Dear Dog Diary:

I remember that shelter dog smell.

Polar opposite of intoxicating puppy smell.

Shelter smell hit me hard in doggie jail. It clung to every dog inside.

Even though it was a new year.

It was just after New Year’s.

Despite the smell, and the scary place with gritty eroded walls and floors and stink of shelter bleach and poo and old bad things that used to happen in dark rooms, He had those Eyes.

Down at the end of the long, dark jail cell aisle, up on the right, a light, shining bright.

Glistening eyes from the dinky doxie.

I love you, bust me outta here eyes that were so hopeful in a place that was anything but.

Glistening eyes guy’s name was Mighty- and it suited him.

Those eyes seemed completely out of place, in the dark, in a chain link cage on chipped concrete floors, amidst deafening chaos of barking dogs, whose eyes weren’t the least bit hopeful.

That long dark aisle of doggie hell, and the smell, made my heart stand still, and my stomach nearly puke.

The smell of fear or lost hope or something hard to wipe away, was what I remember most. I’m gagging now, at the thought of it.

The dog catcher passed me with a new inmate. A cage door screeched shut. Another mutt in the slammer.

I know the shelter folks were trying to help these dogs find homes, but there are so many more dogs than families and this place was anything but hopeful.

I felt good about adopting a dog from a place like this; it was a real rescue. But the toll it took on me, just walking inside, was almost too much.

This six month old doxie was just a puppy and his chances were better than most. I felt guilty about that. I was here to save a life. I usually go for hard luck stories and older dogs.

I wasn’t sure how Mighty would feel about me - the listing said he was slow to warm up.

But I knew the moment I saw him, that he was the dog for me - for us.

He had something extra, like maybe 50 extra pounds hiding inside his 12 pound dog bod.

He wore trust and pride in his big bold chest, in this place that wears you down. Anyone that adopts rescue dogs knows that trust doesn’t come naturally.

Perhaps his little 2 inch legs were secretly expandable - like my basset hounds’ legs are!

He seemed tall, stood tall.

He had attitude, self respect.

Most of all, hope.

He was listed as a doxie pug but he looked more like a Chiweenie. A Doxie-wa wa. A Chicken McNugget.

A sweet little soul that had never loved and lost.

Only a kid, here he was, homeless, and still the cutest little peanut on Earth. 

Glistening eyes met mine.

Maybe we were two souls in the wrong place at the right time, like some Zen surf dog cross roads of the universe between the ones we were and the ones we are meant to be.

This is what a New Year is all about. New hope. New life. The chance to begin again. On any day, but especially after a long, cold winter or a life of darkness.

Mighty’s hopefulness in his cold jail cell, was a beacon of light.

My bassets and I were searching for our 4th generation rescue dog / surf dog.

It all started back in 1991 with basset Howdy Doody, who I adopted 29 years, or 203 dog years, ago.

Howdy was my first. A bassador (basset/lab,) a rogue runaway, I adopted him on the night before they put him to sleep for being an incorrigible pet, unadoptable.

Incorrigible turned into a surf dog, the ambassador for Dog Beach San Diego - a windsurfing and surfing hound on national TV. BTW, the whole tandem human/dog surfing idea was his, not mine - but that’s another story.

As Howdy grew old, Elvis came along. Elvis was a full blooded low rider basset we rescued in the deserts of Arizona, a totally unlikely surfing candidate. Surf Dog #2, the Beta, was mentored by the incorrigible one.

Dude, a sweet bagel (basset/beagle) from Best Friend’s rescue, was my 3rd generation surf basset, the little dog that could. Elvis’s little brother from a different mother.

Now Elvis and Dude, after a decade of surfing with me, were getting ready to retire.  

They met Mighty, the doxie, in the animal shelter’s “Howdy” pen with big ‘ol “Howdy” signs everywhere. How perfect is that?

Well, the Howdy pen sealed it. We chose the doxie because of his eyes, and because he was so big, and yet so small. He'd fit under an airplane seat - he could fly anywhere with me. The first carry-on bag surf dog of the family.

But really, Mighty chose us.

Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work?

We took him home and named him Doodle, after the late great Howdy Doody.

Doodle wore that awful shelter dog smell, his old homeless person’s coat, for a while after he moved in with us.

That first night, he chased and barked at the doxie in the window - his reflection in the fireplace glass.

Elvis had a bad back that had really slowed him down.

But that first night, he chased Doodle all around the house.

It was a new year.

It was the first time he’d played like a puppy in years.

Elvis found new life, too.

We all did.

Even Tia the cat.

Dude liked Doodle for a couple of days - until he realized he wasn’t just visiting. Then Dude got jealous - and ignored the doxie for another month. 

He warmed to Doodle again, right about the time the shelter dog smell wore off.  

That was the new year, eight January’s ago.

Wishing you light and life and love... in this brand new year!

- Barb Ayers, with Doodle and Tia

January 2020.