A serendipitous search

Posted 8/21/12

After the death of our dog Aengus this summer, I spent my time searching online for dogs. Abashed by the fact that we had done the most politically incorrect thing by purchasing Aengus at a pet store …

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A serendipitous search

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After the death of our dog Aengus this summer, I spent my time searching online for dogs. Abashed by the fact that we had done the most politically incorrect thing by purchasing Aengus at a pet store 11 years ago, I resolved to reclaim our principles by rescuing. The search engines allowed me to filter for hypoallergenic breeds, which is what I need.

When my husband was young, his family was adopted by a local cocker spaniel named Daffy. He had belonged to a local couple, but Daffy preferred the three active Stratton boys.

We had poodles when I was young. They were litter-mates who were parti-colored and useless for breeding. I guess they came cheap. They were fun dogs, smart and active with distinct personalities. Later we had a Spanish water dog, so I was told, but she was a cast-off. She liked to swim alongside my mother. I loved her with all my heart. When she ran off one Fourth of July, I learned what heartache is and didn’t sleep until she was found on a rural road the following afternoon.

In my 20s I had two rescue dogs: Maude found me on Boston’s busy Beacon Street, and Seamus, my canine soul-mate and a relentlessly happy mutt, turned the corner on 6th Avenue and 8th Street in Greenwich Village just in time for me to keep him from running into traffic. Back then, acquiring a rescue dog was an act of serendipity, not politics.

This time I looked online for dogs. I filled out forms that asked the layout of our house, our family structure and resources, and for references from two friends and a veterinarian. I learned it was best not to admit to having an un-fenced yard. And I’m pretty sure rescue orgs would rather place a dog with a young family than with an “elderly” couple, the demographic we most resemble on paper.

Finally, I found what seemed like the perfect fit for us. Oscar and Felix were brothers, five-year-old mini schnauzers like Aengus, but black and silver, not gray like him. I wasn’t ready to have Aengus’s doppelgänger so soon after his demise. We sent the application in and were delighted to hear only days later that our references had been checked. Then we waited. After three weeks my two follow-up emails were still unanswered. My husband was still tearing up at the memory of Aengus. Our house was uncommonly quiet.

I began to search for breeders who had active litters. One in North Carolina answered my email with a referral to a show-dog breeder in West Virginia who had just had a litter of pups in June. I was wary of backyard breeders and the “puppy mills” you hear about, but this man was listed as a Breeder of Merit by the AKC, so I followed his recommendation. The West Virginia breeder was the first person to speak to me by phone in all the time I had been searching. He didn’t need an application, he said. He had just lost his 11-year-old Schnauzer too. It had been a rescue. We talked for almost an hour and he sent me photos of his two males. They were black and silver and still unspoken-for.

We made a road trip of it, traveling to my husband’s birthplace of Charleston, WV, through the still green and lush Appalachian mountains. When we arrived, two little black and white faces greeted us. It seemed like serendipity, however incorrect politically.

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