The Best Alice She Can Be

If her history is any indication, our dog has a few more surprises to reveal.

The label rescue dog is overused these days, but from what my spouse, Julie, and I understand, Alice came to us as a genuine survived-on-the-streets shelter dog, liberated from a facility in Georgia and landing with an organization in Maryland specializing in finding homes for black dogs.

This was a few years back. We were sort of looking for a permanent dog and sort of not. Our chocolate Labrador retriever, Layla, had passed away several months prior, of cancer at a heartbreakingly and unfairly young age. We had fostered a couple of dogs briefly, and actually had an eye out for a mastiff-type dog when we spotted Alice’s profile among some other available dogs. That’s how Bliss, as she was then known, ended up in our living room, making a nice first impression as she darted across the room to sit briefly before me, then Julie, then her foster mom—checking in with each of us.

Family legend has it that I was the one who was more enthusiastic about adding this black Lab mix to our small pack. That may in fact be true, but what I most vividly remember about those early days is that within a couple of weeks, our new dog, now named Alice (after the anti-heroine in the British TV series Luther), was not the happy and perky pup of our first meet-and-greet.

At the same time, she wasn’t a fearful, cowering dog, characteristics emblematic of post-shelter rescue canines, either. She wasn’t afraid of people or other dogs. Thunderstorms made her uncomfortable and in search of a safe place, but she didn’t hide under a bed or anything like that.

But she hated, and I mean hated (and still does to an extent) certain noises and spaces.

Just outside our townhouse back then was a big trash receptacle that was emptied by huge trucks. Alice hated those noises with a passion. The metal lids on the baskets for dog waste disposal? Alice despised those. Loud air conditioners? The heater blowing from our bedroom ceiling? Kitchen noises? The townhouse in general?

She despised her surroundings so much that she didn’t want to go outside or for a walk, and generally didn’t want to do anything except perch on our bed upstairs—her safe space.

We had to carry and drag her outside to pee, making us look like pup abusers.

It was like having a giant cat you have to take outside twice a day against her will. Not a lot of fun.

She had a few physical health issues as well. She’d get dandruff, apparently from nervousness. On walks and when taken outside, Alice would seek out, er, let’s just say non-food items on the ground and do her best to eat them. In a related matter, she’d occasionally vomit. Unlike most dogs who throw up and go on with their day, she’d go on for hours, throwing up again and again, trying to lick the floor or any surface with dust or hair or anything else on it, in order to, we figured, keep throwing up, since that is what you should do when you don’t feel well.

This could go on for 24 hours or longer. We’d stay up whole nights, pleading with Alice to stop, carpet cleaner in one hand, and paper towels and plastic bags in the other, wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into.

If this was a movie, now would come a musical montage or series of scenes in which Julie and I would train, cajole, or otherwise somehow convince Alice that we weren’t out to make her miserable, that we could be trusted, and that we had her best interests at heart. Alice would come out of her shell and we would all live happily ever after and stroll into the sunset.

Real life proved much less cinematic. We just moved to a new place that Alice hated less.

But before that, we got another dog. Nell was technically from a rescue, but she had been born into it after her parents (a yellow Lab and a black Lab) were saved by the organization and it was discovered that a litter was on the way.

We brought Nell home as a tiny puppy, and if you thought Alice hated trash bins and kitchen noises, you should have seen her reaction to this. Alice, it turns out, had raised puppies for a time herself—she was brought into the shelter in Georgia with four puppies in tow. I’m not sure if she thought we expected her to raise Nell, but Alice wanted no part of a tiny yellow Lab pup nipping at her heels and chasing her around our end tables.

To back up a moment: It’s not that Alice was never happy. There were instances where we got a glimpse into how things might be better. We took her to a dog park early on, and she bounded up on obstacles and ran back to us, “checking in” as we dubbed it, before racing back around the fenced-in area. She seemed to get along with other dogs fine. We took her to doggy day camp and she worked one-on-one with a trainer, and did very well from what we were told.

