She was home, but as far as we were concerned, she was nameless. We didn’t want to encourage “Missy”, so we needed to think up a new name fast, preferably something that sounded similar to “Missy” so she would quickly pick it up. We scratched our heads and brainstormed up a whole host of horrible ideas, until finally Nick said, “How about Zuni, after the beach we love so much in Culebra?”

For those who don’t know Culebra, it is a tiny island off of, and part of, main land Puerto Rico. There are no mega hotels; there is not a single fast food restaurant; and you do not go there if your idea of vacationing requires sightseeing. You go to Culebra to get on island time. You snorkel; you drink bush whackers; you mingle with the New England expats, an amazing number of which have moved or retired down there.

We love Culebra, and have been a number of times. We even got engaged there! What a perfect idea to name our dog after one of the quietest beaches we love on the island! (Zuni later even got to visit the beach! More on that, later!)

For those who have been to Culebra, you know that there is NO Zuni beach on the island.

Oops.

It took almost a year before we realized the beach is actually called Zoni. How ’bout that? Nonetheless, Zuni it was.

That first night, and the next, Zuni slept on the little red loveseat, which over time become her couch.  It wasn’t until the third night that she became curious as to where we went at night, or trusted us enough to care, and came trotting into the bedroom.

One big jump later (and I mean, BIG; our bed was quite tall, especially for her squat Dachshund legs) and Zuni landed on the bed. Three bounding hops later and she was at the top of the bed, where she u-turned and deftly burrowed under the covers, straight down to our feet…where she spent almost every night after.

If you haven’t heard of what happened to my feet during the Delaware marathon, or how Zuni reacted to it, you’ll want donate to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Every time the money raised goes up $100, I’ll add a new chapter to the Zuni’s Diaries. And, that one is next!

Why lay on the couch when you can topple over the back cushion and have something even squashier???

We wandered into the ARL that Sunday with no inkling that we might actually bring home a dog. We were unprepared, un-supplied and, for me at least, totally in fear that I would suck as a puppy-momma. But, this little dog worked her way into our subconscious; in short time she would work her way into our hearts.

For now, though, we did what any commitment fearing couple who knew they were heading for the inevitable would do. We put off the decision. We put a hold on the little girl, so no one else could adopt her, and then headed home to decide what to do.

As I understand it, you can hold an animal for 24 hours at the ARL. As it turns out, though, the adoption offices are closed on Monday, so by placing the hold on Sunday we had until Tuesday to decide. I was torn between looking forward to bringing the pup home and hoping that, by walking away, I could forget about the little black dog; the latter motivated entirely by fear.

And so, Monday passed. After work, I wandered from the Central Square T stop to Atwoods to meet Nick for a beer and discuss our puppy-fate. To be honest, I was quite scared to own a dog; I’d had a rabbit during graduate school and still think I did a poor job raising her. I didn’t want to repeat my ignorance with a dog.

I downed my beer while Nick tried to convince me that he was sure I’d be a good puppy-momma . But, ultimately, he said, the choice was mine as to if and when we got a dog.

And then I thought of that little girl in her cage, leaning into the bars for attention, and I started to cry. Right there in the middle of the bar, I looked at Nick and sobbed out, “We have to save her!”

To his sincere credit, Nick pulled off concerned, without being mortified by my public breakdown. I’m sure, in his head he was thinking, “We have to get this dog or my wife may implode.”

To be fair, the little dog was perfectly safe. The ARL takes very good care of the animals in its charge. But, in my head, this little girl was never getting out unless we saved her. She had already been there for a couple of months, and had two strikes against her that might draw out her ARL stay even longer.

For one, she qualified as a senior dog. I hate that term. She was about seven years old at the time and I just don’t consider that as senior, particularly for a small dog. Secondly, she had congenital heart failure. At the time, the disease manifested itself as a heart mummer, but the ARL provided a disclaimer saying, basically, that there was no telling what the disease could turn into.

Thankfully, as a first-time adult dog owner, I was blissfully unaware of what either of those two things could mean.  Nick promised, after my eyes dried and nose stopped running, to call the ARL first thing on Tuesday and say that we would like to adopt the little dog.

Now, on prior visits to the ARL, we had seen dogs tagged as fasting before they went to their new furever homes. Again, ignorance being what it is, we assumed the little black dog would do the same. Imagine Nick’s surprise when he called the ARL and they said, “Great, when would you like to come pick her up?”

