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It kind of feels like lately they’ve been traveling down a list. Get engaged? Check. Buy and move into their own tiny little house? Check. White picket fence? Check. Get a dog? The pen is hovering over the box.
Juliet had wanted a cat, until her nephew Julian turned out to be allergic to them, and that flew out the window. So, they’ve landed on a dog. Which was James’ first choice anyway, though he would’ve gone along with whatever she wanted.
“This place just makes me sad,” she says, tension in her brow as she gazes at the walls of caged animals. “I wish we could get all of them out of here.”
“Yeah, but then we’d be like one ‘a those mormon families, but with dogs.”
She laughs, and he smiles. It did what he wanted.
She had a point, though; looking at the different dogs makes his heart ache. From the ones with their noses pressed against the kennels with hope in their eyes and wide grins to the ones curled up on the floor with no effort left in them, they all feed the growing sadness in his chest. They all deserve a home. It isn’t fair.
“Look at him,” Juliet says, wearing a wide smile as she stops in front of a tiny dog, jumping up and down right up close to the metal and barking relentlessly. James winces at the noise.
“I wanted a big dog,” he tells her.
She checks the sign. “But he’s so cute. His name is Oscar. Isn’t that funny?”
“Why, ‘cause he looks like a hot dog?”
She chuckles. “Yeah. Aren’t you cute? ” Her voice softens, going up in pitch when she talks to the animal.
“C’mon,” James says, putting a hand on her back before she can get attached. He’s the one who stops next, smiling at a German Shepherd who eyes him curiously from where she sits on the side of her kennel. “Hey, there.”
Juliet leans her cheek against his shoulder as they look at her. “She looks like a sweetheart. But German Shepherds shed so much.”
“All dogs shed.”
“Yeah, but not like this.”
“Hm.” He feels bad, but he listens and they walk away. He likes that when he holds her hand he can feel her ring against his skin. He brushes his thumb over the diamond, smiling to himself. Just the thought has him so giddy. He can’t believe this is real and that he’s here.
Juliet pouts out her bottom lip, stopping a moment to glance at a small chihuahua. “Aw, he’s sleeping.”
“Lucky,” he jokes, and she rolls her eyes.
The noise of whining from the next one over draws both of their attention. They step over and look in to find a dog just poking his head out of the opening from the back room into his kennel. He’s clearly been recently shaved, but the fluff is already growing back in—not quite brown, not quite white. His ears are almost grey. He watches Juliet’s eyes get big; he hears her voice grow gentle.
“Hi, Sweetheart,” she says, crouching down. “It’s okay.”
He hesitates, but then comes forward, letting out another whine. Juliet nods and puts out her hand, fingers brushing the metal. The dog takes another step forward, and then another, all the way until he’s close enough to lean forward and sniff Juliet’s hand.
There’s something so sad in his eyes, an exhaustion in his face. It makes James’ ribs feel tight.
“That’s right. There you go,” Juliet encourages. She checks the sign and then turns and looks up at him. “His name is Goldie. Isn’t it perfect?”
James opens his mouth, but he’s lost the ability to speak. He’s gone pale. It’s as if he’s been slapped, but it doesn’t quite hurt. It’s the shock that gets to him.
“What?” Juliet asks. She isn’t looking, but the dog’s eyes are trained on her, so focused. James understands that feeling.
He shakes his head and is finally able to form the words. “Goldie was . . . um, the name of the stuffed bear I had as a kid.” He isn’t able to tell her that his mom got it for him, that she’s the one who gave it the name. That it wore a pair of overalls and he took it everywhere with him to the point that it was worn and dirty no matter how many times it went in the wash. He isn’t able to tell her he lost it in the process of leaving his house and going to a foster home in the next city over.
Her eyes go wide, and then soft. “Oh.” She turns back to the animal, her mouth curling up in a small smile. “It’s kind of like it’s meant to be, isn’t it?”
The dog looks up at him now, right into his eyes. It’s so odd, how it tugs on something familiar inside of him. Something in that sad gaze. It reminds him, almost, of looking at his reflection.
“Yeah,” he agrees. Because he knows, deep in his heart, that this dog is theirs.
He goes and gets one of the workers, and when she comes back to open the cage, her eyes widen. Goldie, a four year old wheaten terrier, apparently refuses to engage with humans at all. He’d been disgustingly mistreated and neglected by his previous owners and it broke all trust. He gives every volunteer and employee trouble when it comes to feeding, bathing, walks, and anything else. He rarely goes out into the kennel. No one has been able to get through to him.
No one until now.
“She has that effect on people,” James jokes. “Animals too, it seems.”
“He likes you too,” she shoots back, and she isn’t just saying that.
When the woman opens the cage, he goes right for Juliet, cautiously licking her hand. She runs her hands over his fur and though he seems uncomfortable for a moment, he quickly moves in closer, enjoying it.
But after a moment, he pulls away and turns his nose in James’ direction. Juliet gives him an encouraging look and he puts out his hand, allowing the dog to sniff it. He lets out a weak sort of bark that seems to be in approval, and James tries to brush over the top of his head. He doesn’t move away.
They don’t waste any time signing the papers, as Juliet goes on about how wheatens are hypoallergenic and they rarely shed at all, and he watches the way she tends to Goldie. She’s delicate. She doesn’t do any sudden movements; she tests the waters before diving in. But when he seems to approve, she runs her hands over his fur with such care and comfort. She speaks in that soft voice, her eyes twinkling. She’s so good with him.
It’s after they get him into the car, and they’re standing in the parking lot, and she kisses him sweetly and runs her hands through his hair, that he thinks about it. How lucky that dog is to have been chosen out of all the ones in there, all products of such awful suffering. How lucky he is, to have been chosen by Juliet. To be loved by her. To have been given the chance to become what he is today.
He hopes that dog knows just how great of a life he was just given, to be hers. It’s the greatest thing you could ever be.