to all the [dogs] I've loved before
My dog Lenny is about to turn 2, and I am turning to mush about it.
I forget all the time that I have a dog. Not in the way that I forget he exists or I forget to feed him or something, but in the way that like, it’s so insane I have a dog. Adults have dogs. Families have dogs.
I adopted my dog Lenny when I realized I was being forced to live alone. That’s the harsh and dramatic way of putting it. Our landlord died (story for another time) and in the wake of losing our near perfect apartment, my two roommates both chose to move on solo. They felt ready to live alone, they told me. But I also knew part of the reason for our separation was that living with me for the last year and half had been a major drag. Post Break-Up Lauren was a mystery bag of chaos, neediness, and tears. They did their best but I was a lot. I spent all my time with Post Break-Up Lauren and I was exhausted.
But there I was, about to become roommates with my tumultuous little self. I remember texting Alyssa my thoughts like a stream of consciousness, as we often did, searching for the silver lining in all this. I found one: living alone meant I could adopt a dog.
I’d always wanted a dog in LA. I missed my family dog Ziggy with an ache in my chest. I adopted him when I was sixteen with my dad. The day we found him was such a serendipitous day. Our first family dog, a beagle named Flower, had passed away in July 2012. She was perfect, if only because she didn’t have enough brain cells to ask for more than love and food. When we put her to sleep, it was just my dad and I in the room together. The vet left us with her after she was gone, and my dad cried like I’d never seen him cry before or since. He asked me through tears if we did the right thing in letting her go. Woof!
We knew we were going to get a new dog at some point, but my mom wasn’t as gung-ho. She wasn’t an animal lover mainly because she really hated the shedding, and my dad and I didn’t want a poodle-ish dog. We decided we wanted a puggle, but puggles were expensive designer dogs, and we were not expensive designer people. Any dogs I found online that summer were vetoed after we saw the price tag and/or discovered they came from a shady breeder.
In September 2012, after summer had passed, my mom and I ran the Race For the Cure in Cleveland together. I say “together” loosely - I walked with my friend, and my mom was the first breast cancer survivor to cross the finish line.
We hung downtown after the race, enjoying the festivities. My mom beamed with her medal around her neck and her posse of other breast cancer survivors around congratulating her (this is real - they are called the Pink Ladies and my mom hangs out with them like once a month). As we were leaving, she turned to me.
There are so many cute dogs here, she noted. It makes me miss Flower. Maybe we should look at the shelter when we get home and see what they have.
I remember trying to stay calm so I wouldn’t spook her out of her sudden willingness to invite a shedding creature into our home. I texted my dad, and when we got home, we went straight to the shelter’s website.
“Chicken Fry,” a six-week-old puggle, was posted on the site two hours ago after being found roaming the streets of downtown Cleveland alone. We got to the shelter in thirty minutes and he’s been ours ever since.
We named him Ziggy because Ziggy Stardust came on on the radio on the way home from the shelter. He’s a bad dog. He barks, he gets on furniture, he’s a basket case. I love him so incredibly much. When I’d have friends over, I’d always tell them it was okay if they didn’t like him - he wasn’t warm to strangers. He vocally hated every boy I’d ever brought home aside from one. He’s only at peace when my family is all together, when he can see all five of us in the same space. Ziggy is obsessed with my mom; he follows her everywhere. She’s the first person he falls asleep with, before my dad kicks him out of their room and he finds a kid to spend the rest of the night with. We got Ziggy eleven years ago, can you believe that? Now he’s smelly and he looks like a potato; I’m twenty-seven and those two things are probably true for me, too.
So anyways - enter Lenny.
I announced to my writers’ room that I was moving by myself and wanted a dog. Emmy texted me afterwards and enthusiastically said she would help. I was grateful but took it with a grain of salt. I’d heard adopting a dog in LA could be a long, heartbreaking process where you get attached to dogs in the application stage and they end up going to someone else, and repeat and repeat and repeat. I accepted I was likely signing up for a few months of grief.
After my birthday in January 2022, I spent the weekend in Santa Barbara with some girlfriends. I signed a lease to an apartment in Silver Lake the week prior, and I was finally starting to feel my feet on the ground again after feeling like I was in an immersion blender for all of 2021. Anneleise drove me home from the trip; she was actually fostering a dog at this time (Caicos!), and her family in DC was about to adopt him. I opened my phone to a ton of texts from Emmy. She had hooked me up with a woman on Facebook who runs a small Lisa Vanderpump-y shelter, taking dogs from overcrowded shelters or transporting strays from Mexico.
This woman, Gia, sent me a few pictures of dogs that fit the description of what I wanted (a small to medium sized dog I could take places, that liked exercise but wasn’t too energetic, and got along with other dogs). Three dogs stuck out to me. One was a one-year-old chihuahua, who Gia promised was a sweetheart. There was a shepherd mix who was the most gorgeous puppy I’d ever seen. And then there was Lennon: a 4 month old mutt whose siblings and Mom had already been adopted. Gia planned to bring them all to the park the next day to meet me.
As soon as my sister Shannon and I met Gia at Exposition Park, the first two dogs climbed excitedly out of her car, ready to play. Lennon didn’t want to get out. Once he was coaxed to the ground, he threw up.
