.
August
Months passed, in which we were all relatively happy, the pets and I, though I had spent almost 8,000 dollars in May, saving my pup (which I named Harry) from the evil grasp of the "rescue" woman on the east coast. I got a new job at the company that makes the ACT, the test that Midwestern high-schoolers take to gain admission to college.
The problem was, I was out of the house for almost nine hours a day. I couldn't leave my dogs loose, because they were little troublemakers who got into everything they could. And I couldn't leave them locked up in their crates because that was cruel, for so many hours. So I made the wrong decision. I left them out of the crates one day, just to see what would happen. I checked that everything was put away in its proper place.
But I missed something. A bottle of vitamin D, sweet gel capsules, sat on the kitchen counter. By the time I came home for lunch, the contents of the entire bottle had been consumed.
I wouldn't have even known, had it not been for a plastic bag. The bottle had been on the counter in a plastic sandwich bag. By the time I came home, the bottle was missing, hiding under the living room table, but the plastic bag was torn open on the carpet. Otherwise, it would have taken me days to discover the dogs' bad deed, and since vitamin D poisoning takes a few days to reveal itself before killing the sufferer painfully and quickly, well, it would have been horrible.
I didn't go back to work that day. I took them to the vet's office, and there they stayed for a month. Poor Harry was getting used to the cage at the vet's office. They became dreadfully ill, their gastrointestinal organs fighting to keep functioning in the face of incredibly low calcium levels. Lux developed pancreatitis. They both lay around, weak and in pain. I visited when I could. I quit my job because I couldn't think of anything but how my negligence had possibly killed my dogs. And it took the entirety of the month before it became clear they would both survive the ordeal. It was the worst time of my life. The guilt was crystalline and sharp in my throat.
Well, but they survived. They are okay. They are okay! I was out another 7,000 dollars, but they are okay.
Which means that I'm okay.
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