A Very Special Pavement-Special
aka Indie EverHopeful - emPAWyee of the month
I recently came across New York Magazine’s July cover story about how competitively difficult it was to adopt a dog during the pandemic. Although I’m sure it’s true that rescue dogs became an economic luxury during the height of lockdown - adopting a dog didn’t feel any easier ten years ago - at least not for me.
It took over two months for me to adopt Indie. Once my application was finalized I drove over eleven hours to pick him up at a rest stop on the I-95, just north of the South Carolina state line, at two o’clock in the morning.
“You got the best one of the bunch” was the only thing the huge, lumbering man with the sleep-deprived eyes said to me in the parking lot as he pulled Indie from a crate in the backseat of his nondescript sedan and handed him to me. Me being a 5’2” petite framed thing who was giddy with anticipation and not a little bit apprehensive. There was one other car idling in the rest area parking lot and I can’t imagine what the driver thought if he witnessed the handoff; it definitely had the appearance of a clandestine meeting. It was April 1st, 2011. Bizarre as it was though I’m not pulling your leg - those were the actual circumstances.
Adopting Indie might be the single most daredevil thing I’ve ever done and not only because I met a strange man in a strange state at a strange time of night. At the time, I hardly had a stable job and I lived in an apartment in NYC with three other roommates none of whom were keen on the idea of a dog and all of whom were clear that said dog would not be a shared responsibility, so the prospect was rather daunting. But more trying than that was the fact that the adoption process was like an inquiry into all the ways my life had failed to live up to an expectation thus far. (The expectation that everybody applying to adopt a dog has their sh*t together). Every question on the adoption application made me feel inadequate and not up to the standard of being a dog-parent. About a month and a half after submitting the application and suffering through the embarrassment of several follow-up calls and a home visit, I was told by the rescue organization that Indie’s future parents had been narrowed down to two finalists: my single, struggling-graduate-student-self, and a retired couple who lived near the ocean in Connecticut. Naturally, upon learning this, I imagined the home of the retired couple to encompass an unadulterated landscape of rolling green hills and sandy beaches with boundless access to the outdoors for him to leap and play; and naturally, upon imagining this, I felt rather deflated.
But obviously I won because I wouldn’t be writing this otherwise.
I use the word “won” because it felt like a stroke of luck; in the end the determining factor was simply that I’d put my application in before the other contenders. In a way though, I always knew I would “win.” For me, Indie was love at first sight. (Although, really I should write: love at first site.) I wish I still had the original images of Indie as I saw them ten years ago when I was perusing petfinder.com, but those photos pre-dated my iPhone years. He was a tiny little thing with liquid brown eyes, a matching-colored nose, and tall triangular ears. Upon seeing the first headshot picture of him something moved deep inside of me. I scrolled breathlessly through the images, there were three or four of them, all of them headshots. Instantly I knew this was my dog. He looked like Splinter or like a gremlin, but in the most heart wrenchingly adorable way, like in the definition of the Japanese Kawaii aesthetic.
When I told my mother my intention and showed her the pictures she cried out in genuine distress “Oh! But what if he has one of those awfully misshapen hot dog bodies!”
Clearly he doesn’t.
Indie has the kind of delightful disposition that wins all the hearts and a lewk that turns all the heads. He’s a mutt but his physiognomy belies his muddled, mixed-breed shelter dog origins and I have to admit, it gives me pleasure to register the shock on people’s faces (usually the purebred breed snobs) when they say with confidence: “Oh is that a Portuguese Podengo?,” and I respond: “No, he’s a pavement special,” or, “Oh gawd no! He's a straight Heinz 57.” It’s my little way of advocating for #adoptdontshop.
Of course there were a lot of things I didn’t know about Indie at first and a lot of things I had to learn about him. For instance, I didn’t know just how old he was, best guess had him somewhere in the 6-12month range. I also never knew (and I’ll never know) just how his life started. He was found on the side of the road with a broken leg and the rescue organization that is now defunct pulled him from a kill shelter. In the course of time, I learned that he had an uncontrollable fear of men in work boots and hoodies. I learnt this the hard way. About ten months after Indie entered my life I moved out of NYC to a rural hamlet in the Catskills of NY. I’d always planned on doing this and Indie was the justification I needed to see it through, although I’ve also considered that I may have been propelled by a sense of guilt that this small dog's life would have been better in the countryside of Connecticut. I was offered a job at what was then a small landscaping firm as a full charge bookkeeper. I had absolutely zero experience, professional or academic, in finance or accounting or even business management, but I nevertheless made the stipulation that I would only consider accepting the position if my dog was allowed to come to the office with me every single day. Somehow it worked. I was the only female in the workplace - the rest of the company consisted of big men in work boots and hoodies. For the first three weeks, Indie’s whole body trembled and his knees knocked together like a newborn lamb every time they entered the building. With time the employees gained his trust; they worked diligently at this, bending down to his level and removing their hoodies, cooing at him gently with outstretched hands, and scratching him behind the ears.
