A House Full of Love

I am one of those very lucky people that grew up in a house full of love, which meant that I grew up with a house full of dogs.

My first dog was Kevin. I named him when I was five. I named him Kevin Michael Mellen.

Kevin was a stray, and he picked our family to live with when I was in kindergarten, and he was part of my family until he died my junior year of college.

This story isn’t about Kevin, but he sets the stage for my trust of and reliance on a dog’s love.

In my late 20’s, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I experienced the gamut from psychotic mania to debilitating depression.

I worked hard on my mental health, and by my mid-30s, I was on an upswing. My emotions were steady. I got a new job and I moved to a large one-bedroom apartment in Chicago.

Still, I struggled to get over that hump and go from surviving to thriving. I thought: “I could really use companionship. I could really use confidence. I could really use love. I need a dog.”

So, I went to a rescue called “Furry Friends,” and there I met a hound named Cindy.

I know you are thinking, “what is up with this guy and human dog names?” But this time, I didn’t name her, she came with her name. I didn’t even like the name, but Cindy knew who she was. She knew her name. She was Cindy.

Cindy was a hound with sad hound eyes that made her look old and wise. I don’t claim to know what she was thinking, but I do know that when she looked into my eyes, I always thought, “this dog is seeing my soul.”

Starting that first weekend with Cindy, I felt calmness pass over my body. I felt peace. And I started my first baby steps towards thriving.

Cindy was one of those special dogs that bonded deeply with everyone she met. I have had enough dogs and been around enough dogs to know the difference between a dog that is special to the owners and a dog that is special to everyone. Cindy was special to everyone, and she became everyone’s favorite dog (or second favorite if they had a dog of their own).

The flip side to being so connected to humans is that Cindy hated being by herself. She had intense separation anxiety.

This was a problem. I would go to work, and she would cry the entire day, something I was reminded of often by my neighbors.

I took Cindy to obedience school, and I did everything that the trainer said to do. I tried crate training. I ignored her for 15 minutes before I left for work and for 15 minutes after I got home so that my coming and going would be as stress free as possible. Nothing worked. I would leave and shut the door and she would cry until I returned and opened the door.

This broke my heart because while Cindy was saving me, I was hurling her into the anxiety that I was escaping.

Cindy needed her own furry friend. She and I started to visit other dogs to see who would fit our little family. The first two weekends, she and I visited dogs in Chicago at the pound, the anti-cruelty society, and other rescues. Cindy was unimpressed with every dog that we met.

On the third week, we drove to a nearby suburb to meet a dog named Jake. Jake was in a foster family with other dogs, and he wasn’t getting along well with them. When we arrived at the house, Cindy looked at Jake and started jumping up and down wagging her tail and smiling. They played non-stop for over an hour.

Of course, Jake was the one. I filled out the forms and waited to be approved. When I called about my application, I found out that the foster family had to take Jake to the vet to be given an anti-anxiety medication because Jake wouldn’t stop crying after Cindy left. My first thought was, “that’s so sweet.” My second thought was, “I didn’t try medicine on Cindy, and as someone that takes medicine, that is kind of speciesist of me.” So, I kept the idea of medication in my back pocket.

But Cindy wasn’t going to need medication. She and Jake seemed like old friends. And it turns out that they were.

When you get a dog from a rescue, you get a packet with a lot of information about the dog. This information includes the date, location, and name of the veterinarian that gave them their shots. Both Cindy and Jake had the same information on all three and the location in their packets was in West Virginia.

I called the rescue to make sure there wasn’t a scam and found out that both Jake and Cindy were on the same shipment of dogs from West Virginia to Chicago. There is a program to move highly adoptable dogs from rural areas to urban areas because people in urban areas adopt more. So, Jake and Cindy were kenneled together for at least four months before they made the trip to Chicago. They were then reunited four months later to live with me.

As quickly as Cindy affected me with calm and peace, Jake affected Cindy in the same way. A few weeks after Jake joined our family, one of my neighbors stopped me in the courtyard and told me how sorry she was that it didn’t work out with Cindy. She thought I got rid of Cindy because my apartment was so quiet. I told her that I still had Cindy, but now she had the love of a dog too.

After talking to my neighbor, I opened the door to my apartment to see Jake and Cindy lying calmly together on a chair. The room was quiet and filled with light and they were patiently waiting for the fifteen minutes to be over and for us all to go on a walk. Cindy had no anxiety and I started to cry ugly happy tears. Both dogs ran at me and licked my face.

In a lifetime of happy dog memories, them licking my face as I cried is the most emotionally charged memory I have.

Cindy saved me. Jake saved Cindy. And we were a family.