It started with sideways rain, a Denny’s hostess, and two words: “Open the door.”
About four months ago, I found a three-year-old Great Pyrenees standing outside the door at Denny’s in a sideways rainstorm.
My son looked at me like, What should we do?
“Open the door,” I said.
The hostess about fell over.
And then he walked in.
That was the beginning of Bear’s arrival. I just didn’t know how much was arriving yet.
Within 24 hours, I had found his owner. By about hour 36, she had called me back to say they were going to take him back to the shelter. He was too much.
Man, I hate a good challenge.
Naturally, I went and picked him up.
He came home and ate my garage doors and two brand-new, freshly painted sheetrock walls.
Apparently, “too much” had been a fairly restrained description.
I already had four dogs. Their combined weight with Bear was somewhere close to 400 pounds, and Bear owned about a quarter of that.
What could go wrong?
Would you believe they got along?
Well. All but one.
Moving Bear upstairs solved some things. It did not solve his commitment to running. He couldn’t go outside without a leash, although some days, with the quiet help of a small nonverbal assistant, he was allowed to run anyhow.
The neighbors kept me updated on white-dog sightings. I became very familiar with roads I had previously managed to live quite happily without exploring.
I put a tracker on him. He broke and lost the entire collar.
I tried an Apple AirTag. Same result.
Somewhere deep in the woods, there is a collar having its own adventure.
My life was shaping up to look like one of my least favorite movies, Marley & Me, and I was the star.
This was not the role I had auditioned for.
Then one day, after Bear had been returned home, he and Murphy, my other big personality in a dog suit, looked at each other wrong. Suddenly, both seemed determined to remove the other’s ear.
One of my sons grabbed Murphy’s collar. I grabbed Bear’s.
I yanked. Bear complied with an extra leap across the living room before I let go.
I still don’t know how the table didn’t break. I am very clear on how I broke my toe.
A $400 vet bill for Bear’s later-infected ear injury and two trips to an orthopedic surgeon gave me some time to side-eye my decisions.
Even two of my kids suggested I give up on him.
But I understand trauma. Looking at Bear, I felt like he needed someone who would keep showing up. Someone who wouldn’t quit.
And I couldn’t think of somewhere to take him that I could live with.
So we kept working.
I got him a scannable identification tag and eventually found a live tracker through T-Mobile that let me follow his whereabouts without waiting for him to pass somebody with a phone.
Now I could usually find him in 15 to 20 minutes.
This is a strange thing to consider progress, but there we were.
One day, he ran four miles through the woods and came out on a long wooded road.
He must have been surprised to find me waiting.
The next big escape involved shredding my kitchen screen, tumbling out the window and down a flight of steps, and ending up on a highway five miles away.
These were prayer-intervention situations.
My prayers were answered. I just forgot to ask for less aging on my part.
The man who stopped 18-wheelers and coaxed that enormous hairball into his nice Tahoe is a superhero.
He told me Bear had used up all his extra lives in about five minutes.
Probably two of mine, too. I was 30 miles away, watching his location in real time.
Yes, I got Bear back.
I believe that highway adventure was the one that finally slowed down his enthusiasm for running. He still goes outside on a leash until we reach the fenced field.
We are not testing his newfound wisdom.
And this dog loves me to no end.
His loyalty has grown beyond my bigger expectations. He’s even trying to get along with Murphy these days. We will keep working.
My kids don’t mention getting rid of him nearly as often.
The kittens think he is Uncle Bear.
And yes, he is why my house has become a daily dust-mopping and dusting adventure. There is a substantial amount of Bear available on every surface.
But something else happened along the way.
A lot of my photographs of back-country roads were taken while I was looking for him. I found beauty I never would have seen otherwise.
Now I stand in my field and see sunrises and sunsets in real time. With Bear nearby, I have a reason to stay outside a little longer.
When he’s settled, he has this Eeyore personality. Low energy. A wagging tail. A big, quiet presence.
The same dog who introduced me to new levels of panic now brings me an extraordinary amount of calm.
He’s always glad to see me.
On days when I feel taken for granted, when everyone needs something but seems to miss me as a human being, Bear doesn’t miss me.
I’m his person.
He doesn’t need me to explain the day or justify sitting down. He’s happy that I’m there.
If you have an animal who makes you feel that way, you know how much it matters. Being welcomed. Being forgiven. Being someone’s favorite without having to accomplish one more thing first.
I believe Bear arrived as a gift.
I just had to unwrap him.
Admittedly, he did some of the unwrapping himself. Starting with the garage doors.
Man, I love this guy