THE BEST ACCIDENTAL RELATIONSHIP I HAVE EVER FALLEN INTO

I had not planned to get a dog. As is so often the case, it is far more likely that my dog found me. Our family always had a dog when I was growing up, and when I lived in the city for years having a dog was always something that I thought would naturally happen in the future, but not necessarily until I was able to settle down in a place that was suitable.

Nine years ago it was my ex-wife who decided that we should get a dog. I had fostered beagles when I lived in the North End, had volunteered at Angell Memorial in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston decades ago, and also spent a considerable amount of time visiting various animal rescue organizations like the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Massachusetts. So when my wife at the time assigned me the task of finding us a dog, I had a relatively good idea about how to find the right one.

After the two of us decided that we should get either a Labrador Retriever or a mixed breed that was mostly Lab, I did some quick research and made a series of diplomatic phone calls. I contacted a few breeders in the area of Southeastern New England, not so much to get a dog from them but rather to gain connections regarding potentially available dogs they might have heard about in their travels. I wanted to make sure that we got a dog that was low maintenance, potentially older, and definitely in need of a comfortable new home.

While networking with a breeder in Rhode Island who, after some discussion, was able to understand the kind of dog I was looking for, I was told to contact Mary Troy in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Mary, they said, was not necessarily a breeder of Labrador Retrievers, but someone with an ever-growing family of Labs, a true lover of dogs who was often willing to thin out her pack by adopting dogs out into the right kind of environment. I called Mary and she seemed amenable to my situation, and said that she might have some dogs that she could possibly part with. My wife and I went to visit Mary in Marshfield. Her house is on a beautiful property close to the North River in the Marshfield Hills area. We were greeted by many dogs inside her enormous old farmhouse with a kitchen that I remember being characterized by wide plank wooden floors definitely worn down by a combination of both dogs and time. Mary graciously allowed us into her home as if we were neighbors stopping by for a visit, while at the same time was constantly busy trying to corral various dogs as they curiously moved into the room attempting to meet us. She then brought us out to the back porch area of the house along with several of her dogs, although not all of them. It was cold and snowy at the time, and the entire group of Labrador Retrievers began frolicing around in the winter air running back and forth on the porch fighting over who had possession of a dog toy. We took an immediate liking to Hazel, an abnormally small lab who was about a year old. It became obvious that Mary was apprehensive about letting Hazel go, claiming that she was probably too small to send off to a new home and also told us that we might be annoyed by her bark. In truth, Mary was right. When I eventually heard Hazel make a sound, her bark was strangely high-pitched, something that I thought sounded more like an elk that might be passing by on the property. At one point I crouched down, most likely trying to draw Hazel’s attention, but instead another yellow lab slowly walked over and sat by my side. This was the very first time that I met Hannah. Hannah was on the verge of turning two years old and clearly preferred having me scratch her belly rather than take part in the fracas created by her siblings.

During the ride home we talked about our visit with Mary. My wife thought that Hazel was the right dog for us, but even after calling and suggesting that we would take Hazel, Mary appeared to be hesitant. I then suggested that we could take Hannah remembering how calm she had been staying close to me. But even when I suggested that we take Hannah, Mary tried to dissuade me saying that Hannah was a counter-surfer. And although she eventually warmed up to the idea that Hannah could possibly go home with us, she first suggested taking her home and doing some dog-sitting for a few weeks to see how things go. Mary was clearly not a breeder in the typical sense. Her emotional attachment to her dogs actually made it difficult to take one away from her.

After almost a month of remaining in contact with Mary, she agreed to let us take Hannah, a dog that she described as having very special eyes, almost as if she had been born wearing black eyeliner. On December 23, 2016, we went back to Mary’s farmhouse and picked up Hannah, helping her to jump into the back of our minivan. But before we were able to leave, Mary went back into the house and rubbed a stuffed bone on Hannah’s mother, Nora, and then gave it to Hannah in the back of the van, sending it along with us so that Hannah would always have a way to remember her mother. To this day, Hannah still sleeps with that same stuffed bone.

