Julie Klam - Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself

Table of Contents

ALSO BY JULIE KLAM

For my father
We mock the thing we are to be.
MEL BROOKS, as the 2,000-Year-Old Man

Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind.

HENRY BERGH, founder of the American Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

What Shih Tzus need rescuing anyway?
You dont see Shih Tzus straggling around the streets
in an old coat, Help, alms for the poor.

SCOTT DONLAN, Best in Show

Morris the Pit Bull, Couples Therapist

It was six forty-five a.m., and I was heading back to my apartment with my three dogs, Wisteria, Fiorello, and Beatrice. The street lamps still glowed, but the neighborhood was not awake. The emptiness made it that much easier to spot the nine men in navy jackets, walking around the front of my building, looking up at the windows and talking to each other, with guns hanging out of their pockets. They saw me and smiled uneasily and followed me up the stairs. I noticed that all of these mentall or shortwere huge, built like either safes or refrigerators, but they looked at me a little warily. Im smallish and I was walking three sub-twenty-pound dogs with adorably patterned harnesses and leashes.

Good morning, said the guy who appeared to be the captain.

Do you want to come in? I asked.

Yes. He looked down at my dogs. Do they bite?

No, I replied, and they all relaxed. Over their sweaters, they sported giant bulletproof vests, and their pants were tucked into thick black leather boots. What exactly were they afraid my terriers would do to them? Fray their shoelaces?

As I unlocked the door, the captain remarked, Good thing you came along, the super isnt answering his bell. This is the minor problem with the security in my building. The criminals live here, and the cops cant seem to gain entrance.

Hes probably asleep, I said, opening the lock and holding the door, my three dogs behind me.

Have you lived here awhile?

A little over a year.

Are you social? Do you know a lot of people in the building?

Not a lot, I answered.

He showed me a picture of a young Latino male, which was blurry since it had been taken by a closed-circuit camera. I had no idea who he was, but apparently this was his last known residence.

Sorry, I said, really wishing I could help, like in an old movie: Hey, sure, I know dat guy, Ralphie Beans, from da tent flaw! But alas, I did not. The elevator opened and half the cops got in. The others looked at my dogs and said theyd take the stairs... to the tenth floor. I had to laugh a little. I went into my apartment and double-bolted the doors and woke up my daughter, Violet, for school.

In the summer of 2009, I was living with my husband, daughter, and then four dogs on 106th Street and Broadway. It was a lovely two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in a prewar doorman building with a Duane Reade pharmacy within skipping distance and numerous other conveniences (hardware stores, restaurants, bagel shops) abounding nearby. We were going on five relatively happy years there. The problem was that the rent kept going up despite our incomes refusal to do the same. We decided to look for a cheaper place. Since our daughter was firmly planted in one of the areas better public schools, we needed to move somewhere along the same subway line. First, we did a brief look at places in our area; for less money than we were already paying, we could move to a place that made the moles hole in Thumbelina look like Trump Palace. In one, I stuck my head out the window and if I strained I could see our current apartment. It made me feel like I would be moving from the manor house to the groundskeepers cottage.

Since we didnt have the cash to send her to camp, Violet, who was turning six, and I spent the summer looking at apartments in areas along our subway line. I told myself that it was a kind of Real Estate Camp and that if Violet decided to become a broker when she grew up, I would know Id have myself to thank. On the train, we rehearsed Always be closing.

We found a bunch of places in the lower part of Washington Heights, but every one of them had something good and something wrong (nice space, view of a wall; great view, not cheap enough for just one bathroom). Paul and I felt determined that if we were going to move from the neighborhood we loved, wed want to feel like we were getting something better, not just cheaper. More space, two bathrooms, some sort of improvement. And at last we found it. A gigantic apartment about to be gut-renovated, with two bathrooms and giant windows offering full views of the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge; it was also $1,000 a month cheaper than our current place. As I walked into the apartment and my gaze fell on the windows, I dialed Paul on my cell phone, my hands shaking, to say Id found it. We were shown the apartment by the super, a lovely Ecuadorian man who, I soon learned, kept an enormous floor-to-ceiling birdcage in the basement and anywhere from five to seven stray catsthis was a pet-friendly building! We were really excited as the time to move got closer. The only question, and one we kind of ignored, was what the neighborhood was like. Twenty blocks up was Washington Heights proper, which was very nice and home to lots of friends. But what was this? Five years back we had seen a listing for the neighborhood, and when I told a friend, a Manhattan assistant DA in narcotics, she said shed prosecuted a case involving every street in the area. Things had gotten better, though, because the economy had gotten so much worse, and other Upper West Siders had been forced to move there. Another friend had moved up east of there and was quite happy, and wed heard west was better. Wed be fine. We signed the lease, bought the paints, and waited for our move-in date. On one afternoon when we went up to see how things were going, we walked out of the building to a young thug screaming into his cell phone, Im the one out here with the dope in my hands and you wanna give me sixty/forty? (though he said it much more colorfully). We had already committed, and I decided to just block it out. It bothered Paul much more. But we were both a little nervous.

When we moved in, I went to work looking for things to make me feel better about the place (like buildings that didnt have the gang sign for Broadway Locos spray-painted on them). During our first week there, Paul had to go to Los Angeles and I was home alone with Violet and the dogs. It was early evening and there was a huge commotion in front of the building. I could see a crowd of people if I craned my neck out the window, with a lot of shouting, gunshots, and then sirens. I was panicking and shaking and at the same time assuring Violet that everything was fine. I was about to take the dogs out but decided it would be safer to have them crap on the floor.

The next morning I saw one of the guys who worked in the building. What was that last night? I asked.

When? he said.

Around six oclock? There was a lot of shouting and commotion?

Oh yeah, that was nothing. He waved it away. Some gang retaliation thing, nothing for you to worry about.

My head started calculating the moving costs. I wondered what I could sell to get us out of there: my engagement ring, antique dresser, myself? What do prostitutes make nowadays? Could I just do it with Robert Redford for a million dollars?