The first real clue was when I picked him up. I didn’t realize it until later.
I had recently been dumped by my boyfriend. He was one of the first men to ever pay attention to me and I was recently out of the closet and desperate for any sort of positive attention after years of self-loathing. We were together for three years and his departure left a huge hole in my life. This was shortly after COVID restrictions were easing up, but there was a definite sense of anxiety still in the air.
I was forced to get through it all without him. I struggled. Life got meaningless for awhile. I think it got that way for most of us, right? I started drinking more. Life felt empty. I came home one night from the bar, wasted, and this is the weird thing - I don’t remember booking the appointment at the local humane society to see the dogs.
I look at my online history, and there’s nothing there.
The next morning, I got a text notification confirming my appointment.
I should’ve ignored it. But put yourself in my shoes. I just assumed I had gotten drunk and made the appointment - it wasn’t until later when I checked my browser and phone logs until I realized I hadn’t made any sort of appointment.
I was likely still drunk. And I was absolutely still feeling crushed and alone. I had the extra income. I needed the company. So I went.
And there he was.
I don’t know why he caught my eye. Or how. I suspect something I don’t quite understand. Hell, I’m not a dog guy. I knew they offered a sense of companionship I desperately needed at the time, though.
Enter Sparky.
He was a golden retriever, decent sized for a four-year-old. His cage card mentioned how he was just abandoned on the side of the road by his owner six months ago, right during the middle of winter. The personality traits on the card included “super smart”, “good dog” and “loyal”. I would’ve chosen much different ones now.
I wasn’t a dog guy - but I saw Sparky and something clicked. He was, in essence, the most “dog” dog you can imagine. It was like someone molded and spit out a perfect looking golden retriever - save for his ears, which looked oddly gnarled, as if he was attacked and they healed that way.
Most dogs at a shelter are just stressed, overly stimulated, and will bark and go nuts at your presence alone without making that connection. Sparky didn’t do any of that. He was in a crowded kennel and didn’t make a peep as I approached.
He sat there, waving his tail, like he was waiting for me, specifically.
It’s a blur from there. I’m genuinely concerned about the inability to remember most of this.
I do remember leaving and going straight to Petsmart. I bought all the essentials. Pets were okay on my lease -I’d just let my landlord know later. I was thankful for keeping the second-floor apartment in the breakup. I remember a few days going by as I prepped and before I knew it, Sparky was home.
I quickly learned a few things about Sparky.
Walking him was oddly difficult. The humane society told me he wasn’t super social with other pups, but wasn’t aggressive. They technically didn’t lie.
It was the other animals that I had to worry about.
Sparky wouldn’t react on walks to aggressive pups. He’d stand his ground, wagging his tail - not submitting by any means but clearly not phased by literally every dog I crossed getting aggressive with him. Even the tiny ones would go beserk once they got near him. I learned I had to time my walks to avoid people.
Like his cage card said, he was loyal. Loyal to a complete fault. He wouldn’t leave my side. I read about separation anxiety for dogs, and given what I knew about his history, it makes sense. I felt for the guy. He was abandoned and left on the side of the road.
I knew the feeling.
The problem came at night. I don’t know when it started. He slept with me from about the second or third day. He’d whine and cry if he didn’t. I didn’t fight it. It felt nice to have something in the same bed with me still. I think about how much he might’ve known this.
It became a common experience for me to wake up with him growling at me.
The first time it happened, I was terrified. I was laying on my side, facing away from my alarm clock. He was roughly three or four feet away from my face, his face illuminated by the soft neon glow of the clock. His teeth were bared. His hair was up. I made eye contact with him, panicked - the second our eyes connected, his growl got louder, then he stopped completely, as if he had made his point. He’d close his eyes and fall asleep (or pretend to.)
This happened at least a couple of times a week. I never said anything or tried to get him to stop. I was terrified. He’d stop the second he knew I was awake. He wanted me to know he could hurt me at any time.
Then there was the fire.
I am thankful I caught it in time. If I tell people what I think happened, they will think I’m crazy, even with what’s happened since.
According to the fireman, a series of frayed appliance cords in the kitchen must’ve gotten wet somehow. Bullshit. I had recently replaced the power cords when my ex took them when he moved - yes, he was that kind of guy. The important thing was I knew those cords were new.
A stray spark caught a nearby paper towel roll according to the story. I noticed it almost instantly. I was playing Overwatch at the time, and I immediately leapt from the couch to get to the kitchen when I heard the fire alarm.