Um, uh, excuse me?

Nick scrambled over to Petco for puppy basics: bowls, a leash, food…things you might have thought we’d already picked up. You would be wrong. I’ve often taken a, “When fate presents itself, don’t hesitate. Act!” approach, and getting this dog was no different.

So, at last, we come back to the fateful “Puppy” text.

While I made my way through the park to the ARL, Nick filled out forms and had the little girl microchipped, which required that we give her a name.

Um, uh, excuse me?

We didn’t have a name picked out; we just knew we didn’t want to keep the one she had. She was apparently surrendered by an older woman who could no longer care for her, and that woman had given her the name Missy. Nick would let me get a little dog, but there was no way he was walking a little dog named Missy around the South End.

But, Missy it was, until we came up with something better. I got to the ARL as they were wrapping things up. Typically, they provide a collar and bag of food for new owners. As it turned out, most of the dogs they had at the time were much larger than Missy. So they apologetically placed a thick, heavy collar around her neck, handed us a bag of large kibble, and sent us happily on our way.

Holy crap, we have a dog!

The shock and giddiness didn’t wear off as we walked to her new home with her too-large collar hanging on her neck and bag of too-large kibble in our hands. She trotted along with her tail held high right up until we arrived at the three steps that lead into our tiny condo. Suddenly, she put on the brakes at the stoop and looked at us as if to say, “What? Are you kidding? I’m not going in there!”

We coaxed her inside the front door, then through the inner door and down the stairs to our garden level apartment (Boston speak for, “Yes, I live in the basement.”) She was leery, but seemed to understand that we were now the key to her existence.

We showered her with love and took a ton of photos, not really knowing what else to do at this time. So, instead, we did what we normally do and set up the house to watch a movie.

I say “set up” because, at the time, we watched movies on a small computer screen, which required us to 1) spin the loveseat 90 degrees to face the screen and 2) move it closer in if we wanted a prayer of seeing anything. Nick and I snuggled on the loveseat, with Missy looking up at us, a little lost and confused.

As the fall evening chill approached, I grabbed the Easter-colored afghan that my grandmother knitted for me years ago. That triggered the first indicator that Missy really did belong to an older woman. She perked right up at the sight of the afghan, her ears springing into a position we would come to know so well.

She then jumped up on the couch, and, without asking permission or giving us a second thought, quickly and deftly burrowed under the covers. Nick and I watched and giggled in amazement.

Suddenly, Missy was home.

But, how did her name become Zuni? To find out, donate to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Every time the money raised goes up $100, I’ll add a new chapter to the Zuni’s Diaries.

Zuni swaddled in her favorite blanket!

“Puppy, puppy, puppy!”

I was walking through the Boston Common one pleasant late-October evening, on route from the Charles MGH T stop to the South End Animal Rescue League (the ARL, for those in the know) when the text that would unknowingly, but ultimately, change my life chimed onto my cell phone.

My one word response to my husband who sent the text from the ARL summed up our next four years with our soon to be pooch, “Yay!”

Like many Midwestern kids, I grew up with a family dog. Her name was Suzy, and we affectionately called her an American Shaggy, i.e., she was a purebred mutt.

I was only four or five when she came into our lives, but I still remember the day my father came through the door with her in his arms, a floppy bundle of mostly white, most likely to mat, fur. She bolted straight into the family room where we kids waited, and the family room was her domain henceforth.

Suzy is the reason I will only rescue dogs. Before I was born, my parents bought a purebred Maltese named Princess. Within months, maybe even weeks, the expensive pup squeezed under the fence and was never heard from again.  One expensive runaway later and my parents switched to pound puppies.

As my parents tell the story, when their arrived at the pound, Suzy was cowering in the corner of the cage she shared with a much larger dog. It was 1976; I shudder to think what downriver Michigan dog pounds were like at that point in time. My parents couldn’t leave the frightened pup in the pound and, decades later, I understand why.

Suzy was loyal, friendly, motherly, everything you could possible want in a dog. She is also the reason I adore smaller dogs. Suzy topped out at 20 pounds and, honestly, I probably remember her being that big only because I was so small at the time.