Fast forward ten years and Indie is still the favorite employee. The business has expanded enormously and now includes a full retail and wholesale garden center, a tree and plant nursery, and more female than male employees. Indie’s daily routine now encompasses walks and pee stops around a 29 acre nursery, replete with chipmunks and squirrels galore. He also has full roam of a bright top story office with multiple couches for his relaxation and pleasure. He has established his little habits: in the mornings he likes to lounge on the back of the east-facing conference room sofa (he’s especially fond of laying on large format construction plans that periodically get draped over the sofa - I think he gets a certain satisfaction from the crinkly sound of the paper folding and crumpling underneath him). He migrates with the sun and in the early afternoon will hang with me, in my office, either on the armchair in the corner, or when he insists on sharing my desk chair, pressed up against my back behind me, which reduces me, albeit willingly, to perching like a bird on the edge of a ledge. Occasionally he’ll make his way downstairs of his own volition and lay in the beam of sunlight that streams through the open barn doors of the garden shop. When he does that I can trust that the sales associates will keep an eye on him. There he’ll spend hours timidly greeting customers as they come in or wagging his entire lower half emphatically for staff members he recognizes. Most if not all of the customers are happy to see him. He’s a smallish dog so he’s not threatening and he occupies the children whilst their parents shop, like a built-in babysitter. And of course, Indie benefits too from all the interaction - it has been a wonderful way of socializing him.
Although I’m all for normalizing animals in the workplace, I’ll admit that at first I was nervous about him interrupting the flow of business. I used to rush to hush him when he barked too enthusiastically or I’d swoop down and whisk him away whenever he demanded the attention of a visiting vendor. But gradually I’ve come to realize and to trust that he lends a certain happiness to the workplace and people are delighted to have the predictability of their day interrupted by a canine. Our habitual suppliers all leave him treats whenever they visit the office and our most loyal customers greet him by name. Indie has also been instrumental in facilitating many of the early company culture building initiatives we launched when we first expanded the venture and grew our staff. Events that commonly have a forced awkwardness to them became light and fun because of Indie’s participation. Pre-pandemic we initiated a Friday morning yoga class in the barn, part team-building, part wellness program, taught and led by a longtime customer who is a yoga-instructor. It was comical to watch some of the big dudes who make up the construction team attempting to limber up and perform stretching exercises they’d never done before. Indie was there for every yoga session - he’d walk amongst the laid out mats and do downward dog in unison with us, or he’d stretch out between someone’s splayed out legs. He’d go from mat to mat saying good morning to everyone. We opened the classes up to the employees of the neighboring businesses and everyone got a kick out of Indie’s presence.
My boss, the owner, is not necessarily the most empathetic or accommodating human but he permits all of this (even the crumpling of his construction plans). I’m sure at first he did so grudgingly, but now his fondness for Indie is genuine and sincere. Not only does he tolerate Indie but he actively asks after him and is disappointed on the rare days that Indie doesn’t come into the office (at seventy-seven years old in human years, sometimes his arthritis acts up and he’s obliged to take a sick day). The boss has even gone so far as to commend Indie’s role in helping to naturally fertilize the plants around the nursery. I remember the first time I recognized my boss’s swelling affection for Indie. I was getting ready to leave the office for my customary midday bank run so I whistled my usual whistle for Indie to join me. He didn’t come. He was sharing the boss’s chair and was snuggled up cozily behind the boss’s back. When I called him again more urgently he simply looked up at me languidly then shuffled his body around, rearranged himself, and nodded back to sleep.
I said to my boss, only half jokingly, “are you sure you’re not accidentally sitting on him, and that’s what’s preventing him from getting up?” It was the first time Indie had chosen to ignore me and forego our daily car ride, I was having a hard time accepting this. My boss, reading the defeat on my face, retorted with some cliché crack about how hard it is to watch the kids grow up - and then, with an indulgence and gentleness that is altogether unlike him, added, “don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him whilst you’re gone.” And just like that - the figurative umbilical cord ruptured.
But really, what’s not to love about Indie? He’s the most steadfast, equanimous employee. He leaves his problems at the door, he never comes to work upset. He’s appreciated for that. No matter what happened the day before, if his chicken dinner was too cold, or his hike too long or too short - he walks into the workplace every single day happy to be there, tail proud and wagging, a bounce in his step. He’s a contented employee and he sets the right example for the rest of us.
What they say is true: animals raise the morale of a place and its people. I have only to look at my colleague’s reactions to Indie to know this is so. The young sales girls store treats for him in the tillbox, the overweight truck driver leaves his truck idling every morning to bend down to Indie’s level and coo at him, the office assistant makes a bed for him out of her jackets, the nursery workers give him rides in the tractor, and they all buy him Christmas presents every single year. He’s a bonafide member of the team and we’ve never taken a company photo without him.
Almost more special than Indie’s positive effect on morale is how full his life is. Every employee has contributed to make Indie a truly happy dog. He has a varied routine and so many faces that he knows and loves deeply. I think about this often as Indie approaches his twelfth year. What an honour it is to be able to give an animal a lively and joyful life. Especially one whose life started off so shakily and sadly.
It’s like the Mary Oliver poem Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night where she asks “Could there be a sweeter arrangement?” Sure, we are all grateful for Indie’s presence at the office and the attention he pays to us but maybe what makes it really special is that we all feel more meaningful when we can be the ones dispensing love. Giving love is just as important and fulfilling as receiving it and Indie is happy to be the recipient of it every single time.
About the Creator
Anissa Bejaoui
Animals are what make me interested in the world around me.
I wish humanity would live more in harmony with nature.
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