Roscoe

A little over 5 years ago, my ex and I adopted a dog together. I can tell you when it was down to the month because it was the January before covid hit. (Side bar - how weird is it that covid hit 5 years ago almost to the day?? Feels like a lifetime.)

My mom swears by the three month rule. Give a new job three months. Give a new place three months. Give a new guy that you’re talking to three months. A lot can come up. The rose tinted glasses tend to come off, the honeymoon phase runs its course. And on the more positive side of things, after three months, sometimes things can be better than you could have ever hoped.

The three month rule, it turns out, can also be applied to an adopted dog.

We adopted Roscoe in January. In March, he began to show sides of some serious aggression. This wasn’t a surprise, but it was a bummer. He had been found on the side of a street, covered in fresh and old scars. Their best guess was he had been part of the mass breeding of Australian Cattle Dogs in Texas and had either been abandoned or had run away, somehow making it to Colorado. His three month aggression came in the form of yelping and nipping, mostly in a way that felt overly protective of myself and my ex. We stayed proactive, keeping him extremely active and making sure to keep him socialized with both people and other dogs. And then covid hit.

Very long story short, after a lot of doggie training, money, and tears, Roscoe bit someone in a way that my ex and I could not mentally recover from. We brought him back to a shelter and they made the (five hour, incredibly brutal) decision with us to put him down.

It’s been a while since I’ve cried about Roscoe.

But, today, my work partner and I were talking through a couple concepts with our creative director and one of the ideas has to do with partnering with dog shelters. Someone mentioned the idea of a ‘clean slate’, and I felt some hairs go up on the back of my neck. Deep breath.

“Admittedly, this is a touchy subject for me,” I started, “but I really don’t think that we should imply that once dogs get to shelters and then are adopted that they’re clean slates. Sometimes the trauma is just too much.”

Fortunately, it turned out that this was not what my partner nor my boss had meant at all, and we were able to talk through some better ways to approach the overall idea. The damage was done, though. I was thrown back 4 years (we had him for a full year before we made our decision) to the worst, hardest decision of my life thus far, feeling sick to my stomach for another living creature who trusted me more than he trusted himself, and incredibly anxious over what the people in my life were going to think of me because of it.

After the call, my partner messaged me: “You good? Didn’t mean to stir bad memories.”

As is often the case, someone asking me if I am okay was the final push over the edge of tears. It’s also been a very busy, very stressful work day, and I don’t think I’m going to make it to yoga, so things had piled up. I reassured him that I was more than fine, had myself a little cry, brushed my hair, and 15 minutes later was back on another camera-on zoom call.

I’m not even sure why my reaction took me by such surprise. Healing is not linear.