Never Leave Us Alone

When I was a teenager, I dreamed about living in New York City and having a cat à la Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I think about that fantasy as I stand in my Tennessee backyard in the middle of the night because my beagle mix Penny has eaten something that disagreed with her sensitive digestive tract. Probably an onion she dug up, but maybe a piece of decaying bird she managed to chomp while I wasn’t paying attention on our midday walk. She growls at what I hope is a possum and not one of the neighborhood skunks. I cajole her to follow me back inside, and she ignores me. I watch her white tail disappear into the holly bushes.

To be fair, I lived in New York City for more than a decade where I went to poetry readings and gallery openings and occasionally scored free or cheap theater tickets. And for many of those years, I returned home to a sweet albeit opinionated cat named Lola. Lola had been feral, although the rescue failed to mention that salient detail when I picked her. It was revealed a week later when I dropped off a borrowed carrier. By then, what could I do? I was smitten with the green eyes peering out from her favorite hiding spots. She was as soft as a rabbit, and it only took a few months before she became a bona fide lap cat.

When Lola died from cancer, I vowed never to get another pet. It was unfathomable to me that anyone could survive the grief of losing a beloved animal and think, Oh yeah, let’s do that again. And yet, a short while later, I found myself on shelter websites. I started with cats, but when my husband floated the idea of dogs, I looked at those, too. Occasionally I’d turn the computer screen toward him while we sat on the couch together after dinner, and he’d respond with “too big” or “too cute.” But when I showed him Penny, he paused. I could see him taking in her chocolate eyes and freckled nose, her head at a slight tilt. “If she’s still there this weekend, let’s go meet her,” he said.

That was on a Tuesday, and I must have refreshed her profile page a hundred times before Saturday, hoping that nobody snagged her. Finally, the morning arrived. At the time, we were living in DC with no car, so we rented one for the drive. We arrived an hour before the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA opened and sat at a coffeeshop to pass the time. I crumbled my pastry instead of eating it, nervous that we would miss “our dog.” Finally, we drove over to the shelter where we watched an employee unlock the front doors. I waited a respectful two minutes before barging inside, asking if we could meet Penny.

“You just missed her,” the cheerful man said. He pointed to a white van leaving the parking lot. “She’s on her way to an adoption event.”

Hopefully I said “Thank you,” but I don’t remember. I raced back to our rental car and hopped inside.

“Follow that van,” I said like a PI on a hot case.

My husband looked at me askance but did as instructed. We followed at a safe but close distance until the van pulled into a PetCo parking lot. This time, I would not let embarrassment at being overeager keep me from my goal. As a few volunteers arranged the motley crew of dogs, I approached the woman setting up their information booth and explained that we were interested in adopting Penny. So much for “meeting her.”

“Would you like to walk her?” the woman asked, finding the dog’s information folder.

I walked Penny in a small, grassy area, and she pulled as if she’d never been on a leash before. Undeterred, I suggested to my husband that we get her a harness along with other supplies, then I read her file. She’d recently been transferred from a different shelter farther south, and her foster family noted that she “didn’t like to be left alone.” I signed on the dotted line and handed over a check.

When we arrived home, we left Penny inside while unloading our supplies. Ear-piercing yelps emanated from behind our front door, a sound of pure distress as if our new pet were being attacked. Turns out, “didn’t like to be left alone” was code for severe separation anxiety. If I left her alone for even a few minutes — a few seconds really — she would start crying, loud enough to disturb the neighbors. I work from home, and I hoped that a few weeks of routine would settle her nerves. When she seemed to only get worse, not better, I turned to Google and tried every suggestion, however far flung: ThunderShirts, calming chews, canine music, pheromone collars. You name it, I tried it. I researched trainers, but they were out of our budget. Instead, I joined an online support group for owners of dogs with separation anxiety, asked the vet for meds, and embarked on interval training myself.

We started with getting Penny accustomed to me walking out the door. I would pick up my keys, put on my coat, and touch the doorknob. Penny would sit up, on high alert. After a few days, though, I was able to slip outside and back in. I recited Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” to myself for motivation: “Then practice losing farther, losing faster.” Farther to the mailbox I went. Faster to the corner. I attempted a brisk walk around the block. Eventually, I could pop into the neighborhood grocery store, provided I didn’t dither over ice cream choices. On one demoralizing occasion, I heard Penny’s shrieks about three blocks away and sprinted, bags banging against my legs, to her rescue. I wondered why Bishop hadn’t written about losing your morale. I lost mine more than once, but after many months of training, I could leave Penny alone for a few hours without hysterics. I could go to a doctor’s appointment or even grab a coffee with friends. Honestly, it felt like a small miracle.

The pandemic set Penny back a bit. She became used to having not one but two people around all the time, but we also moved to Tennessee where her “Grandma” watches her whenever needed. It quickly became obvious that she was never meant to be a big city dog. She now chases critters in our yard and drinks out of my mom’s fishpond and generally enjoys being a hound then napping on the couch. She’s turned gray in the muzzle and packed on a few pounds, and I’m grateful for my own stubbornness — and hers. She’s content, or at least resigned, when left alone for short errands, though she still greets me as if I’m a shipwrecked sailor returned from the sea.

When I’m home, though, she’s not glued to my side anymore, and the dog bed in my office goes mostly unused. How funny my own wistfulness when I look around and think, Where’s Penny? Of course, it’s been six years since my little cat passed, and I still catch myself missing her, thinking, Where’s Lola? Amidst all the chatter about how much joy pets bring, there’s an undercurrent of magical thinking, a necessary delusion that maybe this one won’t ever leave us alone.