Introducing: Doctor Cooper Cheese Esquire, The Third

BEHOLD: A DOG.

It’s a strange thing, to get a dog after you’ve ever had any other dog, because frequently the new dog is there to replace, in some sense, a dog who has come before them. I don’t mean as a literal replacement, where you’re hoping to get a weird little clone of the former (likely ending up with a real Paper Jam Dipper situation there), I just mean, you know you had a dog in one of the beloved dog slots in your household, and then one day, you didn’t. You had a VOID OF DOG and that hurts to have but it’s also kind of awful to fill, isn’t it? The great emptiness of having lost a dog hurts really horribly, but it can feel, I dunno, somehow like a betrayal to replace the dog that you lost, too.

(Ah, the paradox of grief: terrible to behold, but worse, perhaps, to be rid of.)

But the truth is, as George Carlin correctly noted, life is a series of dogs. And when we lost Loa in April, I knew at some point we would not be replacing her, because she is irreplaceable — but, that we’d still want to and maybe even need to fill the Great Yawning Dog Chasm in our life.

That has now happened.

We now have Doctor Cooper Cheese Esquire, the Third:

Cooper — or Coop, or Cheese, or Mister Squish, or simply Dude — came to us quite fortuitously, whereupon we entered into the possibility of getting a new dog by setting an incredibly high standard for ourselves, one that we knew would take a long time to surmount. We figured we’d dip our toes into the process, waggle them around a bit, and then slowly, slooooowly wade into the waters of New Dog Loch over the next several months. Maybe we’d end up with a dog by Christmas, we thought. That’d be quite speedy!

*clears throat*

Our last two dogs, Loa and Snoobug, aka the greatest dogs ever, were both shelter pups, each of them coming from one particular shelter called Last Chance Ranch. They’re a great, great shelter. They are like sommeliers pairing people with the best dog available. They are cautious with who they give dogs to, but not so cautious that they’re just driving by in a van and chucking a puppy at your head before speeding off. They always have dogs, but rarely do they have them for too long.

So, we took a look at their website, saw they had their annual Open House. We decided to go. The event is less OOH LOOK AT OUR ANIMALS thing and more a fun day with merchants and food trucks and horse demonstrations and stuff. But they also walk their dogs around so you can meet them. Mostly we figured, hey, we’ll meet a few dogs, get used to this process again, and that’ll be great. Who doesn’t want to meet random dogs??

Thing is, both my wife and I, independently of one another, also looked at their list of current, adoptable dogs.

And we saw one named Scout.

He was listed as seven months old, and as a Hound / Terrier mix.

My wife was like, “I don’t really want a boy dog?”

And I was like, “Oh, same, and also, a dog who was part retriever would be nice.”

And we were, together, like, “Yeah, no, probably not this dog,” and yet, I guess in each of our minds we were like, well, but he looks really nice?

So we went, wandered around, met dogs, and it was great.

And yet, we hadn’t seen Scout wandering around.

They weren’t really doing new appointments for one-on-one dog meets that day, but we figured, okay let’s just pop in and see what’s up.

I had already put in a generic application and was approved, so that helped when we got in there and they were like, it’s a really busy day, but you guys ARE approved, and your last two dogs did come from here, soooooooo.

And the very nice young woman behind the counter said, “Oh, I know what you need. You guys need to see SCOUT.”

And it was like, shit, okay, she read us like a damn book. We hadn’t said anything about Scout. She just knew.

So — they bring this dog out.

And he is just an absolute love bug. He is a dog-type dog, if you know what I mean — just a happy galloping FRIEND TO EVERYONE. He came to each of us in order, and with each of us he leaned into us, then melted to the floor like the cheese on a cheeseburger.

We spent maybe five minutes with the dog. They also showed us another dog, Lumi, who was this sweet little hound girl, but they correctly (if a bit grimly) noted: “She loves other dogs, and she’s gentle, so she’s going to get along great with your older dog, but she’s also maybe not going to do great when that dog… isn’t around anymore.” And I thought that was actually pretty insightful and thoughtful. So we said, fuck it, whatever idea we had about being cautious and critical through this process was out the fucking window.

We loved Scout.

We wanted to adopt Scout.

Like, right then and there.

But they said, you haven’t had a dog meet yet. Meaning, we still needed to bring Snoobug up to meet him. To make sure they don’t try to tear each other to ribbons or something.

Further, they do not generally put a ‘hold’ on dogs, so if we walked out of there, there would be plenty of chances for people to adopt him. And they would, because he was great. (And would have a shot at walking the open house that afternoon.)

We said, hell with it, we’ll go get our other dog right now.

And they said, it’s too busy to do that today.

But.

BUT.

They also said, you know what, we can see this is the right fit, so we will put a hold on him. Nobody else will be able to adopt him until you bring your dog up in a couple days. So, two days later, we were back up there, and Snoobug and him had a great DOG-MEET-DOG situation:

And that was that. There were no barriers to us taking him home.

So, spoilers warning:

We brought him home.

We’ve had him for several days now, and lemme tell you —

This dude rules.

He very much has his own personality, and yet, reminds us of our last dog, Loa, in a lot of crucial ways. He loves toys. He’s food-focused. He’s people-focused. But he’s also none of that to the extreme. He isn’t destroying toys (or our stuff). He loves treats but isn’t always on the hunt to eat stuff he shouldn’t. He’s not so much a Velcro dog as a dog who always wants to know where we are before he chills out. He’s incredibly sweet, and fun, and smart? He’s actually very polite? Snoobug has come around to him, too, which I’m so glad for, because — you know, she and Loa were like sisters. They worked in tandem quite well. And we weren’t sure what it would be like to bring in a young buck like this goofball — but his energy has given Snoobug energy. She’s kind of come back alive a little? Doing a lot less loafing about. (Not that there’s anything wrong with loafing!) They chill in the same bed without an issue, so I love that. And he gets along splendidly with my sister’s new dog, a seven-month-old something-or-other. They spent about 45 minutes just tearing into each other in the best possible way:

(Oh, the other thing? He’s not a seven-month old hound-terrier, either. He’s a 9-ish month old hound-retriever mix. As evidenced by how relentlessly — and how well — he will play a game of fetch.)

He’s already sitting like a little prince. We’ve got him ringing the sleigh bells by the door when he wants to go out. No accidents in the house. He’s also really pretty! I mean, my gosh, his eyelash game alone is champion shit:

Though to be fair, he’s not always so well-put-together:

Still. What I’m trying to say is —

We’re very, very lucky.

AND HE’S VERY SQUISHABLE LOOKIT THE LITTLE SQUISHY MAN HIMS A PRECIOUS GENTLEMAN

Ahem.

You’ll have to excuse me. I just can’t help it. Look at him.

Expect more COOPER content to come, I’m sure. Honestly this might have to just be a COOPER CHANNEL, 24/7 from here on out, but okay fine I guess I’ll still talk about apples and book-writing and all that.

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If you wanna help keep Mister Cheese here in that sweet kibble, buy my books. And if you get ’em from D-Town, they can send them to you signed and personalized.

Oh, also, don’t forget:

I’ll be at Gibson’s Bookstore in New Hampshire on Oct 13th with Delilah S. Dawson, and also with Delilah at Phoenix Books in Burlington, Vermont. Then, I’m at Can*Con in Ottawa before heading back into the states and hitting up Oblong Books with Sam The Man Rebelein on October 20.

(And if you’re reading this the day I’m posting it — I’ll be at Doylestown Bookshop tonight in support of Keith Rosson and his newest, CRONE. 6PM!)

OKAY BYE