Bittersweet

Well, it happened, the thing which I so deeply hoped for and feared at the same time has happened. My Tasha has been adopted and taken away from here and from me. I keep reminding myself that this just about the best possible solution I could have hoped for and this will allow me to work with more dogs and hopefully get them adopted, too. But over the last several weeks, I have spent so much time with her, taking her home with me at night and over my most recent weekend, getting her out at work and letting her hang out in the kitchen. I feel like I have lost a part of myself and I keep looking around trying to find it only to realize that what I am searching for is gone. I look around as I walk to my car, checking to see where Tasha is, only to realize that she isn’t coming home with me anymore.
Jenny, Tasha’s new mom, arrived on Saturday morning and was smitten from the moment she met Tasha. We chatted for a while and then introduced Tash and Hank, Jenny’s nine year old border collie. They did well together and then over lunch Jenny took Tasha for an outing into town to meet her mom and spend some time together away from the sanctuary. I came wandering into the clinic lobby at about 2 pm to Tasha’s happy face and the sound of Kristi, the adoptions coordinator, telling the caregivers at the Garden that there was no need to bring Bramble over to meet Jenny because she had decided to take Tasha (side note: Jenny originally applied for Tasha and then did some more looking and also said she was interested in Bramble if things didn’t work out with Tash). As just one final bit of insurance to make sure this was all a good fit, they took Tasha on a sleepover on Saturday night and I came home to an empty house and cried at the sight of her beds and tennis ball and the tufts of white fur everywhere. Before I left work on Saturday, I went to her run and collected up a few of her favorite toys and cleaned them up to give to Jenny in the morning and got together a few new toys and other necessities to send on the road with my girl.
When I arrived in the morning on Sunday, Jenny, her mother, and Tasha were all waiting in the clinic. The papers had already been signed, the adoption announced on the radio and most everyone had come to say goodbye and wish them all well. As soon as I walked in, Tasha made a b-line for me and gave me this look that seemed to say, “Why didn’t you take me home last night? I am so glad you are here now!” and began following me around as I went back to the staff room to clock in and then chatted with a few people in the lobby. One of the volunteer coordinators looked at me and said, “She has been looking for you all morning.” While I understood the meaning behind the message, it wasn’t exactly a helpful thing to hear as I was preparing to say goodbye to this dog whom I love so much. After a chat with Jenny and her mother about the sleepover, I asked if I could take Tasha for one last cart ride while I went up to the kitchen and collected up the toys and other things I had gotten together the night before. It was a beautiful morning and I knew the golf cart would feel painfully empty for the rest of the day. When we got back to the clinic, we talked for a few more minutes and then I went out to the car with them to say one final goodbye. I kissed Tasha’s soft white head and closed the car door. I hugged Jenny and we both cried, she promised to send pictures and keep in touch and said that I was welcome to come and visit her if I was ever in the Seattle area. She rolled down the back window so I could see Tasha as they pulled out of the parking lot and I cried more as I watched them go. I couldn’t bear to go back in through the clinic and see all the sympathetic faces and be hugged by all the wonderful people inside because I knew it would only make me cry harder, so I went around the far end of the clinic to get to my golf cart. I crossed paths with one other caregiver, a man I don’t know very well, on my way to my cart and did my best to keep my head down and not make eye contact - he didn’t say anything and I was grateful. As I was driving back up to the kitchen to get started with my work, I passed by Roger, a caregiver that has been around Dogtown for nine years and knew Tasha very well - he was the one that tipped me off to her love of golf cart rides, in the summers he would take her on his cart and drive her all over Dogtown so she could feel the wind on her face. He flagged me down and reached across the passenger seat and gave me a hug, “It’s all so bittersweet,” he said. And he couldn’t be more right.
Over the last couple of days, people have been coming to me and telling me what wonderful work I did with Tasha and that I am the one that made all this happen. It is nice to hear such things and I usually just thank them because I usually start crying and can’t get much more than “Thank you” out, but I feel it must be said that I just pushed her over the last little hump. There was a caregiver named Nova who worked at BF for three and a half years and she spent much of her time here taking Tasha out and about. When she worked down at horses, she would come up daily and take Tasha with her to be an out dog down at Horse Haven. She would take Tasha all over the place with her and had her as an out dog when she worked at the Lodges. She got Tasha ninety percent of the way, and maybe after she left BF several years ago, Tasha backslid a bit, but I just helped remind her of what a good dog she can be, things she learned from her time with Nova, and then just pushed her that last ten percent. So, to Nova - who cried when she found out that, after seven and a half years at BF, Tasha had finally found her forever home - I can’t thank you enough for all the work you did with Tasha before I came along.
Tasha is about ten years old, she came to BF in 2001 from a shelter in Bozeman, MT, where she had been living for two years, so at best, Tasha may have known a home for her first six months, but it is doubtful. She has spent ten years without a family to call her own and, while I felt like I was her family, and I think she felt the same way about me, I also knew that my lifestyle isn’t necessarily ready for the commitment of a dog. So it was truly a bittersweet day, watching her drive away with a real family of her own, and while she may not understand it all right now, she will and I can only hope that she will find the bond with Jenny that she had with me. I feel confident that with time and trust, she will see Jenny in the same light as she saw me and will eagerly follow her from room to room and just want to be close to her person and have her belly rubbed. I will miss her deeply, but I will always remember her happy face and loving eyes.


(Photo copyright Molly Wald, Best Friends Animal Society.)