By Ashley Harris<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s his name?\u201d asked the receptionist on Monday over the phone. I\u2019d made an appointment with a veterinarian in the hopes they could find a microchip on a stray puppy we found at our church on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have one,\u201d I told her. The dog was now tethered to the leg of our seven-foot dining table on a lead. He bore all the markings of a full-blooded Siberian husky\u2014piercing blue eyes, gray fur edged in white, and pointed, erect ears. But his tail lay out straight, a furry stick he may not have known how to curl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet\u2019s call him Max,\u201d offered my husband, J.P., who was watching a recorded version of the weekend\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix. \u201cAfter Max Verstappen, a Formula One champion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Easy enough. I wasn\u2019t a fan of racing, or of any sport that required speed. But \u201cMax\u201d was short and to the point. And it didn\u2019t matter because we weren\u2019t keeping him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We already had Finn, a beagle-terrier mix, and we weren\u2019t in the market for a new dog. A Siberian Husky was not what we wanted or needed. At five feet, two inches tall on a good day, I preferred a cuddly dog small enough to manage. Certainly not one bred to compete in the Iditarod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Max was not housebroken by any definition. And as we shortly learned, he had more parasites than permanent teeth. From the looks of him, Dr. Dugan estimated that he was about 3-4 months old. And there was no sign of a microchip. Still, we vaccinated him for rabies and the first round of something else that would shortly need a booster, and took home enough treatments to knock out any shape of worm: hook, round, or square. I warily made the follow-up appointment, still hoping Facebook would help us find his owner or a new home before then. Every time he visited his water bowl, I stood by with a beach towel, prepared for a tsunami. He inhaled, spewed, and snorted as he drank, not even swallowing the last gulp. This couldn\u2019t go on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, I called a husky rescue organization. But they wouldn\u2019t even consider taking Max unless he\u2019d been officially reported missing for at least two weeks. So I sent a picture to the county animal shelter and the sheriff\u2019s office with my contact information. But Max didn\u2019t look like a forlorn dog who missed his owner. In one picture, he lay at my feet with his loose lead in his mouth, more mischievous than melancholy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he grew more comfortable, I soon learned just why people loved huskies so much. A carryover, perhaps, of a sled dog who must communicate with his pack, Max was the most loquacious dog I had ever known. A psychoanalyst\u2019s dream, he chattered constantly, a master of both small talk and the philosophical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He had two tones: either a high-pitched Woo-woo-woo-whee! <\/em>followed by an exclamation mark\u2014his head voice\u2014or a deeper, more thoughtful roo-roo-rarl\u2026.<\/em> followed by an ellipse\u2014his chest voice. We let him sleep inside the house at night, in a large crate, partially out of fear he\u2019d wake the neighbors. He quickly learned commands such as \u201cSit\u201d and \u201cLie down\u201d and an imperfect form of \u201cHeel\u201d but that was all I taught him. He would need intensive training and daily vigorous exercise, something else I hadn\u2019t signed up for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we diddled and dawdled\u2014what on earth would we do\u2014the Dutch driver Max Verstappen kept winning. I soon learned that Verstappen was known for his bold moves and an uncanny ability to overcome any circumstances\u2014a blown tire, wet track, lower qualifying speed\u2014to emerge as the leader in race after race. Our Max, too, started racking up trophies. He beat the worms and eventually learned to run to the door when he needed to go out. Best of all, he won over Finn, and the two of them spent the days playfighting in the dog lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After another round of shots, Dr. Dugan advised monthly treatments for heartworm. But you can buy them as you need them, he said, knowing better than to push. In the meantime, Max\u2019s tail turned into a luxurious plume that now curled. He began filling out his narrow chest, and those wide paws suddenly made sense. And he kept talking\u2026to us and our friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Woo-woo-whee!<\/em> (Pay attention to me!) Wu-wu-wuth!<\/em> (Nice to meet you Ruth!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also found a way to harness that extra energy. J.P. and I were bricking our house, and I tied Max\u2019s leash to the wheelbarrow and let him help me haul bricks. It wasn’t exactly the Iditarod, but no snow was needed for the \u201cBrick-a-Rod.\u201d Max and I worked so hard through the day that, despite my usual insomnia, we both slept through the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one ever claimed him, and I never followed up with the rescue organization. Someone from our church did suggest that a \u201cfriend of a friend\u201d might be interested in adopting Max, but by then, I didn\u2019t want to turn him over to a stranger. For a time, we hoped J.P.\u2019s nephew might take him, but his son\u2019s allergies ruled that out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t you know God sent you that dog?\u201d my sister-in-law Tiddle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I still wasn\u2019t sure. But then Max Verstappen kept winning race after race. As I wiped up the latest spills around our Max\u2019s water bowl, Verstappen celebrated his latest victory by cracking open a bottle of champagne and spraying his fellow drivers in celebration. Okay<\/em>, I thought. Maybe God was right.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow about turning off the ceiling fan?\u201d J.P. calls from the sofa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy can\u2019t you do it?\u201d I grumble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause there\u2019s a big dog in my lap!\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Ashley Harris \u201cWhat\u2019s his name?\u201d asked the receptionist on Monday over the phone. I\u2019d made an appointment with a veterinarian in the hopes they could find a microchip on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22776,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46],"essay-category":[],"class_list":["post-22775","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","essay_type-features"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/22775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/22775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=22775"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=22775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Woo-woo-whoa!<\/em> (Don\u2019t you go!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n