Shiloh, The Life and Times of my Best Friend

Chapter 1 - The First Time We Saw ‘No Name,’ January 1994 It was a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon in January of 1994, as Beth and I made our way to the front door of the Pet Smart pet store in Colonie, New York. Colonie is a suburb to the west of the New York State capital of Albany. From the outside looking in, we saw a tri-colored oversized beagle-like creature being guided through the store on a leash. We assumed the dog was a pet that was being brought to the store to help pick out his or her required provisions. Beth and I had just been married the previous September. Being in our late thirties, we had not gone into the marriage blindly, but had discussed and agreed on a number of marital details such as finances, family holiday schedules, etc. We had also agreed that we would get a dog to expand our family. I was never a dog person and did not really understand the point of taking care of these high maintenance creatures. Beth, on the other hand, had grown up with dogs. While she lived with her parents in the western New York city of Jamestown, there was Spotty, then Herman, and Buddy and Sandy. When she was on her own in the Albany area, one of her best friends, Margaret, was tragically killed in a car accident, which resulted in Beth inheriting a mutt named Joey. That affable dog had to be put down a few months before we were married. That was my first visit to the vet. Great! It was a poor introduction to the world of dog ownership. Nevertheless, I had agreed to Beth’s appeal for a dog and today we were starting our journey toward that goal. Since Beth considered me a sport to go along with the dog idea, she was letting me take the lead on what type of dog to add to our family. I did not want to get a huge dog nor did I want one that was too small; just a mid-size model would be fine. I was thinking we’d like something similar to the nice sporty dog that we had just seen from the outside of the store. As we entered the store that tri-color canine previously spotted was nowhere to be seen. The Menands Humane Society had brought various animals to the store for adoption. Beth and I both thought that saving the life of a dog, who would otherwise be put down as more dogs entered the pound, would be a good thing. I wanted to save the life of a stray, but was not thrilled about going to the pound and having to look at the dogs we would not be selecting. We made our way through the store and I gazed at the prices of necessities for our prospective household member. Having a dog was not going to be cheap! In the back of the store, we found two cages with dogs that were up for adoption. In the first cage was a dark, hairy, mid-sized dog that seemed to be a mix between a chow, shepherd and a wolf. The dog seemed a little too rough. There was a handwritten tag hanging on the cage that identified the dog as ‘Bear.’ To the right of the first cage was another, which contained that very dog who we had previously seen from outside the store. The tag on this dog’s cage identified the dog as ‘No Name.’ Not much of a name I thought to myself. The cute little thing was a classic dog. It was tri-colored, black, brown and white, with characteristic beagle-like features, but was definitely not a full-blooded beagle because it was much bigger; it looked to be about forty pounds. An affable young woman who was running the adoption clinic saw our interest and opened up the cage to let us pet little ‘No Name.’ She explained the dog was female and had been picked up as a stray sixteen days earlier on New Year’s Eve night. Looking closer at the dog, I could see that there seemed to be as much hair connected to ‘No Name’ as there was lying loose on the dog’s back. ‘No Name’ was really shedding. We tried to pet the dog, but she recoiled from our touch. The outgoing woman running the clinic kept explaining that she would be a great dog. She was just scared because she was in such a strange setting and she was still very young. The young woman kept trying to explain how wonderful the dog would be for us. She had such an obvious love of dogs and seemed so very much to want to find homes for these dogs before their time was up. Often, with the large number of strays, that time was not very long. We continued to try to pet the dog, but she seemed very much afraid. I explained to the clinic operator that ‘No Name’ was just the type of dog we were looking for, but she seemed to have a real shedding problem and worse yet, didn’t seem to like us that much. In addition, I like to make sure of things, and technically, this was the first dog we had seen. My shopping style is to look at several choices before selecting the best one. My feeling was that a certain amount of exploration was necessary to ensure we had seen a broad base of the market. The dog was just so cute and seemed desperate for a home. The young woman continued to plead in an engaging manner. Finally, Beth and I made a decision. We would decide later! The dog was just what we were looking for, but her shedding and fear of us slowed us down. We explained to the young woman that we needed time to think. Beth and I drove to a Borders Bookstore a few blocks down Wolf Road and wandered the aisles talking about the pros and cons of little ‘No Name.’ Finally, after a protracted recess we made a real decision. We would adopt ‘No Name,’ the oversized beagle-like dog! Feeling pleased with our decision, we drove back to the pet store, confidently strode to the back of the store to sign the papers to adopt our new pet, but saw that the clinic was over. All the cages were gone and the young woman running the clinic was nowhere to be seen. It was as if the entire scene we had experienced only a short time ago had just vanished. We ran to the front of the store and were informed that the clinic was over and that the animals had gone back to the pound. It looked like our desire to adopt ‘No Name’ would not be fulfilled after all. Sadly, we drove back home. We tried to call the Humane Society, but there was no answer. Perhaps, since the dog seemed so afraid of us, it was for the best that the clinic had vanished into thin air before we had made our decision. It looked like little ‘No Name’, that cute, scared, shedding, oversized beagle, would not be joining our family after all.