How a Tiny Dog Helped Me Find My Way

Before there was a wife and three kids and everything else in this life that I type about on the blank white space of my laptop late at night and lay bare on the pages of the internet, there was a dog. To be exact, a trembly black chihuahua with white markings over his eyes and a little white tip on the end of his black tail so it always kind of looked like he was conjuring a spell with a magician’s wand when he was excited to see me.

This dog came into my life at a uniquely weird and challenging moment, and he changed it forever.

Now, based on this lead in, you might be getting a sinking feeling in your stomach because this is exactly how all those stories that end up ripping your heart out start. This isn’t one of those stories. I promise. This is a story I felt like I needed to tell now precisely because I wanted it to have a happy ending, not a sad one. And realistically, I’m probably running out of time. I guess we all are.

My dog’s name is Pepper and I got him in the spring of 2006, which is also the year both my parents had cancer. I was almost old enough to rent a car but not quite. I lived at home with my parents. Well, I lived with my dad most of that year because my mom was receiving cancer care out of state, but more on that later. My dad also had Parkinson’s disease.

I had graduated college three years before and in the in-between time I’m not sure exactly what I did other than quitting law school after six weeks, checking out books from the library, and surfing the internet, which must have been boring because I probably had a super slow connection and there was no Twitter. I also started working at a tennis club maybe ten to twelve hours a week. I was existing, but I didn’t have anything close to a clear direction.

Then my mom got diagnosed with a serious type of cancer, my dad got diagnosed with a less serious type, and everything suddenly felt super dark—like how the Florida skies become ferociously black when the massive summer thunderstorms descend. I don’t remember what was going through my head during that time—I didn’t keep a journal and the only thing I’m good at remembering is random sports stuff—but it seems likely I felt scared and isolated.

While my mom was away undergoing multiple surgeries, my dad and I cohabitated in our traditional fashion. We mostly kept to our respective ends of the house and bumped into each other at mealtimes and when he wanted me to drive him to Lowe’s or the driving range. So, maybe it’s not so surprising that I decided I needed a dog to keep me company 

The chihuahua my parents got me when I was five had died three or four years before, so naturally, the only type of dog I considered getting was a chihuahua. I combed through the local newspaper classifieds for dog listings—yes, a literal, physical newspaper—until I found an ad for a chihuahua puppy in a town about an hour away. I called the number (on a landline phone!), which in retrospect was outrageously ambitious on my part considering how much I fear phone calls, and arranged to have a look at the puppy.

My dad drove with me. I’m sure he was perplexed by this turn of events.  

We arrived at a non-descript row of houses in a backwoods Florida town and were greeted by a large man wearing a white undershirt tank top. His garage contained makeshift dog pins made with plywood dividers. There were several small dogs, one of which was Pepper. After the ordeal of the phone call and the drive and the meeting this strange man with a puppy mill in his garage, there was little doubt that I would be going home with a puppy.

A petite Asian woman was also there, and she raved about how sweet the dog who would be named Pepper was and how he would lie on her chest. He sounded perfect.

It turned out that he was not perfect. After I paid the man (with a physical check!) and brought Pepper home, I realized his papers indicated he was nine months old, not ten weeks as the newspaper ad had said. And when I took him to the vet for the first time, I was informed he wasn’t neutered, he had undescended testicles that needed to be removed because they were a cancer risk. Go figure. A cancer risk. Awesome timing on that little nugget of information.

Despite the initial bumps in the road, Pepper and I were immediately fast friends. He did like to lie on my chest; the puppy mill people weren’t lying about that one. He also liked gnawing on my fingers when I was scratching him, peeing on table and chair legs, hiding during those epic Florida thunderstorms, and sleeping with me at night buried deep under the covers.

Taking him for walks with his little harness and driving him around in my forest green Mazda Protege gave a little purpose to my days and weeks. I continued to be very much on pause as far as big picture things went, so having something exceedingly small to focus on was a welcome distraction.

Fortunately, my mom recovered after an arduous year or two and so did my dad. Our little family was reunited, and we lived together until a few years later when, after working at the tennis club for several years, I got what casual acquaintances called a “real job” and Pepper and I moved to a place of our own. (Yes, to this day I hate when people consider some jobs to be less than real. Please don’t do that or at least don’t say it out loud to the person who worked the supposedly less than real job for multiple years).

After that, my life accelerated and I met my future wife, got married, moved to England for a year, left Pepper behind at my parents’ house with his new doggie sibling Zoe, moved back, and had three children. Through it all, Pepper was there. A constant presence. Barking at every glimpse of a stranger or sometimes a family member who wasn’t me. Peeing wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Lying on my chest and licking my face when I napped on the couch on lazy summer afternoons.

Last year, during the deepest depths of the pandemic, Pepper got sick. He started having what seemed like seizures but turned out to be fainting episodes caused by his weak heart. He was listless and pathetic, and I was devastated. We’d already lost our regular lives, my dad had passed away right before the pandemic, our kids were in what felt like month one hundred of online school, my wife was working in a hospital riddled with Covid—now I was going to lose the one being that most connected my past and my present. It was way too much.

But nope, not yet. I promised you a happy-ish ending and I’m going to deliver.

After a few vet visits, Pepper was stabilized with a combination of several medications, including Viagra which makes for an exceptionally fun anecdote to use when I talk to literally anyone, and his condition improved tremendously. The scary fainting fits stopped, and he regained his energy and zest for peeing on table legs and growling at the kids when they mess with him. It was so gratifying to see the old boy back to normal again.

There was one problem, though. When he got sick, I started feeding him nothing but chicken because I figured he didn’t have much time left. And when I started having to give him medications twice a day, it was easiest just to mix it into the chopped-up chicken. Now we’re more than six months into the new routine and Pepper is still doing okay.

So, if you stop by the house these days, there’s a good chance you’ll find me cooking or chopping up food. Not for the humans necessarily, but for Pepper. I sauté frozen chicken strips on the stove or pick away at a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. I’ve been a vegetarian longer than Pepper has been alive, so this grosses me out to no end, but I do it. I guess love makes us do crazy things.

All the while, Pepper stands in the kitchen at my feet as he’s done for fifteen years now and barks at me relentlessly. Relentlessly! No matter how fast I go, I never prepare the food fast enough. I’ll miss his yelping presence one day, but the chicken carcasses I could do without.

I know my time with Pepper is getting short, but what a run we’ve had. He came to me during one of the darkest periods of my life and he saw me through to the other side. And now? I couldn’t ask for anything more. As a diabolical pandemic year plus winds down (maybe?), I feel like my life is in a good spot. Most of all, I’m so proud and enamored with the family I’ve been so fortunate to assemble.

And I can’t help but think that Pepper was the first step toward getting to this imperfect, yet endlessly fulfilling place. He really is a good boy…most of the time.