For the love of a girl and her dog

Daisy pulls me north along the shore of Lake Michigan in the late-October afternoon. A breeze sends little chills through me. I am wearing only a light sweater over a sleeveless long dress as we walk through the grass and onto the asphalt. My jacket is inside the Theater on the Lake, as are all the other people who came to see Lauren and Sam get married. I get funny looks from people on the path, who must wonder what this woman in a formal dress and shoes, wearing a strange-looking garland of flowers around her neck, is doing walking a dog here.

Daisy. Photo by Lauren Frisch.

I would do pretty much anything for Daisy. The dog formerly known as TaDa! was my favorite of the eight sled dog puppies my mushing partner, Bonnie, brought home from Arleigh Reynolds’ kennel. I thought she was the most beautiful of the litter, with shiny black fur and lovely black-and-white spots and ticking on her legs, chest and belly. Her tail had a distinctive white tip that made her easy to identify among a team of mostly black dogs. Her siblings were wiggly and bombastic, but TaDa! would sit quietly with me, my arm around her, just hanging out together.

Daisy-TaDa!’s story is too long to tell here, but the short of it is that she ended up flunking out as a sled dog, and she also nearly flunked out of being alive because she would attack other dogs. I couldn’t bear losing this dog I loved, but I couldn’t take her myself. My friend Carol Kleckner put me in touch with Nicole Silvers, who specialized in working with aggression. I paid for TaDa! to be spayed, and I got used to the new name Nicole gave her: Daisy. 

The spay worked magic on Daisy’s temperament with other dogs. But she remained cool and distant to most people. A few potential adopters showed interest in her, but she showed no interest in them. I wanted her to find a home, and at the same time I dreaded the thought of losing her to some stranger. 

It turned out Daisy was waiting for Lauren. The day they met, it took about 30 seconds before Daisy jumped up on her.

I would do pretty much anything for Lauren. I would have flown from Alaska to Chicago, more than halfway across the continent, to attend her wedding even if Daisy hadn’t been there.

Lauren’s story also is too long to tell here, but the short of it is that she started out as my intern, ended up my boss, and in the process became one of my dearest friends. She had an outrageous sense of humor and a keen sense of play. She made up activities with the stuffed animals in my office, which only cemented my love for her. When Lauren adopted Daisy, I felt as if the universe had just given me the most astonishing and unimaginable gift.

Lauren doing Snoga yoga in my office.

A few years later, Lauren and Sam moved to Vermont, taking Daisy and part of my heart with them. Lauren sent photos on a regular basis. It was clear Daisy was living the best life a dog could ever ask for.

Daisy is supposed to be the flower dog in Lauren and Sam’s wedding ceremony. A few days before the wedding, Lauren texts me to see if I’ll come to her parents’ house to walk Daisy after I get to Chicago. She sends me a photo of Daisy lying in a chair, her body seemingly at rest but her eyes unsettled, not happy. Maybe too much high energy, too many things going on. She’s been on road trips before, she’s been to Chicago before. This is different.

When we get to the house, Lauren’s father answers the door. His face doesn’t even register—I am only looking for Daisy. She walks out the door and I go down on my knees, my arms around her. I hold her for a long time and bury my face in her neck, and give her kisses, and only belatedly begin to register anything or anyone else.

The plan is for Daisy to wear a garland of flowers and walk down the aisle with Lauren’s mom, Debbie. Debbie suggests that I sit in the front of the room so that Daisy will have a friendly, familiar face to walk toward. When the time comes, I sit cockeyed, turned half toward the door, waiting to be Daisy’s friendly target.

It is getting close to the start—maybe even a little after the ceremony was supposed to start. Debbie walks up and asks me to come with her.

Lauren is standing just outside the doorway, stunningly beautiful in her white dress. Daisy is trying her best to find the exit. Debbie says she thinks I will have to walk Daisy up the aisle. But Lauren knows her dog. It’s not clear that plan will work, and it’s very clear Daisy would be happiest back in the safety of someone’s car. How to get her there, though? The ceremony is about to start. I have no idea what car to take Daisy to, and to have Lauren’s mom walk her back out to a vehicle will hold up the whole wedding procession.

I can’t imagine what is going through Lauren’s mind. Her beloved dog, who was supposed to be part of the wedding, is freaking out, and there is no easy solution. 

