A Dog Named Jack

What do you do when a 50 lb. bulldog is viscously attacking your precious Dyson stick vacuum cleaner while you’re still holding onto it?

This scenario was not explained in any of the requisite “how to foster a dog” videos I’d watched from multiple animal shelters to qualify to become a foster.

I reached out to every shelter I could find in March when COVID happened and applied to foster a dog. (I recently, at a low point, even applied to foster A CAT.)  I’d been trying to adopt a young adult black and white female French bulldog since January but didn’t understand the intense competition around adopting dogs in LA.  And I really want to adopt, not shop.

A few weeks ago, I finally got a call and was asked to foster a dog. I knew it was both male and over my 30 lb. limit, but I had decided before I even picked up the phone that I was tired of waiting and I was going to take whatever the rescue offered me. I was willing to surrender and stop trying to design every detail of my life.

So, that’s how I found myself in a fight to the death between a bulldog named Jack and my vacuum cleaner.

Our family had dogs when I was a child (respectable and mostly docile English Springer Spaniels) and although I’ve wanted a dog my entire adult life, I never felt like I was home enough to give a dog the love it needs to thrive. Now that I work for myself, I’m home a lot and decided late last year that it was time.

I managed to get a door between the dog and my vacuum cleaner and immediately sent a text to the shelter saying- “I don’t think this is the right fit. He attacked my vacuum cleaner and inadvertently bit me in the struggle. Can you find another foster for him?”

The shelter texted back that- “Oh yeah, my dogs don’t like vacuum cleaners either. Can you give us a week?”

I looked at Jack, still hyped up on adrenaline and wondered how he and I we were going to make it a week.

A little internet research revealed that a lot of dogs don’t love vacuum cleaners.

I also found out that this dog didn’t like hair dryers (he tried to break down the bathroom door the moment I turned my hair dryer on.) On the days I had to be on camera I figured out that if I gave him a bone and attached his leash to my Pilates reformer that I could get enough time to dry my hair before he realized what was going on.

I learned a lot about dogs over the course of the next seven days.

First- With bulldogs, liquids tend to ooze from every orifice. In addition to the drooling and the weepy eyes, I found that if I didn’t want to find tiny drops of excrement on my floors, I had to check under his tail after every walk.

Second- dogs love to roll around on their backs on yellow and white rugs they aren’t supposed to be on. It seems to make them ecstatically happy.

Third- Male dogs take eons to get all their urine out, and when they lift their legs on telephone poles or trees there is often backsplash.

Fourth- 50-pound dogs can absolutely consider themselves to be lap dogs. And- separation anxiety is REAL.

Fifth- Bulldogs are stinky. In ways I couldn’t have imagined.

But there were plenty of benefits to having Jack around as well. It was nice to have a running buddy in the morning. I learned to love the sound of him breathing at my feet while I was working. I got stopped every single time I took him out and actually talked to some of my neighbors. And, of course, he thought I was awesome.

On the third day I took him to the pet store to buy treats and toys, and on the fourth day I let him up on the couch with me in the evening.

The shelter did find another foster exactly one week later and as much as I was looking forward to deep cleaning every inch of my house (starting with vacuuming), I was surprised to find that I was also devastated. The day he left I cried and cried. How could I have bonded so deeply with this animal in only a week?

I thought about calling and getting him back for days after he left, but I knew if wouldn’t be fair to him to move him again if I wasn’t 100% sure he was the right dog for me.

Even though I wasn’t his forever home I’m grateful for the love he brought into my life and I hope he finds a family who will adore him.

And- I’m still hopeful that a reasonably-sized female French bulldog will magically appear in my life.