Despite those glimpses, mostly she struggled. Julie and I struggled as well. We shivered in our bedroom in the heart of winter, because Alice hated the sound that came from our heater blowing in that room. We only turned it on when it became unbearable.

Alice continued to dislike Nell, who, unsurprisingly, seemed to worship the ground beneath Alice’s paws. We took them walking in the park, and I vividly recall Nell’s little legs churning as she tried to keep up, Alice striding ahead and ignoring her.

We’d crate Nell at night, and we noticed something: Before bed Alice would stand on the bed, looming over Nell in her crate, staring Nell down. Julie and I talked about this odd-for-Alice behavior and wondered what it meant. Much later, we’d think back at the first sign of yet another unusual thing about our Alice, who was scared of a clattering piece of silverware and the gentle sound of air hissing from a vent:

Alice, it turned out, was the alpha dog.

For a number of reasons, one of which was how much Alice hated the place, we moved from our townhouse to a bigger rental house with a fenced-in yard. Nell had been with us for a couple of months, Alice for a few months longer than that.

I’m sure her transformation into New Alice wasn’t instantaneous, but it felt that way.

She loved having a fenced-in backyard with trees and bushes along the fence-line. She’d sprint out when we opened the sliding door, on the lookout for rabbits and squirrels (she caught one a few days after we moved in; cleanup was not pretty).

Surely it helped that Nell was growing up, but Alice seemed to tolerate her little sis much more easily in the new house. Soon, she looked forward to walks. Instead of balking or turning back at the sound of a garbage or recycling truck, she’d pause and wait for the vehicle to pass or the sound to dissipate and then resume in the proper direction.

Her G.I. problems continued, but eventually we diagnosed food allergies and put her on a regimen of medication and hypoallergenic dog food that has seemed to do the trick.

In the middle of all of this, Alice’s personality started to emerge more and more.

For months after she came to live with us, we’d never heard Alice bark, not once. Now, she barked: in the car; at squirrels that eluded her; at me when I got her walking harness out; at me again when she thought I was overdue with dinner.

We took her to a pool party organized by the rescue organization we volunteered for. She mingled with a couple dozen other dogs and people. She didn’t swim but was interested enough in the pool to get close to the edge and fall in, paddling her way out and seeming none the worse for wear.

She went on road trips and chewed bones and put up with the sound from the vacuum cleaner and trips to the vet and other stuff she doesn’t like (including oddities like open windows and ceiling fans), no longer paralyzed with fear.

She seemed to lean on Nell in intriguing ways as their relationship developed. When they’re together, Alice walks ahead. Alice grooms Nell, licking her face and ears (maternal but kind of gross); Nell will request this, lowering her head in front of Alice.

They’ll play fight in the living room. Alice still gets spooked by some sounds and situations, and Nell will take those opportunities to occasionally halfheartedly attack, half-jumping on Alice, paws extended.

When we let them out, Alice goes out first. When we walk them separately, Alice acts up if she doesn’t go first.

You wouldn’t guess it by looking at them, because 80-pound Nell outweighs her big sis by at least 20, but Alice is the true alpha of the pair.

This isn’t always evident even to other dogs. On a tandem walk, we encountered a neighbor canine, a big, loud boxer who would always bark at Nell (Alice is never bothered by other dogs even when they bark at us; Nell, on the other hand, tends to bark at other dogs and sometimes people when leashed).

We were on the edge of the boxer’s yard, on the sidewalk, when he burst out of his door and ran at us (the owner was apparently getting ready to walk him and not expecting this reaction).

The boxer ran right at Alice. And promptly backed right off. Alice didn’t do anything except stand there, unbothered. The boxer stayed a few feet away, barking, until corralled by his owner.

This boxer undoubtedly sensed what Nell must as well: It’s uncertain what Alice had to do to survive on her own and protect her four puppies that were with her when she arrived at that shelter in Georgia, but she definitely knows how to handle herself—and she isn’t about to show any fear when a dog is charging at her.