It was definitely an adjustment for Hannah once she arrived at our house. I specifically remember her taking a long time to decide to use the backyard as a potential bathroom spot to the point where I was starting to be concerned. Hannah was crate-trained, although outside of a need for security and protection, she had little need for a crate. I remember that Hannah’s first big test was about a week after we brought her home. I had purchased special tickets months before to celebrate New Year’s Eve at Boston’s Symphony Hall having no idea that we would have a dog by that time. This would be the first time that we would be leaving Hannah alone for several hours, and I remember that we were both slightly concerned about how she would do when left alone in the house. We were happy to discover that Hannah was fine upon our return an hour or so after midnight, sound asleep in her crate which we had left open for her to use if she needed it.

Hannah quickly attached herself to me, making it clear that she considered herself to be my dog. I was the one, after all, who was up early every morning to feed her, and the one who normally took her out for walks regardless of how rainy or snowy it was. When it was time for bed, she insisted on sleeping on my side of the bed. If we were watching television and I got up to go to bed, Hannah would follow me into the bedroom. With a possible touch of resentment, my ex-wife once instructed me to close the door behind me after heading into the bedroom for the night so that Hannah could stay with her in the living room, but whenever I did this Hannah would simply curl up outside the bedroom door. Hannah became a dog that could be walked around the neighborhood without a leash, and although she would naturally explore a bit while out on walks it became clear that she would never go far.

Less than two years later our marriage had fallen apart. I moved out during the summer of 2018 and insisted on taking Hannah with me. At one point, my wife had shared stories of growing up in New Jersey with family dogs that she told me never made it past the age of seven, adding that her father generally believed that dogs belonged in a doghouse outside in the backyard. I wanted to make sure that Hannah remained in good care, and because she was already so connected to me there was no chance I was going to leave her behind.

The dog and I bounced around that summer moving from a 38-foot sailboat owned by a friend who allowed us to hang out there to a ramshackle one-bedroom apartment in a town significantly further from my job than I wanted to be. We eventually ended up in a winter rental on Sunrise Beach in Marshfield where I slept on a couch every night for eight straight months in order to stay close to Hannah who refused to go up the stairs to where the bedrooms were. My original aim was to buy a condo back in the city. I brought Hannah into the Boston area to look at many available places and finally found a great condo on Bartlett Street in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, but because the unit was on the top floor it meant having to climb several flights of stairs which would be a tall order for the dog. I turned down that Somerville condo due to Hannah’s general unwillingness to climb stairs, imagining the struggle early every morning having to carry her up and down several flights of stairs before heading to work south of Boston.

Dangerously close to my lease expiring on Sunrise Beach, I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to buy a house in the coastal community of Scituate, Massachusetts, from the family of a work-related friend, and most importantly, it was a house that appeared to be perfect for Hannah with a large yard that was partially enclosed with a short white fence, stone walls, and many trees and shrubs. I literally promised Hannah the first time we were at the house together that after so many crazy moves including her initial move from Mary’s house and then the multiple places we had lived during the year prior, this house would now be her permanent home.

It has now been seven years since I made that promise. Hannah has suffered a few health setbacks along the way, and there have been some recent close calls. Hannah has a history of seizures and they have been getting worse with age. Last February, my vet was certain that a debilitating seizure Hannah had experienced was more symptomatic of a splenic tumor which my vet thought she had detected through x-rays. She predicted that Hannah had a little more than a month to live, but Hannah was back to her old self before long and it has now been almost a year since that episode. This past fall Hannah contracted an extremely severe strain of kennel cough even though she is vaccinated against it. With a serious cough lasting nearly 14 days, her struggle to breathe caused me to fear that she was, instead, suffering from a respiratory reaction caused by the final stages of the internal cancer that my vet thought she had detected months before. Most recently, Hannah has now appeared to have lost her hearing.

Today is Hannah’s 11th birthday. All things considered, for a dog that turned the equivalent of a 77-year-old this morning, she’s doing quite well, and with regard to any potential maladies that she may have been feeling as the day progressed, I’m sure that they were easily cured by the time she unwrapped the new bone that I gave her for her birthday.

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