Debbie looks at Lauren. “What do you want to do?” 

Lauren says, “I don’t know.” 

I’ll do anything to ease the look on Lauren’s face. I say, “Let me at least try.”

Daisy and I only make it a few steps into the room before she balks. I crouch next to her as she tries to turn around and bolt back out the door. I feel people looking at us while I hold Daisy in my arms. She struggles against me. I feel her fear all through her body. I can’t see her face, but Dave later tells me she looks panicked, mouth open, eyes wide. 

Sam and his parents walk past us down the aisle. People are looking at them, but also at Daisy and me. I stand up, turn around, and let Daisy take me out of the room. As I pass Lauren, I reach up and kiss her cheek and say, “I love you.” Daisy and I hurry down the hall and out to the safety of the lawn.

We walk around the lawn for a short while. I think the garland around Daisy’s neck is worrying her, but I don’t know what to do with it, so I take it off her and put it around my own neck. After a little while, Daisy seems to calm down. My thoughts are on the ceremony I don’t want to miss, and I wonder if we should try to go back in. Maybe if Daisy saw Lauren at the front of the room, she’d feel braver? 

We turn around, and Daisy willingly follows me back into the building, down the hallway of fog and spiders and cobwebs, and all the way up to the doors into the room. Her willingness gives me hope. But the doors are closed. The last thing I want to do is open those doors and make a spectacle. Someone comes out and I catch the door. Daisy and I slip inside. There are Lauren and Sam at the head of the room, silhouetted against the big windows that face the lake. Sam has just begun saying his vows to Lauren. I haven’t missed everything.

But Daisy is again in a blind panic. I whisper to her to look, whisper that Lauren is right there. I pet her, hold her, try in vain to calm her down. Nothing consoles her. We retreat again.

Earlier, before the ceremony, a fire alarm in the building went off, and the big fire truck that responded is still sitting out front. We turn away from it onto the path that leads along the lake side of the building, not realizing that this has put us in full view of the wedding attendees. Dave tells me later that Lauren remarks on her dog walking by. I hear a noise behind me and startle: the fire truck is right on our heels. Daisy and I jump off the pavement to let it by. Then she pulls me over grass and goose poop to the paved path that follows the shore.

We walk a long way down the path among bicyclists and walkers and runners. Daisy is not pulling hard anymore but keeping steady pressure on the leash. I look at my watch: 5:27 pm. The ceremony is probably close to over. I call to Daisy to turn around. She refuses. I tug at the leash. She sits down. This dog was born and raised a sled dog, and I know how to safely pick her up off her front feet and make her go where I want to go. But I can’t bring myself to do it. So onward we walk in the wrong direction, away from the place I most want to be.

I notice a break in the wall that separates the walking path from a concrete apron below it that runs directly against the shoreline. On impulse, I say, “Daisy, gee!” She turns right. We go down through the opening and onto the concrete. From here, if you’re a dog, you can’t see over the wall to the building or even the path you’ve been on. I say, “Daisy, gee!” again, and she turns right again, and she doesn’t realize we are going back.

By the time we get near the Theater on the Lake, I can see Lauren out on the lawn. Daisy and I come back up onto the path and head straight for her. After a happy reunion, the wedding photographer asks for photos on the lawn. She has some exceptional treats that make Daisy drool, and she poses willingly, to everyone’s surprise.

When the photos are done, Daisy is taken back to the vehicle she came in. She drinks a ton of water and then stretches out on her blanket. She is tired, but her eyes are calm. I tell her she did the best she could, and that I’m sorry about the scary room. I know I won’t see her again until next summer, and tears threaten, but I’ve only just met the people around me, so I stifle them. I tell Daisy I love her and say goodbye.

Later, at the reception, Sam and Lauren have transformed themselves into zombies. Lauren is an unsmiling bride with fierce dark eyes and black lips. The music is very loud and there is a lot of exuberant dancing. The band plays “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and I have to go find Lauren because this song always reminds me of her. We dance briefly together, and she says something to me that I can’t quite hear. Something like, “You realize, don’t you, that…” and the rest is lost to the music. I smile and nod uncertainly, thinking maybe it has something to do with Daisy. She says again, “You do realize that, don’t you?” and whatever it is seems important, so I say yes.