Ugly Sweater Weather

Something in me just shattered at the picture, making me throw on a pair of shoes, and walk right down to the shelter to fill out a form and meet him.

He made up for his outward ugliness by having the warmest little puppy soul, despite being abandoned after two years by his family, despite spending another year and a half in a shelter.

When I came in to meet him, it was like he knew all his shelter dog dreams were coming true.

And so they did.

We left right from there to go down the street to the store where I spent a hefty chunk of my previous paycheck on beds, toys, food, grooming supplies, and a book about dogs since I had never been allowed to have one, and had absolutely no idea how to go about not screwing it up.

"Hey, Lock. Bad news. Grandma isn't coming for Christmas," I told him. As if he had any idea who Grandma was. My mother never came to my apartment after the first visit, claiming it made her claustrophobic and she much preferred staying in a hotel when she occasionally came to visit. And since Donald didn't like dogs, when I wanted to fly out to visit her, Lock had to stay behind. "Bummer, right?" I said, smiling when he rested his wide head on my knee.

As I said, my therapist was great.

But Lock might have actually had her beat.

No one would ever be half as excited to see me as he was. Or half as sad for me when I was having a hard day, bringing me his favorite toy—sans the squeaker he'd ripped out months before—and pushing it at me until I started laughing.

"We will still have a good time. Somehow," I added, sighing. "You know what? You wanna go for a—" I paused, his head jerking up, ears pert, knowing what was coming, "walk?" I finished dramatically, watching as he spun himself in ten dizzying circles before turning to make a beeline for the door, smashing his head into the coffee table as he went, but in no way losing any enthusiasm as he sat down beside the door, feet tapping, tail waggling, waiting for me to get on my jacket, hat, and gloves, then strap him into his harness, then layer on his jacket. Santa patterned because, well, only the best for my boy.

It was hard to hold onto sadness when a dog was wiggling his tail and shaking his heinie as you made your way down the streets loaded with tourists just wanting to get a hint of a New York City Christmas before they headed back home to their real lives.

With every block, I could feel some of the stress falling away.

And then, doggy magic.

"Whoa, Lock, what in the... ohhhh," I said, smiling big because he'd caught sight of his girlfriend, Lillybean, from half a block down. How, I wasn't sure, since Lillybean was a tiny speck of a dog, a tannish yellow-colored chi-poo. Not a designer dog. Just the product of a horny Chihuahua and a nearby mini poodle, producing a litter of somewhat bulgy-eyed, oversized rats who yipped and peed when they were excited.

I knew Lillybean before her owner even knew her since she had been at the shelter while I helped with the toy drive. She'd been an excitable mess who everyone avoided like the plague because her barks were the sort that made you pull your shoulders up to your ears in an attempt to block some of it out.

I—and everyone at the shelter—feared no one would ever be able to handle her hyperactive, loud, neurotic self for who she was, worrying she might get adopted out by someone who pitied how unfortunate-looking she was, only to be returned after having spent a day with her.

Luckily for Lillybean, her owner was the good sort of human. The kind who believed that pets—much like children—were a lifelong commitment. You didn't get to bring one back because it didn't turn out how you wanted it to. You rolled up your sleeves. You tried whatever it took to tame wild behaviors, to encourage positive ones.

She was a pampered little princess who yipped much less frequently. We often pondered if she was such a handful at the shelter because she realized all along that she was meant to be sleeping on a fuzzy circle bed soft enough for a human, surrounded by rawhide-free bones, drinking out of a doggy water fountain, and dressed in all the latest pup fashions.

Lock and I had come across Lillybean by complete happenstance one day during our early morning walks around the neighborhood, wanting to get a good chunk of his energy out before I went to work.

It was the dog equivalent of love-at-first-sight.

He saw her.

He stopped in his tracks.

Time froze.

Harps played.

And then all hell broke loose.