The day Shenzi came to our home,
I naively anticipated an easy weekend.
My daughters had given up their Saturday morning ballroom dancing class,
and Audrey was getting really consistent about driving her sister Lauren to
their voice lessons at Diana's, so with an occasional drive to take Lauren to
her lacrosse games or sleepovers, my Saturdays didn’t feel like a nonstop blur
of activivities anymore. I was beginning
to believe the weekend is actually for recharging and relaxation.
But that easy feeling came to an
abrupt end when Shenzi suddenly showed up.
Actually, he didn’t just appear at my door, my daughters brought him
home! In complete defiance of my no-pet
policy. I simply couldn’t believe it
when I looked up the stairs and saw Audrey sitting there with a puppy on her
lap and a sly smile on her face.
“Whose dog is it?” I seethed.
Lauren and Audrey both broke down laughing despite feeling the gravity
of my threatening glare. “Ours,” they
snickered. “No, really, whose dog is it? You’d better return him to his rightful owner
before I take him to the pound myself.”
As it turned out, the girls had picked
up the pup running the streets outside the neighborhood of their voice teacher near the court house in Santa Ana.
They promised they’d put up flyers and reunite the dog with his owner in
less than a week. Fat chance, I thought. I took initiative myself and went online to
look up no-kill shelters in our area.
There’s one in Long Beach and another nearer to our home, but no one
answered the line. Lauren begged to keep
Shenzi (she’d already named him after the hyena in The Lion King) until
Monday. I’ve heard of wild animals with
pet names, but never a pet named after a wild animal, so in my opinion this
didn’t bode well, but I decided to bite my tongue. Actually, I was too exasperated to even
speak.
Having raised four kids mostly by
myself up to the point where each of them can actually fry an egg to feed
themselves in the morning before school (but only 1 of them can drive herself
to her errands), I was starting to feel a tiny bit less homebound and
duty-bound after years of what I sometimes uncharitably thought of as nonstop drudgery. I really couldn’t fathom taking in any pet,
person, or thing that wouldn’t become self-sufficient eventually. And even if Shenzi were super smart and could
be taught to fry an egg and feed himself, well, my dismal record with pets doesn’t
bode well for him, either. Our childhood
pet got run over by my dad while still a puppy.
Snowy, the homeless cat I adopted from my 3-year stint in Los Angeles,
got run over by one of my neighbors while we were on vacation in Las Vegas and
she was in the care of another neighbor down the street (Snowy had escaped and
was finding her way home when she got hit).
For years I couldn’t get over my guilt for not taking good enough care
of Fifi, our Shih Tzu, because back then we
didn’t have the money to get him surgery when he needed it and treatment for
his dental abscess. I saw myself as a
terrible pet owner beyond redemption. Also
a tired, uninspired mom who chased errands all day long. Shenzi had no place in my life, period! He needed to go.
But we had to feed him in the meantime.
He looked emaciated. Off to PetSmart
we went. Lauren picked up a bag of
AvoDerm small-breed dog food. Awfully
expensive stuff. I eyed her additional purchases
with suspicion. It’s March. Why does the dog need a sweater, even if on
sale? Why were we buying him clothes if he
was to be returned to his owner/given up to the pound? Lauren convincingly explained it’s unseasonably chilly at
night and Shenzi would need to be walked, if he wasn’t housebroken yet. That realization led to the subsequent purchase
of a collar, a retractable leash, and a pack of doggie training pads. I felt my head spinning by the time we
arrived at the cash register.