Sparky didn’t want me to put it out. He immediately followed and I swear to you, this dog bit my pant leg and began pulling me away from the fire. He was rough about it too. He bit hard into my calf, drawing blood. Some people told me he was trying to save my life.
They didn’t see the look in his eyes. They didn’t feel the blood I felt pour down my leg when he bit into it. They didn’t hear the growl or feel his head thrash as he had me in his grip.
I felt so much shame the moment when I kicked him. I don’t anymore. He yelped. I managed to break free and grab the fire extinguisher and stop it before things got worse. The last of the flames began to die out and the adrenaline began to fade. I felt the pain in my leg and leaned back on the kitchen counter.
Sitting directly in the entry of the kitchen, tail wagging, just staring at me, was Sparky.
I tried to talk to people about it. Nobody believed me. In retrospect, that’s what he wanted. It isolated me further from people. I didn’t know what to do.
We fell into some sort of dead routine for awhile. He never was overtly physical to me - but the threat of it since the fire was always there. I had caught him since chewing on some things directly in front of me - chewing wasn’t a behavior he showed until after the fire. He was disobedient and kept doing it when I told him to stop. I kept thinking about the frayed wires that started the fire.
A week later is when I fell.
I had said Sparky and I got into a routine, right? Even with that overwhelming sense of dread and fear, I still found myself walking the dog and taking care of him. The depression of the breakup mingled oddly with the fear and the confusion of my situation. I didn’t feel safe, but I also felt alone, and this routine was something I could control.
It was around 1 am. July. It was hot. I was wearing shorts, and I was going through the motions with Sparky. I put the leash on him. He never stopped watching me as I did the motions of getting ready for the walk. It felt like I was being watched by something way more intelligent that I could ever understand. I hated it.
This dog, who is oddly calm in most cases, absolutely loses it the second I open the door. He yanks the leash forward, about to hurtle down the stairs. He never showed this kind of behavior before. It wasn’t just excited dog behavior though - this was planned.
I am surprised. I get yanked forward towards the first few steps.
Sparky takes an extremely hard left turn in front of me. His leash gets tangled in front of my legs. He darts behind me and my fate is sealed.
It’s only one flight, but I hit every single step.
I feel myself connecting face-first with a step, breaking my nose. According to the paramedics, I shifted to my side as I fell, and that protected me from snapping my neck. That’s what did eventually cause me to break my arm, though.
My head hit the floor, and I couldn’t process anything. I knew I was hurt, I knew I fell, but I didn’t pierce the series of events together until the hospital. I tried to reach for my phone with my right arm, and that’s when I saw the bone jutting out from my forearm. I never saw a bone outside of my body before. I didn’t expect it to be so wet.
I tried calling out for help. I reached for my phone with the other arm, and I made the mistake of making eye contact with Sparky.
He was sitting at the very top step, motionless. Watching me.
Very, very slowly, he began to walk down the stairs. He began to growl.
I stretched further for my phone, desperately trying to reach it. I called out for help. I notice Sparky reach the bottom step. I kick him. It barely registers. He continues his eye contact with me the entire time, growling, until he sees the broken bone jutting out of my forearm.
Without any sort of warning, Sparky latches down on the broken bone and begins to pull and thrash. I swing my good arm down on him, but he doesn’t let go. He pulls harder, trying to separate the bone from my arm.
I screamed out for help one more time as I slammed my first into him. His growl was replaced by, and I know this sounds crazy, a full roar, and my vision blacked out.
I woke up in the hospital six hours later.
One of my neighbors eventually found me, and only me, covered in blood on the floor of my complex’s lobby. Sparky was nowhere to be seen.
The official story, and technically true one, I guess, is that I fell as I went to walk my dog, who got spooked and ran off. The police asked me if I wanted them to put any missing notices out for Sparky. I told them emphatically no.
The only part of the story that the police couldn’t answer for me was what happened to chunks of my forearm bone that had jutted out of my skin during the break. The bone itself looked like it was chewed off and separated by a wild animal. It wasn’t on the scene. I’m due for surgery in a few weeks.
Sparky hasn’t been seen since.
I can’t help but wonder about his owner before me. What caused him to dump Sparky on the side of the road? Was he attacked like me? Did whatever Sparky was get a bone from them too?
I still hear him at night. I know he’s not there, but I sometimes wake up, and there that growl is.
I think I’m sticking with cats.