“He’s weird about that dog.” So goes the under-the-breath muttering I occasionally hear.
Several years ago, I found myself in my hometown of Houston after a long absence. Maisy, my yellow lab, my running buddy, my snowshoe buddy, and my Santa Fe ski buddy, had stayed in New Mexico in the wake of my divorce. It was the best thing to do for Maisy, but heartbreaking for me.
I was dogless for the first time since 1998. And it felt weird.
So I started volunteering to walk the dogs at Special Pals, a well-respected shelter in Houston. One day, as I pretended to do office work there, I noticed a giant, white, fluffy, gorgeous thing strolling casually and slowly around the office, saying hello to everyone who cared to chat. She was clearly a very special dog, evidenced in part by the fact that no one else had been allowed to just hang in the office while the other dogs were being put through their paces.
Alaska, it turned out, was her name.
This is Allie on the way home from the shelter. Fresh air is good.
Her head shape reminded me of my old yellow lab, Maggie, so I was immediately drawn to her. Soon I found myself talking with Valerie, then the Special Pals kennel manager, about her. “She’s a Maremma Sheepdog” Valerie said. I’d never heard of the breed. As it turned out, few people in the U.S. have.
The Maremmano Abruzesse is the ancestor breed of the Great Pyrenees and has existed almost entirely unchanged since Roman times. They’re unrecognized (thank God) by the AKC, which has allowed the few of them who are in America to avoid being interbred with golden retrievers, pugs, or Afgan hounds – all the terrible stuff that happens when a breed gets really popular. As livestock guardian dogs, Maremmas are extremely intelligent, independent, somewhat aloof, and as I was to learn, absolutely opposed to being indoors, at all times. So Allie sleeps outside, even when it’s in the single digits. I literally have to drag her in.
And there is the especially endearing quality of Maremmas, which is hard to impart to anyone who has not experienced one, that they just do not give a damn what you think.
So as I talked to Valerie about her history, it became clear that Alaska needed a person who could understand and handle her. She’d been in and out of Special Pals for a year and a half with her littermate, JJ. She and JJ escaped their owner’s house repeatedly, wandered around, and over months, wound up in the hands of the good people at Special Pals over and over again.
One of the employees there mentioned that they often put Alaska in one of the outdoor huts, which kinda resemble human shelters, with pitched roofs and windows about five feet off the ground. “She even gets out of there” he said, pointing to the window. There was also the story about a trial adoption gone wrong, when an unsuspecting would-be adopter had left her closed up for a while and paid for it with the sacrifice of a few thousand dollars’ worth of Venetian blinds. The tales of Alaska’s destructiveness were many, but that’s not what I listened to.
Allie and her brother JJ, the first day they landed at Special Pals
I listened to the voice that said “If anyone can help this dog, you can.” So Alaska came home for a test drive, and I eventually abbreviated her name to Allie. I remember googling the breed, coming upon a webpage of “The Maremma Sheepdog Club of America” and reading “Maremmas are not recommended as pets.”
I say all the time that owning Allie is like owning four regular dogs, so there is a great deal of truth in the above caveat. But I knew that enough mind- and heart-melding with a dog can overcome almost anything.
I was immediately apparent that if I were to keep Allie, I’d have to radically alter my lifestyle. No more weekend trips to Austin. No walking out the door at 7:30 am and returning at 6:00. Indeed, pretty much everything would be turned upside down, and there were times when I thought “How am I going to do this?”
Gradually, I did indeed change my entire lifestyle in order to be able to keep Allie and give her a good life. I didn’t have 200 acres of pasture, like Maremmas require. I didn’t have a flock of sheep, like they need. I certainly didn’t have penguins for her to protect from foxes (if you haven’t seen the movie Oddball, it’s a good way to get to know the breed). All the things Maremmas normally have and the environment they need to thrive was lacking. Literally all of it.
I could offer none of the things they need to thrive, except perhaps one thing. I got it. I understood. I figured that might do it.
Maremmas are a wild breed. They’re working dogs. They’re bred to do a job. And since Allie is effectively an unemployed security guard, I compensate for all the things I can’t do by doing every single little thing I can do. When my co-workers look at me like “Why the hell does he take that dog everywhere?” and people don’t seem to understand why she goes with Heather and me to dinner (outdoors) when it’s 35 degrees and cloudy, or when I say to someone “I can’t do that because I don’t have anything to do with Allie,” I really don’t care.
The rewards of being a best friend to a dog like Allie are endless. Everywhere she goes, life is a spectacle. People just look at her and smile. As I drive around town, people mel into “awwwww” expressions when they see her giant head and neck sticking out of my car. As I walk about the plaza at lunch every day, we’re approached by (no exaggeration here) at least ten different groups of people who want to pet and admire her. Being with Allie is a circus.
Despite her intelligence and independence, she and I are absolutely joined at the hip (so to speak) and I know she’d be lost without me. I’ve seen the look in her face when I disappear behind some Chamisas on a walk. I made a promise to her (and to myself) that her life would be a lot better with me than it would otherwise have been. After six years, I think we’ve nailed it. It has been extremely difficult at times and a ridiculous amount of trouble, and I dare say most people wouldn’t have stuck with her. But it has been an amazing experience.
Because rescue, dammit, means rescue.
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