For as long as I can remember, I have had a fascination with Hairless Chinese Crested dogs. From time to time, I would look on Petfinder to see if any were available for adoption. There were always a ton of them, but never any in the New York area.
After Shivers died, I was looking on Petfinder - not specifically for a dog to adopt because we were down to seven dogs. I was just looking. The Town of Oyster Bay Animal Shelter had a bunch of Chinese Crested dogs listed, but they were of the Powder Puff variety. Nevertheless, I called them the next day to see if they still had any Crested dogs available. They did. Alex and I rode up there under the pretense of just looking. When we got there, it was the usual shelter setting: very depressing, a bit on the smelly side. I wanted to pull a Pee Wee Herman and open all of the cages for the dogs to all come home with me. There were a lot of different dogs; a bunch were Powder Puff Crested. Since they're so close in looks to the Maltese, I said, "Thank you" and "Good luck" to the shelter worker. When Alex and I turned to leave, I spotted him: the most beautiful hairless I had ever seen. I stopped dead in my tracks. "What's wrong with that one," I asked. "He's just really ugly." "Ugly, nothing. Can we meet him." The shelter worker looked at me with both disbelief and relief. "Sure," she said.
His name was "Eore" - like the animal from Winnie the Pooh. He came out of his cage a little shy and timid, but he followed the shelter worker to a room down the hall where Alex and I could get to know him. He stunk. He had on a ratty old sweater that was covering literally hundreds of blackheads. As I held him in my arms, I knew I had to bust him out of this shelter. "We'll take him," I said. She looked at me and said, "You sure?"
The stories posted on this blog are intellectual property of M. Samantha Kinsley. These stories and photographs will appear in her forthcoming book, Dogs Are Better Than People. All rights reserved. 2008.
