A couple of weeks ago I was walking my dog, Natati, and exited my building past an apartment that has people cooking and hanging out frequently. They know Natati and me, and I waved hi. As I led him to the yard area where he plays, a woman jumped across the divider of the apartment, scooped him up and started kissing him.
Now, this is strange. Not just because a woman would be so affectionate with a dog that wasn’t hers but because I’ve found that 90% of Jordanians are terrified of dogs. I’m almost convinced that as they are learning the alphabet and numbers, kids also warned that every dog in the world wants to eat them for a snack and to never go near them. Ever. Natati is a little Miniature Pincher (Min-Pin) that weighs maybe 8lbs. When I walk him, people cross the street or jump along the wall like I’m walking a crocodile instead of the friendliest and happiest dog in the Hashemite Kingdom. No one has ever been unkind to him, they’re just simply afraid. So you can imagine my surprise when this woman grabbed a hold of him and couldn’t stop kissing him.
The remaining 10% of Jordanians who aren’t afraid of dogs usually start peppering me with questions about him. They assume because I’m American and have a dog, I brought him from America. They’re always surprised when I tell him I adopted him in Jordan at the Humane Society Shelter, and ask all kinds of questions about where I found a vet, what he eats, if it’s hard to have a dog here… the list goes on, and my answers are always positive. So when she asked me where I got him, I assumed the same list was coming. However, when I started giving my stock answers starting with adopting him here, she started tearing up.
“This is my dog!” she said, almost crying and laughing at the same time.
“Oh my God!” I said. “You’re the family that moved to Lebanon!”
When I adopted Natati last year, I was told that a Jordanian family had left him there because they had to go to Lebanon for some reason – family emergency, a job, something. He is a pure bred dog, and you can tell he was well taken care of, so I was always surprised he was left behind. Months after I adopted him I took him back to see the vet, and the receptionist told me the family had come back and was asking about him. They wanted my contact information to check on Natati, but the shelter wouldn’t give it out. I told the shelter they were more than happy to contact me, but never heard from them and simply forgot about it.
But I remembered this as Natati (“my jumper” in Arabic, which I named him) was licking up this woman’s face and wiggling and squealing with her. And I knew it was the family that left him behind.
A week later I invited the whole family of five – a mother and father, the 20-something girl I met, and her tween brother and sister – over for coffee to see Natati who they called “Chowie.” When they entered, Natati went, well, apeshit. He’s always had a thing for little kids. That sounds weird, I know, but he gets overly excited when he sees the neighborhood kids in a way that I’ve never understood. When the younger two walked in and started playing with him, I finally did. I think he saw every kid as them. They stayed for about 20-30 minutes, and he jumped back and forth on each of their laps, completely forgetting about me – even though I’m the one that’s been feeding him for a year and a half! I learned that the father made the heart-wrenching decision to take Natati/Chowie to the shelter when he didn’t know who else could take him. When the kids learned he had given Natati/Chowie away, they refused to eat or speak to him for a week. They have been back in Jordan for a year now, and the girl I met said she’s been looking for him since then. As you can imagine, she just wanted to be sure he was happy and in a good home, and of course, loved.
I never really owned a dog before, and never thought I would. My parents had dogs when I was a kid, but they never were really mine. And I owned two cats in the States before I moved, but now that I’ve been a dog owner I understand what they all say: cats don’t count. They’re really not the same as owning a dog. When I moved to Jordan, I thought I was going to stay for a while and be more stationary than I had been in the past two years, so I decided it was time to own a dog. Then I found this crazy, bouncing little guy at the shelter that had so much personality and decided on him.
It was a rough beginning though. The shelter told me he was at least three years old, but the family informed me he was much younger, maybe a year or 18 months. He was still a puppy, and had picked up some really bad habits at the shelter. It took forever to house break him again, and I was not used to having something so needy yet that I couldn’t control. I couldn’t teach that dog not to pee on the couch, or poop in the house, or leave me alone when I wanted my space, or sit, or a host of other things. I yelled a lot and almost gave up, even almost giving him back once.
Then something happened. I finally figured out that I couldn’t teach that dog how to be a dog; instead, he was teaching me how to be a dog owner. I learned that I can’t get mad at an 8lb dog for not being able to hold it all day. I learned how to read him – when he’d start circling the living room or knocking his leash it was time to go – and it was his schedule, not mine. I learned when he wanted attention to just give it to him for a bit, toss his toy, or let him sit on my lap when I was working at my computer, which would last for hours sometimes. And I learned a ton of patience – something I’ve never really needed to have, being a non-breeder.
My Little Bug
And through all that, at the risk of sounding like a total sap, I learned how to truly love that little creature. I learned to appreciate his innocence when he was hunting a butterfly in the front yard or ready to scrap with the delivery guy at my front door. I mean, what was he going to do – bite his toe? I discovered maternal instincts I never thought I had when I’d have to quickly grab him to save his ass from being shredded by a stray cat twice his size. But more than anything, I learned how to appreciate unconditional love from this little, silly puppy who would curl up with me under the blankets when I was hung over or when neither of us were ready to get up in the morning.
I had been trying to find someone to take him for me in the States while I travel next year and until I know where my next post is. But it didn’t work out, and I was looking for plan B. When I saw how much this family still loved him too, I realized what I had to do. I cried the night I met her, really cried over a dog, a pet, an animal – something I’ve never done. I got misty-eyed when I left my cats and when my parents’ pets died, but it was more of a goodbye to a piece of my childhood than missing them. When I said goodbye to my little bug, I was truly heartbroken.
It was serendipity meeting this woman. If I had taken him out for a walk earlier or later, I never would have seen her. There are a hundred apartments in my building; if she were in any other, she wouldn’t have seen me. What if she hadn’t even come over to that house? The fact that the two of us were in that same spot at the same time is more than a coincidence. And we – me and the family – all know it.
Natati 2011
I think of all the nights and weekends I spent alone in my apartment and how much worse they would have been without Natati. I think of all the little looks he’d give me, and how I could say “Where’s your toy?” and he’d know exactly what I was saying and go hunting for it. He knew when someone was at my door before they even knocked, and knew who to be suspicious of immediately. I know owning a dog can only microscopically compare to the responsibility and love it takes to having a child. But I have grown exponentially from the year and a half we spent together, and he will always, always be missed.
He went back with his family tonight. And the last thing I got to say to him was, I love you Bugaboo.
If Not Kids Then What? 