After three weeks at my parents' house, learning how to go to the bathroom outside, destroy a metal gate, and expressing her strong fear of thunderstorms, it was time to return to Chicago with me. Having not notified the car rental agency that I had a dog (and therefore incur yet another fee), I was relieved when she climbed right into her crate in the front seat, and relaxed when she plopped down inside and proceeded to take a nap as soon as I hit 196 South. I even risked a stop at the Dutch Farm Market for a basket of apples, garlic, and other fresh-from-the-farm autumn treats. I was there less than 10 minutes, but as I walked back to the car, I could hear that high, terrified bark emanating from my little economy car. As soon as I opened the door, she stopped, now safe as her two-dog pack was once again complete.
Home for good, Nadine began to rediscover a world she last saw as a sickly and frightened pup. Where she once cowered in corners, Nadie sniffed and snorted her way along every square foot of my little condo, turning each piece of furniture into her seasonal allergy scratching post. Her 10 lbs was suited perfectly for condo living as she no longer had to worry about monitoring her pack in a 4-bedroom, two-story house with a garage. Laps around the dining room table were no longer possible, but laying in the hallway with one eye on the living room and one on the bedroom while I wandered back and forth was Nadine's little Avonlea. We still had to establish a routine, but it was certainly clear that this pooch was going to make herself right at home. Nadine really was a new dog, as I hoped she might be once she had a taste of what dog life was supposed to be - one that didn't involve awful living conditions and giving birth three times a year. After eight years of hell, Nadine was finally home.
That said, the stairs of my building were a trial. Two flights up was possible, but down was her haunted forest. She wouldn't even enter the landing unless she was being carried. The other option, the elevator, is a creature from a bad horror movie - slow moving, unexpectedly noisy, eerily unresponsive, and apt to make you jump (in an attempt to get it moving again) - so I tried to avoid it. I carried Nadine down the steps and was determined to get her to climb up them. After a week she was marching up the steps and none too proud of her new trick. She would trot up ahead of me, sometimes overshooting the third floor and cruising right up to the fourth. I quickly learned not to let her off the leash or she would be on the top floor before I could blink. Not to mention that she didn't seem to understand the edge of the steps was open. Occasionally she would get a little too close, setting my heart pounding that she would tumble straight down two or three flights to the cement floor below. Twice her foot slipped off the side while I dived to grab her.
The elevator took a little more coaxing. As I've mentioned, Nadine wouldn't take treats when she was frightened, so luring her into the elevator with food was pointless. The elevator was small with a very loud door that banged every time it opened or closed. Quite disconcerting to a little dog, although once inside, the mirror was endlessly entertaining as she gazed and pawed at her own Katie Maurice in the window. The bigger issue was the inch-wide gap between the machine and the building. One paw or another would fall into that gap and she didn't like it one bit. She would sit on the solid tile floor while I knelt in the elevator, pleading with her to come inside. The only redeeming quality about the elevator, in Nadine's little world, was that it led to the great outdoors, which in Chicago is chock-full of the most wonderful thing a dog can experience - other dog smells. Smells that are new every day! Smells that worked magic in housebreaking Nadine; they said what she was supposed to do outside, in a way that English simply couldn't covey.
So, I carried her down the steps and mostly climbed up the steps, until one event after which we had to turn more and more to the elevator. As she swaggered her way up the steps one day, glancing back at me occasionally for my approval, her back legs fell out from under her. I don't know if her knees had slipped and locked up, but suddenly she was sliding back down the steps in front of me and getting no purchase with her furry paws. Her head swiveled back to me, eyes wide open, scared and looking for help. I covered the few steps between us and swooped her up, but that scare was enough to keep both of us from attempting the stairs again for a few weeks. After her fall, she never balked at entering the elevator. She just finally learned to avoid the gap.
Nadine and I settled into our new life, full of accidents and trips and falls by both of us. But, even though there were many pee-soaked rugs during those first months, as Anne would say, at least every morning was fresh, with no mistakes in it. Yet.
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