Dragging, ducking, pulling, and pleading, after 50 minutes desperately “walking” Birdie down Riverside Drive, I found myself crumpled against the door, crying.
Chris and I often dreamed up a dog we might have. We named him Denver. “Did you let Denver out yet?” we’d laugh.
Being two actors at the time, in and out of the city, the reality was impossible. We were also a bit too passionate about blacking out in a taxi to really take care for anything. Having been desperate to find a way out of the Broadway scene and into something resembling normal (a social construct I know!), suburban even — I pined for a dog. A big dog.
The hilarious, bourgeois fantasy of owning a large dog in New York City. To own a Labrador in this city is to say, “My Brownstone just feels too empty!” Every Saturday morning I’d stare at the sweatpant-clad couples holding their tiny poodles as if they were a Norman fucking Rockwell.
In February of 2020, we moved into a ground level apartment with a small garden. Suddenly, in the throws of a pandemic, Chris and I— locked into this new space— decided the time was ripe for a dog.
A majority of my New York friends had rescued a dog, at varying ages. One took in a sweet senior poodle who only lasted a few breaths, and others have snagged little mixed breeds with sweet dispositions. Foolishly, thinking we’d only have a few month to quarantine (hilarious) before needing to be back at work, I quite haphazardly applied for a few dogs around the city.
When Birdie (nee Madeline) finally settled into our apartment, it was pretty obvious Chris and I had no idea what we were doing. We plopped a loose blanket on the floor next to a thick rope toy and expected her to just kinda… hang out? In that first month, we slept on the floor next to our drafty garden door begging her to love the crate, we pleaded with her to not eat cat shit and broken glass, and we noticed her harness was a size too small, slicing into her ribcage.
She was an 8-month-old cattle dog, which we know now is a notoriously hard breed to break - even without the history of homelessness (and whatever the fuck else she’d seen before we got her). Herding dogs are both noise reactive and motion sensitive. Thankfully, New York City is famously quiet and still (winky face emoji).
I shuffled through every Facebook group, YouTube video, book, testamonial, workshop — I got a BarkBox and a Pupbox and download 2 iphone’s worth of apps. Anything to understand why we were having absolutely no fun.
As the summer heat turned up and worries about the virus subdued, more and more people jammed the city streets. The panic in Birdie’s eyes each time we stepped onto 142nd street became the growls on 142nd street, then the barks, then the nips. By spring, she narrowed our walking path in half, and by summer she refused to even step outside. The few times we managed to get her on a blade of grass, she’d scare a child or lunge toward a man snacking on scaffolding.
And mostly, inside was worse. I mean, we were fucking scared of our dog. Every new noise would send her into a panic, jumping and nipping at our sides. We bought 5 (or 78?) different food puzzles to distract her worried mind. While the city clapped for health care workers at 7, we’d blast “Africa’ by Weezer praying it wouldn’t send our pup into a tailspin.
There wasn’t a single moment of fun in the first 6 months. “I’ve still got that receipt” we’d joke, first with laughter, then eventually with tears. I cried on the floor; I cried to Chris; I cried to his parents and mine. They all reassured us that it would get better, but also whispered that we didn’t need to be heroes.
I had never heard of a “Reactive Dog” before. I remember my parents telling me they had owned a Border Collie once, but after he ate through their door and herded the local children, they figured he would do better on a farm. They settled on small poodles after that. Poodles who certainly barked, but would never be thought of as scary.
One sweltering July day, Chris and I packed a blanket and bag of beers and prayed we’d make it to the river. In less than an hour, Birdie nipped at our sides, lunged at taunting tweens, and jumped out of her skin while a legless homeless man did pull-ups outside our stoop. It became obvious: Harlem was no place for Birdie. Before giving up on her, we opted for Michigan, closer to Chris’ family and larger patches of grass.
To our great relief and hers, it got easier. Slowly. Verrrrryyyyy slowly, we started to see a dog instead of a feral coyote. But, like… of course. Why did I expected this little Texas farm dog to become a some Carrie Bradshaw-cocktail-drinking-1-bedroom-aparment-girl? (after all Birdie is a Miranda!) I do have some resentment that these rescue organizations seem to peddle off instagram likes before appropriately selling off these dogs, but realistically, it was on me to do a bit more research on a breed’s needs.
In Michigan, our collective shoulders relaxed, and she was finally below threshold for counter conditioning. She became cuddly and trusting and eager to learn. Of course, it’s still wild and hard. Her energy level are unmatched, and each new person terrifies her. We carry pockets full of treats to condition the scary world out of her, and I’m not sure she’ll ever be a party-hosting-pet.
But, the first time we had dinner around her, she bit Chris’ sides so hard that bruises lasted weeks. A year later, she just bats her puppy eyes and waits. What a lady.