At the same time, Alice seems to benefit from Nell’s confidence and happy demeanor. Nell loves and trusts her humans without question, in typical Lab fashion. Our theory is that Alice sees this and figures maybe Nell’s on to something.

Alice is smart and shrewd and selfish in that way that dogs tend to be. Alice will nudge me and stand on me in the early morning, trying to get me up so that she can take my warm spot in bed. She will bark at nothing on the opposite side of the yard, drawing Nell’s attention so she can greet our dog-loving neighbor at the fence. She’ll bother us at the end of dinner time, sniffing at the table and drawing our attention, not in hopes of table scraps—she wants to hurry us clearing the table so I’ll give her the pre-bedtime walk she’s become accustomed to.

You remember certain things said by your partner or spouse or close friend or family member, because those snatches of conversation stick with you, striking you as profound or funny or silly or insightful and lingering in the memory among millions of words long since faded.

Julie remembers something I said about Alice and brings it up from time to time. We were frustrated at Alice’s unhappiness or skittishness in the early going, and I said something like: I don’t need her to be the perfect dog or happy all the time or anything like that.

I just want her to be the best Alice she can be.

That idea has served us well. We’ve made mistakes with Alice. We dragged her to a pet store early on (automatic doors and slick floors and weird sounds galore; she hated it and we haven’t tried that again), took her on a road trip with a hotel stay (not a good fit), and undoubtedly committed other missteps with her. She’s probably never going to like certain things. We don’t shelter her completely; we just do our best not to put her in uncomfortable situations if we can help it. We try to minimize weird sounds and actions that make her uncomfortable. It seems to work for her and for us.

Thus, we were a bit nervous about the 5K.

Our veterinary office organizes an annual 5K race as a fundraiser. Dogs are encouraged as spectators and actual participants. I’ve taken Alice on walk-slash-runs before, and she seems to love it and get the idea. She’s definitely faster than me but will fall into stride on my right, pausing occasionally to sniff something or pee on a post or hydrant (she also routinely pees in the same spot Nell just did; again, showing her who’s in charge).

We’d never done anything like an organized race together, but she had come so far and made so much progress that we were hopeful it would go well. Julie and Nell attended as spectators (and in case Alice really hated it, Julie could take her and I could finish the race, we were thinking).

The slight anxiety Alice showed before the 120 or so participants started the race melted away once we got going and she figured out what the race was all about.

She surged ahead of me, urging me to pass the other runners (maybe a quarter of whom also had dogs in tow). A couple of times runners passed us toward the end, and she seemed incredulous, bouncing from one side to the other and trying to break into a sprint (which I was a little too out of shape to manage). I stopped to walk and adjust her harness a couple of times, and as I told Julie later, Alice kept nudging me and straining to start running, seeming to say to me:

I came here to run. I’m not sure what you came here to do. Let’s go!

We finished in a respectable enough time of around 35 minutes, which included a break when nature called for Alice (and a slight detour to find a receptacle to dispose of the results).

Alice was absolutely beaming for hours after the race. I’m going to have to get in better shape for the next one: now that she knows all about how these things work, she’s not going to settle for slowing down or getting passed.

It can feel a bit silly spending all of this time and money and worry and energy on a pet, a non-human creature. And I guess maybe it is.

If a non-dog person asked me what I could possibly recommend about owning one, I would say:

• When caring for my dog, whether it’s a walk or a belly rub or tending to a sick pup, I am so much more present and in the moment than I typically am otherwise.
• Caring for something other than myself, something that can’t take care of itself otherwise in important and fundamental ways, has taught me to be more empathetic toward all living animals and humans.

In this context, I’m not sure what endeavor possibly makes more sense.

Of course, as with all of us, Alice remains a work in progress. We’re moving to a new house soon, so Julie and I wonder how Alice will respond to that change. Alice is happier and healthier than ever, but she’s had tummy-related setbacks before.

I, for one, would not bet against Alice continuing to change and grow. New Alice may yet turn into New New Alice. She’s got less time for worry than she used to. There are fenced yards to explore, squirrels to chase, meals and walks to demand, and now, races to run.