Puppy Love (page 2 of 3)

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Photo courtesy of Mary Rowland

Krista with Smudge, the dog who helped her heal.

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Photo courtesy of Mary Rowland

Krista holds Smudge; Tom with Daisy, who joined the family in fall 1998.

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Photo courtesy of Mary Rowland

Krista, summer 2006, in Athens after attending a photography seminar.

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Photo courtesy of Mary Rowland

Krista holds Smudge; Tom with Daisy, who joined the family in fall 1998.

Discovering the Dog World of New York City

Bob said New York was no place for a dog. But every Sunday evening, Krista watched the TV show That's My Dog. Tom, the family's most fervent animal lover (his first word was dog), preferred Beethoven, a movie about a slobbering Saint Bernard that wandered into the life of a suburban family and ran amok. Eventually, Bob gave in.

We decided on an English springer spaniel. It wouldn't take up too much space and would be good with kids. Bob found a family in Connecticut with springers, and we drove up to look at the puppies. The dog Krista and Tom picked was mostly brown, with just a smudge of white over his nose. Before we brought him home, Bob said to me, "I don't like the idea of a dog in the city. But whatever happens, I will never say 'I told you so.'"

Krista quickly became immersed in the dog world of New York, a new and secret place she could enter like Alice in Wonderland. We took Smudge to the dog park, a little fenced-in area where dogs could run. When we arrived, we would scan the dogs and tell one another who was there. Caspar, Nugget, Yank, Priscilla. Smudge loved Lucy, a more mature springer. We gossiped with the dog people about dog rules and which dogs misbehaved.

We took Smudge to dog school, where he was the second most badly behaved dog. (One pit bull bit his owner.) Smudge wasn't mean. Just stubborn and adventurous. We didn't do a good job of training him. On Saturday nights, Krista and Smudge and I camped out in sleeping bags in the room Bob and I used as an office. Smudge seemed to believe he was a dog king and we were his minions. He never listened to words like no! and stop! Pretended he didn't get it.

Whenever Smudge misbehaved, Krista hugged him. Defended and protected him. Perhaps Bob and I felt that leniency toward Smudge somehow translated into paying Krista back for some of her pain. Whatever it was, we didn't raise Smudge right. One friend said, "Your kids are so perfect. I'm glad Smudge brought some ruckus into your lives." Or as Krista put it, "If we didn't have Smudge, we would be the boring family."

The big trouble started when Smudge was six months old and Bob and I took him out running along the East River. It was early March. Smudge chased a leaf that blew through the guardrail and into the river, about 11 feet down from the walkway. Bob and I yelled, "No! Stop! No!" Smudge never hesitated. We ran back and looked down at him, yelping for help in the water. Bob told me we had to forget about him. But I didn't hesitate much either. I climbed the rail and jumped in. With my shoes. I wasn't going to go home and tell Krista that I let her dog drown just as he was beginning to help her heal.

When I jumped, I sank down and down into the filthy river, never touching bottom, then floated slowly to the surface. A crowd gathered along the guardrail. A gymnast--I am not making this up--showed up and hung by his knees from the railing. Bob jumped in and lifted Smudge into the gymnast's arms. He couldn't reach me.

A group of construction workers found a boat and got me safely to land. In the ambulance, I felt so cold. My joints had frozen. My body temperature was 87 degrees, they told me at the hospital. I lay in the ER surrounded by big plastic bags of hot water while Bob went home for dry clothes. And Smudge, happy to be warm and dry, granted an interview to a TV crew in a room down the hall. He looked frisky and happy when we saw him on TV. The reporter talked about how a woman had taken a death leap into the East River to save this little dog. The two of us shared the front page of the New York Post, him licking my face appreciatively, under the headline "Icy Plunge Saves Pooch." Bob did not say "I told you so."

But Krista was improving. She carried a clipboard and wore a white jacket and pretended to be an eye doctor. Smudge was her patient. "Can you see this? How about this?" She marked down his answers on the clipboard. They dressed up in pink hats and purple dresses and went to the Easter parade. When Krista was invited to a sleepover, she called to talk to Smudge so he wouldn't be lonesome. "What look does he have on his face?" she would ask after she'd finished talking to him.

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