This story originally published online in The 9th Street Journal.
On a recent Tuesday night, on the center patio of Ponysaurus, a woman in a magenta tennis outfit juggles a pilsner in one hand and a tawny puppy in the other. One table over, a little girl with two vertical blond pigtails totters across a picnic bench like it is a balance beam. In the middle of the action, a tan and white hound lurches about excitedly, his long tongue flapping to and fro as he attempts to move in four directions at once while at the other end of his leash, a tall woman with light brown hair is yanked along for the ride.
“Dennis!” chides the woman, Jackie Healy, apparently very used to the hound’s shenanigans. She has been volunteering at the nonprofit Hope Animal Rescue for five years.
“I have eighteen fosters right now which is…not normal,” she says, laughing and patting Dennis’s side soothingly.
In order to transport them all to and from events, Healy admits to having bought a bigger car.
“A few years ago, you bought a bigger house!” her friend, Melanie McIndoo, chimes in.
Healy shrugs in acceptance. “I was in a townhouse and doing two litters at a time, and it was a bit crowded, so I bought a bigger house and I was like, ‘I can do three litters at a time!’”
It is the third Tuesday of the month, so a steady hum of laughs, barks, and a buoyant backbeat envelop Ponysaurus’s tree-hugged backyard. In lieu of scales and hooves, the beer garden has come alive with a fluffier array of mixed breeds for Hope Animal Rescue’s Pints & Pups adoption night.
Cooing patrons and volunteers cluster around enclosures of yipping puppies and romping leashed dogs. Near the entrance, two young women recline in Adirondack chairs and catch up over margarita pizzas, oblivious to the intrepid four-legged explorer peering out at them from behind a nearby trash can.
Orville, a two-month-old terrier, has ambled away from the pack in pursuit of new frontiers (and pepperoni). Snuffling around for treasure beneath a neighboring picnic table, the curious rover is suddenly scooped into “air jail” by his foster mom, Liz Arsenault.
Orville and his littermate Wilbur are two of the roughly two dozen dogs up for adoption at the event, including Rooster, Dallas, Junie, Strudel, and Eclair, and two litters of puppies, the Band Geeks and the Hot Italian Pupperonis.
Arsenault and her husband, Waylin Yu, have gravitated towards fostering puppies since adopting their first dog, Ziggy, at a similar rescue event. Ziggy is not always comfortable with other dogs, but has become almost a second mother for the youngsters Arsenault and Yu bring home.
“She’s so tender with them,” Arsenault explains, Orville’s round belly spilling out between her arms. “And we like getting to, you know, create a comfortable waiting room for them until they go home.”
In Arsenault’s opinion, Pints & Pups is a great opportunity for dogs to socialize and build confidence. Betty White, a ten-year-old Maltese, is not so sure. The prim little lady regards her surroundings skeptically from the safety of a volunteer’s lap.
In one leafy back corner tucked away from the action, Carolyn Reynolds lounges with her wife, Allison Wadleigh, and their foster pit bull terrier mix, Miss Peanut. The sound of tweeting birds floats down from the branches above.
Reynolds and Wadleigh couldn’t bring Miss Peanut’s favorite weighted blanket to the event, but she seems to be doing just fine.
“This is how we decompress her,” Reynolds jokes, the thirty-five-pound dog draped on her lap like a baby. Miss P. lets out a whining woof, but her rabbit-like ears and white-tipped paws flop harmlessly forward.
The couple has grown quite attached to the goofy pit bull, but already have two dogs at home and aren’t ready for a third permanent pet. “We actually foster failed our third dog who we also met at this event,” says Reynolds sheepishly.
Since they can’t keep Miss Peanut themselves, Reynolds and Wadleigh have very high standards for potential adopters. “We’re like, the perfect family has to adopt her,” says Wadleigh.
But “perfect” can look different for everyone. “It just depends on what the dog needs,” clarifies Reynolds, still cradling Miss Peanut.
Not far away, a new connection is forming. Kenia Thompson, dressed in a geometric printed jumpsuit and oversized rose-tinted aviators, snuggles a tiny tan puppy to her chest. Amalfi, the lucky little one, may have just found his match.
Thompson recently lost her elderly pinscher and worries that her other dog, Peaches, will be lonely without a buddy. Her daughter is at dance class down the street, so she wandered in for some cuddles to pass the time.
When asked if she’s looking for something specific in a pet, Thompson shakes her head.
“I don’t discriminate,” she reveals. “I go by energy. When I walked up, he was by himself, and he just looked so sweet and peaceful and, you know, his spirit felt good, so I’ve been holding him ever since.”
From the nook of her right arm, Amalfi blinks his gray-green eyes placidly in agreement.
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