GuiStory

I was on my 3^rd glass of wine when my friend’s cell phone rang in the middle of a birthday dinner at a very loud Tapas bar. Friends of hers were out walking near her apartment building and had come across a stray, “crazy” dog and they wanted to know what they should do about it. She told them she was at dinner with 7 other people and really couldn’t help. Five minutes  later they called back and said they were serious. They couldn’t just let this dog go. He was frantic and freaked and they didn’t know what to do. She told them, while rolling her eyes, to bring the dog to the local fire house and ask them to take it. The third phone call came a few minutes later and I finally piped up and said: Let’s just go see this dog, already.

Eight of us pile into three cabs and head from Tribeca to Ground Zero. It was the weekend of the 5^th Anniversary of 9/11 and the area was humming with curiosity seekers and tourists. The floodlights were on full bore.  We pile out of the cabs, a little drunkenly, and two men approach us, one holding a squirming, skinny, black and white poodle-ish something-or-other in his arms. They tell us, quite dramatically, what a nightmare it’s been with this nut for the last two hours when suddenly, the dog breaks free of the man’s grasp and leaps headlong into my arms.  Everyone looks at me and I shake my head: I have a dog, she’s getting old and she doesn’t want company. I’m then reminded that my dog is away for the weekend in the country with my parents and everyone else in this motley crew has dogs at home that evening none of whom would be very interested in a sleep-over with this mutt. Somehow, and to my great dismay, I end up taking this dog back to my apartment, swearing up and down that I am going to find his owners (if in fact he has any and isn’t an abandoned dog) and will only foster him until he can find a good home.

He sleeps under my bed that night. Calmly and silently. When I get up the next morning and beckon him out, he calmly appears, wagging his tail and willingly lets me put my dog’s spare leash on him for a morning walk.  He does just fine and acts like this is something he knows how to do. We come back home and I make him breakfast and he devours it. When he’s finished, he stares at me. And I stare back.

Over the next two weeks, after posting fliers  with his picture all around the neighborhood where he was “lost”, it becomes clear to me he was never lost at all and the knotted semi-ripped leash that came attached to his collar (tag-less, of course), was probably a result of his escape after being tied to some chain link fence or telephone pole by the soul-less people who didn’t have the patience for him anymore. I got a lot of calls, all from kinder souls who thought he was the cutest thing ever and wanted to know if they could adopt him. I kept coming up with excuses about how I had to wait to see if his owner came forward. But what I really wanted was for that day to never come.  It never did. And it’s a good thing, because on his second night with me, when he got on the bed and snuggled in to the curve of my legs and slept peacefully there all night, I knew Gui wasn’t going anywhere but home with me for good.

Phoebe, my Corgi of, at the time, 10 years, eventually grew to a begrudging acceptance of this little French interloper. In fact, Phoebe is approaching her 15^th birthday, a milestone almost never heard of in her breed and until the last day she is with me, I will believe she got a new lease on life when her little brother trotted into the house, circled her, tail wagging and rolled over on his back with a look of joy I try to think of whenever I feel the least bit sad about anything on earth. Gui was a rescue. It worked both ways.