Shannon and I sat with Gia, who was amazing. I could tell immediately that Shannon did not like the chihuahua due to her own stereotypes. And the shepherd, while gorgeous, was insanely energetic. I looked over at Lennon, who refused to sit down or make eye contact with anyone. He visibly shook with fear. He had two floppy ears and huge paws, though Gia promised he wouldn’t get much bigger. I could guess how his siblings and mom had been adopted ahead of him; I pictured playful puppies, climbing happily on prospective families, while one puppy recoiled in the background. Gia rescued his mom and litter from Tijuana, and obviously something or someone had terrified him there. It broke my heart. I wanted to love him, but I didn’t want to force him to love me.
After sitting in the park for some time, I realized I needed to tell Gia how wonderful this had been, but that none of these dogs seemed like the right fit. Could we keep looking?
Just as I revved myself up to deliver the news, I felt something on my lap. Lennon. He sat on me, nuzzled into my arm, and fell asleep.
I have a picture of that.
I cry whenever I think about this. I’m crying about it right now. It feels cheesy to say he chose me, but he did. We did. I told Gia I would take him. Shannon asked if I was going to keep the name Lennon. I thought about it for a minute; I didn’t love it because I didn’t want people to think I loved The Beatles. I’m fine with The Beatles, but still.
Right there in the park, I named him Lenny.
Gia dropped Lenny off at my new apartment a week later, the day I moved in. He was scared again, shaking and immobile. But his floppy ears had changed - one hung down, but the other shot straight up into the air now. Gia told me the other one would likely pop up too, at some point. Real Lenny fans know this never ended up happening.
As anyone who adopts a puppy will tell you, the next few months were an emotional roller coaster. Lenny and I struggled with his anxieties. He was so smart and potty trained super fast, but the second he noticed a truck, car, person, or big bug outside, it was game over. He froze or bolted back to our apartment door. He was territorial over our space, and barked loudly at any new presences. Then Lenny got bigger. Medium-sized my ass, Gia - the kid is sixty pounds as of today. I quickly realized adopting a dog alone at twenty-six was a crazy thing to do. It still is! I felt that a lot the first few months, as I left gatherings early to take care of him, constantly apologized for his bad behavior, and watched my savings decline.
Under all the nuttiness, we made a home together. Lenny met Matthew’s dog Joni, and she taught him how to play. He zoomied for the first time a month after I got him, in February 2022. Our first few times at the dog park, Lenny wouldn’t leave my side. But soon, the words “dog park” were enough to send him racing around the room in excitement. Scotty hooked us up with a dog trainer friend of his, and she helped me realize I’d actually been doing a really good job. That May, we walked around the block for the first time without him freezing up or pulling me home.
We slept beside each other every night. In our own ways, we were both learning how to trust the world again. On mornings when it all felt too heavy and I woke up intent on having a no good very bad day, I remembered that Lenny deserved a nice one. So we’d go outside and move and have fun, and all of a sudden I was having a great day too. I struggled to hate myself when this puppy needed me, when he looked at me like I was the sun. Taking care of him forced me to take care of me.
Lenny became my favorite excuse to leave a party, to be outside, to wake up. He reminds me that change is possible. In the absolute cheesiest sense, he unlocked a part of my heart I didn’t know existed. Because of him I know there is an infinite amount of love in my future waiting for me to give and receive, in people and places I’ve yet to find.
His transformation from anxiety to confidence is everything to me. I could watch him run and explore and play for hours. I love watching Lenny bond with the people I love. When Sophie met him, she stared at him too long and he got freaked out and barked. But last time she was over, he jumped for joy. I can’t say Georges’s name too loud or Lenny starts crying and searching the apartment. He won’t stop until we go outside to see if Georges is there. Lenny knows that Matthew’s presence means Joni the dog’s presence, so it’s best to show Matthew love.
Last Christmas, I introduced Ziggy and Lenny. It went fine to bad. It was hard for me to balance my love between them both, but it seemed like Ziggy eventually understood. My dad always jokes that Ziggy is dumb, but I would argue he is wise in his old age. It’s like the grandma phrase that people love to say - that your old dog sent your new dog to you. Ziggy has a few good years left, but I think it broke both our hearts when I moved so far away for college and never really came back. I like to think he met Lenny and knew I was going to be okay, that it was safe to let me go.
I told you I was feeling mushy. Dogs have always been important to me; my family isn’t exactly emotionally open, but I know my dad misses me and wants to connect when he sends me pictures of Ziggy, or asks how Lenny is doing. A few months ago, he sent me a box of toys that Ziggy never played with to give to Lenny and asked for pictures of our unboxing.
I look at Lenny and I feel like he’s my heart outside my chest, moving freely around the world, forever tied to me. He’s my family, and I’m his.
If you’re a friend reading this, thank you for going along with it when I adopted the world’s largest dog by myself. I’m sure you thought it was crazy because it was. But thank you for accepting Lenny anyways, in all his quirkiness. He loves you, I promise. Or he will, you just need to hang out with us more.
And for those who got this far, here’s some more pics :) Thank you.
Bark bark,
l.e.k.