Suzy came into our lives when I was five, and it wasn’t until my freshman year in college that she lost her battle with cancer and my parents put her to sleep. My mom delivered the news as we drove home from the airport after my freshman year, trying to make me understand that they didn’t want to distract me while I was in the midst of finals. I donned my sunglasses and stared out the passenger side window, willing myself not to cry too hard in front of my mother. To this day, when I go for a jog near my parent’s house, I still look over at the fence where Suzy used to wait patiently for me to return so we could take our post-run walk together.

As I cruised (albeit, slowly) into adulthood, I dreamed of getting a dog, but the task always felt so daunting. I don’t have kids, never will, which makes getting a dog one of the biggest leap of responsibility I will likely ever take.

Fast forward to a couple of days before the famous text.

It was Head of the Charles weekend, to be exact. Boston weather, as anyone who lives here knows, is predictable only in its unpredictability. The Head of the Charles Regatta falls in October, one of those months that can hit you with anything from buckets of snow to hurricane force winds to summer heat.

This particular year was glorious. Nick and I strolled down the Charles River in our short sleeve shirts, watching crews row down the river. On our way back to the tiny South End condo we shared, we thought, “Hey, let’s stop by the ARL and look at the dogs.”

Weeks before, we started to consider getting a dog and began dropping into the ARL, mere blocks from our condo. The ARL’s Boston Adoption Center was close and convenient and we figured, at some point, the right dog would appear.

Denial being one of my favorite modes of operation, I made no plans for when that day would actually arrive. This particular day, we found a variety of dogs hanging out in their cages, and became fascinated with a beautiful young brindle pit bull who looked out at us fondly.

Now, when I call our South End condo “tiny”, I mean tiny. Nick and I shared 550 square feet of space, and bringing a dog into that space seemed to scream, “Get something small”. (It helped that I tended towards small dogs, anyway.)

The year-old pit bull was gorgeous, and I’m not one to shy away from a bully breed, but taking on this particular dog seemed daunting. My head was playing out scenarios of our life with this pooch, and all I could come up with was, “Well, I’ll be in really good shape after all the running I’ll need to do to get this dog enough exercise.”

As we knelt by his cage, Nick cooing sweet words to the pit bull and me wondering how I’ll ever be able to run far enough, everything changed.

The door to the dog area swung open and in trotted a little black dog – later we learned that she was a Chiweenie and, actually, dark brown – wearing a bright red coat reading, “I’m up for adoption!”

As the volunteer lead the pup into her cage, the pooch looked over at us and, as I remember it, let out a huff and planted a look on her face that read, “I can’t believe they made me wear this thing.”  You could almost hear the disdain dripping from the look on her face.

You see, this glorious day happened to be the annual doggie Halloween parade through the South End. To put this in perspective, you should know a few things:

1. The South End loves its dogs. I don’t have the statistics, but I feel like there are more dogs in the South End than in any other neighborhood of Boston.
2. The people in the South End love to dress their dogs up for Halloween, or any day, for that matter. Again, I don’t have the statistics and I’ve never watched the parade, but I’ve seen the pictures and the costumes are astounding.
3. Lastly, this particular little black dog has never been fond of two things: socializing with other dogs and wearing clothes.

As my husband focused on the pit bull, I watched this little black dog walk up to her cage. “Oh, look at that one,” I tapped Nick on the arm and pointed at the little girl as the volunteer removed the coat and locked her away.

The pooch went to the back of her cage for a quick drink, then spun around and trotted back up to the bars. She looked right at us, got up on her hind legs, and leaned sideways onto the bars to present the maximum amount of pettable body.  The look in her eyes was unmistakable, “Get me the hell out of here!” If she had opposable thumbs, I swear she would have rattled the bars.

Smitten. That’s the only word for it. A volunteer let her out of her cage, snapped a leash on her, and Nick and I trotted the little pooch around the block for a test walk. Behind the ARL is a short stone wall and Nick sat down so we could spend some time with the little girl. His butt had barely touched the wall when she promptly and nimbly jumped up on the wall and plopped into his lap. We found our dog.

But, believe it or not, we didn’t take her home that day! Want to hear more, particularly how I ended up in tears at a local bar? Donate to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Every time the money raised goes up $100, I’ll add a new chapter to the Zuni’s Diaries.

Sitting on laps was one of Zuni’s favorite past times.