Found

I was remodeling an animal hospital when I met Van. A pregnant dog had been rescued from dodging traffic on the freeway, and brought into the hospital after giving birth to thirteen puppies.

Twelve of the puppies looked like black lab puppies. One was about twice the size, tan, with large floppy ears and giant paws. He had an Eddie Munster-like black marking over his eyes, a wrinkly forehead, a black mask on his mouth and it looked as though two-thirds of his tail had been dipped in black paint. I stood at the small pen surrounding this litter of wiggling cuteness in the lobby, ooh-ing and aah-ing with every one else while on break.

I was immediately drawn to the freak of the litter, the oversized tan puppy who looked like he had been dropped into this baker's dozen by accident. I asked if I could pick him up and was given permission. I held him close to my chest, his face toward me. He wiggled those giant ears and just stared at me. I smelled his puppy breath and kissed him on his Eddie Munster forehead, then sat him back into the mess of paws and tails and wiggling puppyness.

I had barely turned around to go back to work when the receptionist said, "Kris, you have a little shadow." The puppy had scaled the pen and had followed me to the door. I picked him up and placed him back in the pen. He quickly scrambled over his brothers and sisters and the pen and clumsily bounced toward me. Again, I tried to place him with his brothers and sisters. Again, he found me.

 "Well," the receptionist said, "I guess he's decided he wants to hang out with you."

 "He can come with me if he wants," I said. "I'm just cleaning the walls to prep for painting. He can't get into too much trouble. Is that OK?"

 "Absolutely," she answered.

So off I went to scrub some walls with my new adorably clumsy assistant, who tended to trip over his gangly legs and paws with every step as his ears bounced so much I thought he was going to take off in flight. The rest of the day, he followed me from wall to wall, sitting by my feet and looking up at me with his ears spread to their full cuteness, just watching me. At the end of the day, I walked back toward the front desk to drop my assistant off with his siblings. But when I arrived, a vet tech met me with two pieces of paper stapled together. She held them out to me. "Adoption papers," she said. "I think he has already decided you're his person."

 I laughed. "I'm not really ...prepared ... to have a puppy," I said.

And then the puppy sat. On my foot. And looked at me with the sweetest eyes and  giant ears like airplane wings fixed on each side of his wrinkly Eddie Munster forehead. "Really?" I said to the puppy. "You're playing the cute card?" He stared at me. I think his eyes got bigger and his face became cuter.

 After I re-solidified from the puddle I had become on the floor, I signed the papers.

I was in my  twenties, and quite frankly, a bit of a mess. I was kind of drifting through life with no idea what I wanted to do. Not to say I wasn't having my share of fun, or that I didn't have good people around me. I did. But I was struggling, too. I had no idea what I wanted, no idea what I was even capable of, and fairly sure I didn't really know how to truly and properly love another being. I had social anxiety, suffered from  depression, I was an insomniac, a daydreamer who rarely followed through, and I had a deep fear of commitment of any kind.

I had always expected myself to be one of those people who moved from town to town throughout the world on a whim. I expected to not settle down anywhere. But I had fallen in love with Austin, TX and I had been there a while. This confused me. I knew I needed to grow up, commit to a job that would force me to put down roots. I needed to think about the big picture, the long run. But my instincts told me to run from such things. So I did. Without really going anywhere.

And then, there was Van Costello Schultz. The puppy with the big paws and ears, the wrinkled forehead, and a tight grip on my heart.

I quickly learned I may have been terrible at many things, and decent at a few. But I was really good at one thing, and that was loving that goofy puppy. He was not a perfect puppy, and he did not become a perfect dog. And of course, I was not a perfect dog parent. In his early years, he chewed a 2.5 foot diameter hole in my mattress. He chewed through an entire CD wallet full of CD's.(Oddly enough, not damaging the Van Morrison or Elvis Costello CDs, though.) He was not even close to being the smartest dog. In fact, I often said he got through life on looks and personality .. .because he had no other options. He was house trained quickly and easily, only to proudly poop beneath my sister's Christmas tree and poop "with conviction"( as Van's step-dad says) in the middle of the garage. He fell over a fence at my parents' house while chasing a squirrel, talked roommates into double feeding him, and tore the stuffing out of more than one pillow.  Later on, he always stepped in between his sister Pru and I when I was petting her, stole his step sister Sandy's bed, and had a serious and lifelong humping problem at the dog park. But he had the sweetest soul. He loved one hundred percent, and his love was pure and drama free, and unconditional. And that was exactly what I needed in my life at that time.

 A year later, I would adopt his previously mentioned sister Pru, a Heeler mix. They were polar opposites. Pru was (and still is) extremely intelligent, eager to please, and was usually very well behaved. She needed a job to do and Van needed guidance. She proved to be just what Van and I both needed the day after I adopted her. Van broke his collar and took off after a squirrel. Pru took off after him. As I wondered how I was going to get them back, I saw what Pru was doing. She had caught up to Van, cut his path off with her sturdy body, causing him to turn around. Then she skillfully herded him back to me. And just like that, we were a family of three.

 If those two sweet but very different souls had not entered my life when they did, I honestly don't know where I would be today. They taught me how to really love, and that I was capable of love. They drew me out of my daydreams and helped me live in the present. They brought me out of my shell. And though I had always been a loyal friend, they taught me how to go the extra step in loyalty to the point of not being afraid of commitment, whether to a job, a place, or another being. I haven't figured it all out yet, of course, because I think only the four legged beings REALLY have life figured out. But I have figured out a few things. And those things have led me right here. To a place where I spend my days making a living by loving and caring for four legged creatures who bring me happiness. I know that I am capable of much more than I could have imagined all those years ago. I have made some mistakes. Because I am human. But those have led me here, too. And even though it took me a while longer to figure those things out than it did many of my peers, I did figure them out. But I wouldn't have even gotten to that point without that wrinkly-faced puppy who climbed a fence to get to me and decided we belong together and never gave up on me.