The Deathbed Promise Dog

Bella is cowering beneath my desk because a motorcycle roared by. This dog’s list of fears knows no bounds: plastic bags, umbrellas, rolling trash can lids, inflatable holiday decorations, bicycles, car rides. Oh, and brooms.

Yet, if you put this knee-high animal--a chihuahua/rat terrier/Jack Russell mix—on a leash, she morphs into Cujo, threatening pit bulls and horses with noisy bravado.

I’ve never owned a dog like this. My dogs tend to be calm. Even laconic. Merlin, my Pekingese, is as Zen as they come, rolling onto his back for a belly scratch whether he’s greeting the Amazon delivery person or a bunch of shrieking kids.

Bella was my mother’s dog, an ill-considered pandemic choice made in 20 seconds in a church parking lot after my mom’s previous dog, also a trembling chihuahua, died suddenly of a heart attack.

“I know I shouldn’t get another dog, but I hate being without one,” Mom said as we waited in the parking lot for some stranger who claimed she had a dog to give away—free.

“I understand,” I said, and I did.

My mother was in her late eighties and still living independently during the pandemic, which meant she was completely isolated. Other than seeing me, her world had shut down. She wasn’t isolated in a nursing home, thank God, but her beloved senior center activities had all been curtailed. The days stretched out, long and lonely, in her tiny apartment. She needed a companion.

Bella, we discovered when the woman arrived, had been rescued three times already, first from Puerto Rico and most recently from the woman’s own daughter, who was moving into an apartment that didn’t take dogs.

“She’s not too friendly with other dogs,” the woman said when I tried to bring Merlin over to greet Bella.

That was an understatement. Bella lunged at Merlin and acted like she’d tear him to pieces, nearly pulling over her owner in the process.

“Mom, this dog is a bad idea,” I said.

“Oh, nonsense. I can handle her,” Mom said. “And look at the poor thing. She just needs love.”

Bella needed a lot more than that. With her hyperactivity level, she needed a race track, but my mom suffered from chronic lung disease and couldn’t walk more than a few feet outside her apartment. The dog was clearly going crazy, so one day I let her loose in my backyard with Merlin. Bella raced around the yard in dizzying circles. To my surprise, when I called her name, Bella trotted right over to me.

She was happiest off-leash, clearly, so I started taking Bella on hikes with Merlin and me. (Pekingese are surprisingly good hikers if you don’t treat them like lap dogs.) Bella loved these woodsy runs and gradually relaxed. Off leash, she sometimes barked at other dogs, but she quickly became more social. Our dog-walking neighbors stopped having to cross the street when they saw us coming as Bella learned she could have friends.

The only problem was that, when I took Bella back to my Mom’s apartment, I’d hear the dog fling herself against the door when I left; clearly, Bella had decided she was meant to live with Merlin and me. Even when I visited the apartment, Bella would sit in my lap or, worse, curl up behind me, hiding from my mother.

“Well,” my mother sniffed, “I guess you’ve got another dog.”

I didn’t want another dog, especially not such a high-maintenance one, but a year after the world opened up again, my mother’s health declined and she moved in with us. Now Bella could sleep on my mom’s bed and sit on her lap, but still hang out with Merlin in the living room. She flourished. “You’ll take care of Bella for me, won’t you,” Mom said a few days before she died. It wasn’t a question.

“Of course,” I promised.

After Mom was gone, friends who’d heard me joke about “Little Miss High Anxiety” suggested I find another home for Bella. I love to travel, and Bella hates car rides and freaks out in hotels. Having two dogs is expensive as well. Several people offered to take her for me and would have given Bella a good home, but I couldn’t do it. Mine was the lap Bella always chose in the TV room, and Bella followed me everywhere in the house, upstairs and down, no matter what I was doing. She had become my shadow.

I thought I was simply keeping my promise by putting up with Bella. Recently, however, I lost her on a hike and started to cry when I thought I might not find her. When Bella came running back to me a few minutes later, I laughed at the sight of her tiny body flattened out like a greyhound in her hurry to return. My mom was right after all: I’ve got another dog.