Los Angeles Times - 16.11.2019

But was it really wise to see this guy through the eyes of an unadoptable Aussie?

I

’d been dumped by a man who was
feeling ambivalent. We’d jumped into
it all too fast. I adopted a coolly ele-
gant tone and told him, “I set you
free,” then hung up the phone and
ugly cried for four weeks. Somewhere
around week five, I got a fantastic
breakup haircut, pretended I was fine,
signed up for internet dating and assumed
I’d never see him again.
At week six, like a guy sniffing around a
beach with a metal detector, the man called.
He wondered if he’d made a mistake. Also,
the way I’d handled the breakup had im-
pressed him.
I gave him an ambivalent “maybe.” I’d
already convinced my friends I was the
suffering heroine in a love tragedy, and that’s
not an easy PR campaign to reel back in.
Also, I was nervous. Fool me once, shame on
you. Fool me twice, I can’t afford a second
breakup haircut right now. Then again, I’d
been scanning dating websites for a week
and finding only what a friend calls “the
leftovers.” And I really did like this man.
Over dinner, he showed me a dog he had
found online. A red tricolor Australian shep-
herd at a rescue. I won’t lie: The dog had
seriously photogenic profile photos. He
asked me to come along for the first meeting.
So there I was, conflicted about this
newly defibrillated relationship, riding in the
passenger seat to the Inland Empire. We
pulled up to a house, and a dog with red curls
the same color as mine raced back and forth
at the fence, barking furiously.
Karyl, who ran the rescue, had named
him Chance. “You know, like the ABBA
song?” He’d been trapped as a stray and had
been at the rescue for about a year. (He’d
been been given back by one home and had
escaped from another.) His file warned,
“Chance can and will jump a five-foot fence.”
He was a dog with a rap sheet.
I sat on the ground, Chance immediately
climbed into my lap (he was a 55-pound dog)
and I thought, “Oh no.” It was the eyes that
did it. He had human eyes. He was like a
person trapped in a dog’s body. He’d look at
you with a keen expression that said, “I wish
I had the power of speech because, girl, we
need to talk.” When we left with him, Karyl
implored us, “If it doesn’t work out, please
just bring him back.”
We never brought him back. And I fell in
love with the man because of the dog. It was
his kindness toward an “unadoptable” ani-
mal who had been written off by most peo-

ple. That first night, the man slept on the

hardwood floor with Chance to make sure

the dog felt part of a new pack. It was a sim-

ple gesture, and I was stunned by the good-

ness of it.

And maybe I owe some credit to Los

Angeles geography. It was 2008, a few

months after the Writers Guild strike ended.

Work was slow. Nobody was hiring yet. My

apartment at Olympic and Robertson faced

a busy alley and had no air conditioning. I

had a group of single lady neighbors with

whom I’d gather for wine in our Wooster

Street complex (we’d nicknamed it Wooste-

ria Lane), but my writerly “room of one’s

own” suddenly felt small and hot and lonely.

I knew that up in Topanga Canyon, where

the man lived, there was a dog who would

put his chin on your knee and gaze up at you

as if he understood it all. I’d found a new

pack. Maybe it was time to get over having

been dumped in haste.

And maybe I even owe some credit to the

canyon itself. To that feeling of turning off

PCH onto Topanga Canyon Boulevard,

winding your way up through hills and oaks

and sandstone peaks where ocean murk

creeps in at night, filling the place with Brig-

adoon mist. There’s a dental X-ray apron

feeling of anxiety weighing on you as you

navigate a writing career in Los Angeles, a

city of haves and have-nots and pretend-to-

haves and never-happy-with-what-they-

haves.

But on those afternoons, I’d turn right at

the corner where beach meets mountain,

and I was suddenly in the woods, hearing the

sounds of hawks and mourning doves and

coyote packs screaming like they’re watch-

ing someone open gifts at a baby shower.

Most important, there was an Australian

shepherd who wanted me to come hike at

Red Rock Canyon Park with the man who

adopted him. The man who would see his

dog seemingly deep in thought and stop to

ask, “What’s on your mind, Chance?” I didn’t

want to lose this pack.

I realized the man deserved a second

chance. The same one he’d given this dog.

We went from ambivalent to back together

to married. We were a trio.

Meanwhile, Chance’s rap sheet grew.

“This is a dog that needs to be managed,”

said a trainer. A human had clearly done

something terrible to Chance in his first 2 ½

years of life. If we were seated at a sidewalk

cafe, Chance would wag his docked Aussie

tail if a fellow canine walked by. But if a 1,000-

year-old man with a cane shuffled past,

those were the pants he’d lunge for. He once

lifted a leg and peed on a friend’s Christmas

tree. He was a serial humper. He stole off

countertops. He destroyed a couch.

The morning after a

dinner party, I found him

on top of the table, sur-

rounded by crystal wine

glasses, eating the re-

mains of a cheese plate.

Seeing me, he went in for

a last bite and then

leaped over the stemware

with a Baryshnikov-like

grace. I once caught him

finishing a loaf of bread

and wondered if he might

actually be my biological

son. When a new neigh-

bor remarked, “Oh, you

guys have the fat red dog

that barks on the bal-

cony,” I explained he was

a home security system

you need to feed twice a

day. Also, he was fluffy,

not fat.

Earlier this fall, 11 years after meeting

him, we said goodbye on our living room

floor. They’d found an inoperable heart

mass. He was in pain. We weren’t putting an

almost 14-year-old dog through chemo. As

the vet inserted the needle, he tried to nip

her. He was Chance up to his final moment.

Misunderstood by most. Loved by us.

We always called him “Poor little Chance”

because of his rough start. My sister-in-law

once gave us a dubious staredown and said,

“There is nothing poor about that dog.”

Now that he’s gone and there's a new

rescue dog named Larry chewing our couch,

I realize it’s true: There was nothing poor

about him. He’s the old soul who helped me

understand no human or dog is perfect. No

beginning is perfect. You have to take a

chance.

The author is a screenwriter who

recently co-wrote the romantic comedy

“Falling Inn Love" and the upcoming “Love,

Guaranteed” for Netflix. You can find her on

Twitter @LizHackett.

I fell for a man because of a dog

By Elizabeth Hackett

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