* **
The next day, we’re wandering through a corridor at the Darling Springs Little Friends Rescue, an offshoot of the flagship San Francisco rescue group. It’s on the outskirts of town, and you can smell the ocean breeze from here, along with the strong scent of disinfectant and hopeful stray.
The cat room is down the other side of an orange concrete corridor, and we’ve been combing the rooms of dogs in the main hallway—each one with some dog beds, toys, and a cardboard piece of paper detailing info about the mutt on the window.Good with cats. Best without kids. Would do well with another dog. That kind of thing.
Sawyer’s pace is deliberate. He stops at each room, his jaw set hard, his eyes intense as he checks out the pups, stopping to say hi to each one.
At a Pit Bull-Lab mix who wags a hopeful tail his way, Sawyer drags a hand through his hair and blows out a breath. “How do I even choose? I want to save them all.”
“I know,” I say, my chest aching, feeling the same. “But you’ll know when you know.”
He swings his gaze past a Boxer mix, then a Lab-Husky, then a dog with so many breeds in it, I’m not sure anyone knows who he is. Sawyer winces, like it pains him to pass them up, and I bet it does.
It pains me.
When we near the end of the concrete corridor, he stops, and studies the dog behind the glass, then reads the info card. A Finnish Spitz-Basenji mix.
“He looks like a fox,” Sawyer says of the tawny pup with pointyears who stands tall as he scampers toward Sawyer, his curly tail wagging inquisitively. The card says he’s eight or nine and his name is Foxy, but I suspect that’s likely the name the shelter gave him.
“I wonder what his story is,” Sawyer muses, right as the shelter coordinator walks our way, lugging a plastic container full of syringes.
She stops and nods toward the room. Her dark eyes are friendly behind her black glasses, though her demeanor is super businesslike. “His owner passed away.”
My throat tightens.
Sawyer’s expression softens. “And no one could take care of him?”
The woman shakes her head. “No family.”
My chest hollows out. For the owner. For the dog.
“Do you know what his name was before?” I ask, out of curiosity.
She smiles. “Just…Dog.”
The grin spreads across Sawyer’s face as he turns to me. “It was meant to be.”
I think it was.
* * *
Sawyer and the dog hang out for a good hour, getting to know each other and taking a short walk around the block. He signs the contract, thanks the shelter coordinator, and then we leave. On the drive home, with the dog in a crate in the backseat of Sawyer’s car, I say, “You can’t really have a dog namedDog.”
“Why not?”
“Sawyer,” I say with a sigh.
“Seriously. Why not?”
“He’s not a plant or a car.”
He goes thoughtful as he drives toward his home. “You’re right.”
“You’ll give him a real name then?”
At the stop sign, he flashes me a smug grin. “Yes. I will call him…Mister Dog.”
Nothing is more Sawyer, and I love it.
