The Year of the Pickle
A story about 11-pounds of unstoppable joy and silliness.
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On our way to a local animal rescue exactly one year ago, I was certain that we weren’t actually going to leave with a puppy. My boyfriend even captured my firm promise on video.
“We’re definitely not getting a dog today!” I declared. You could hear my voice break a little. I was nervous.
It’s not that I didn’t want a dog. I did want a dog. Desperately. But I didn’t think the dog I wanted would be available for us to adopt and the early months of 2020 had sent a clear message to expect endless grief and stress, not joy or positive developments.
I’d lost my 13-year-old schnauzer Brutus at the very beginning of April to canine cancer, which was just a couple of months after I lost my mother to a rare uterine cancer, and just a few weeks after the pandemic had started. We were under the strictest of stay-at-home hours and spending every waking minute at home hiding from the threat of covid – and the sleeping minutes, too.
Everyone was talking about how the pandemic was the very best time to adopt a dog, but I can tell you it was also the very worst time to lose a dog. My home was painfully quiet without Brutus scampering around or snoring beside me. And I was trapped inside the walls with that stabbing silence. It was just me and all of my grief – and an inescapable reminder that my best friend was gone forever.
When Brutus started getting older and sicker, I went for a walk with a friend who had recently lost her cocker spaniel and asked her how she could ever consider getting another dog after such a devastating loss. I hadn’t even had to say goodbye to Brutus yet, but I could feel the hurricane of pain swirling around and waiting to pummel me with some of the worst grief I’d ever know.
But after I did lose Brutus, I started to question my insistence that I could never go through that loss again. Not because the grief wasn’t just as bad I expected, but because I knew the reason that the pain was so immense.
“It’s probably too soon to tell you this, but you gave Brutus as much love as humanly possible and he loved you so hard for it,” my brother told me over the phone, on that first weekend without Bru. “And there is another dog out there who would be so lucky to share that love with you.”
I hung up the phone and sat in that penetrating silence for a while, remembering how Brutus used to dart over to my side whenever he heard me cry, and burrow his butt into my lap. He’d wiggle around and keep digging his hindquarters deeper into my body, certain if he just found the right spot for his tush, I would feel better and stop crying. Brutus was the very best friend and dog, especially after my mom got sick. He was always there to comfort me with his persistent snuggles. And to share that love with him was worth every little bit of the pain of losing him.
I knew I could never replace Brutus, of course, but I started to realize I would want to love a dog again.
So scrolling through pet adoption apps become a bit of a coping mechanism. I got some comfort out of looking at dogs looking for homes. A reminder that there were lots of dogs who wanted to love and be loved. My boyfriend would wake up at 2am and see me looking at a Stuart, the border collie in Utah, or Annie, the heeler mix in Texas.
When I saw Mama Lily’s eight puppies posted on PetFinder, I knew I wanted one right away. I was ready for that love again. So I applied to adopt one of those pups within three minutes of seeing them pop up online. But adopting a puppy during the early days of the pandemic was a cutthroat affair and I wasn’t sure that a 180-second response rate would be fast enough. I figured I’d be swiping through apps with my grief for months to come.
But, I got a call from Lucky Paws a few hours after I put in an application.
“Your application was approved and if you are still interested, you are fifth in line. You will have 10 minutes with the puppies to decide if you want to adopt one.”
I was less worried about the fact that she had just informed me that I would need to make a 10-15 year life decision in 10 minutes and more worried the puppy I knew I wanted would be gone.
How can you tell that you want a puppy from looking at a single photo? I don’t know. But I could. It was so obvious that this puppy was my puppy.
They’d named him Rocky. Which I would change. He looked mischievous and playful and loving. He looked like he would steal your sports bra from the laundry pile and then attack you with kisses when you caught him being a rascal. And he looked like he wanted to get his paws dirty.
I was certain he wouldn’t be available after four other families met the litter because he was the obvious best one. And I wasn’t sure I wanted just any puppy. There was speculation that Mama Lily had been impregnated by two different dad dogs – and the litter was wild looking. Some looked like they might prefer to get toted around in a designer handbag – while others looked like they wanted a good romp in the woods. And I wanted a romper: a running buddy, a skiing buddy, an outdoor everything buddy. And Rocky looked like he wanted that, too.
When I walked into the adoption place, mask on, heart racing, I was 1000 percent convinced Rocky would be gone. And I would go back home to the quiet house of grief empty-handed.
But, I saw him right away. In the puppy dome with three of his siblings. Looking up at us with his hopeful puppy eyes. I ran over and scooped that little tyke right up.
Rocky melted in my arms in a warm, buttery pile of puppy and settled into every crevice of my elbows and armpits. Like, he could just stay snuggled there forever.
I’d been so convinced that we weren’t going to get a dog that day that we didn’t have a single puppy thing back home. Not a crate, not a collar, not a single nibble of kibble. I did not believe that I’d be welcoming a wiggly bundle of love into those extra hard months of my life.
But fifteen minutes after I walked through that door at the rescue, I skipped out with an 11-pound baby pickle in my arms. I could feel his little puppy heart racing against my skin. And he got me right in the heart when he hooked his tiny paw over my arm and left it there for the entire ride home.
Rocky is now Dilly and that 11-pound puppy is now 50.2 pounds and today marks a year of having him in our home and our lives - and by our sides and in our backpacks for pretty much every outdoor adventure.
Dilly immediately took care of all that silence in the house and filled it with squeaking toys and puppy chaos. I joke that he might be broken because he never gets sick of playing. He attacks me with kisses when I walk in the door or when we’re out on an extra fun adventure. And he doesn’t believe in personal space and is never more than three feet away. And he is as weird and silly as he is playful, and he has made me laugh through my hardest grief. I honestly don’t know how I would've gotten through the last 356 days without him, and I’m real grateful that I was wrong about getting a dog that day and didn’t have to try.
Dilly didn’t replace Brutus. Or take away the pain of losing him. Or make life instantly easy and carefree. The grief and the loss were still there when I got home from the rescue last April. But, Dilly was also there.
And Dilly delivered an immediate and powerful reminder that when it feels like there’s nothing but unstoppable grief and pain and stress in the world, there’s still a lot of persistent love and joy and silliness out there, too.
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