The Habanero

An Essay On Love At First Sight

With a bit of digging, I located a breeder of Havanese dogs in a New England mill town, two hours from New York city. The town had seen better days, but summer hid rusty smokestacks and collapsed fences with foliage.

The GPS guided me to a two-story colonial on a picture-perfect street, behind a picket fence and a lawn. I knocked on the front door. A woman answered the door. She seemed harried, and was hurriedly cradling a baby on her right arm.

“Come in, come in,” she said with a touch of an accent. You’re right on time. I’m Zela.”

The inside of the house was really dark, as the shades were drawn. I could tell there were objects moving around, like little UGPs (Unidentified Ground Phenomena).

It took a few seconds for my eyes to be able to discern shapes, velocity, and direction. Oh, that’s a dog. And there’s a kid, perhaps chasing the dog; and a bunch of toys --for kids, or dogs? Not sure. Yikes, that thing has wheels.

“Watch out, kid!” I said preemptively, as I brushed up against what looked like a sleeping pen, in which another dog was splayed on its side, suckling two puppies. Two more kids came out of nowhere, chasing a dog.

“My god, how many puppies do you have?” I said to Zela, who was clearing the path forward, the baby out front.

I stopped myself from adding — and how many children do you have?

“Two litters,” Zela said brusquely, as she maneuvered to avoid something brown and shaggy bolting out past her husband, through the patio door, into the back yard. The ground phenomenon was suddenly airborne.

“The little one’s out here… somewhere. It’ll take me a minute to find him. Just wait here a minute,” she said pointing to the floor, clearly intending for me to “stay.”

Closer to the light, I could see the kids were rosy-faced and snot-nosed. Two much larger, older dogs looked up at me, with very human expressions, smiling.

I stood on the back porch, trying to find the puppy I’d seen in the videos Zela had sent, as she wandered off with the kid.

A cell phone rang. I heard Zela talking and gesticulating. Why didn’t all the kids and the dogs just run off into the woods, I wondered, as there didn’t seem to be anything restraining them.

As I was taking in this scene, my eyes fell on the silhouette of a tiny black puppy, using the edge of a circular pot as cover. He had an expressive face, and seemed either shell-shocked, or appalled at the scene around him; either seeking refuge, or a place to have an illicit smoke.

But he’d seen me. And now he saw that I’d seen him, he backed up a little, so I could see less of him. I waited. He poked his head out, waited a few seconds, then then took a single bold step forward.

Zela walked by, still on her phone, shrugging and mouthing the words “I can’t find him”, exaggeratedly.

I turned back to the puppy, and opened my hands slowly, inviting him to come towards me. I was pretty darn sure this was the one I was here to meet.

Funny, I thought, us conversing silently like this, while and the breeder was frantically looking around. A little joint prank.

Crouching, I inched towards the little creature behind the planter. I extended my hand out and low, slowly, palm up, a foot from his nose.

The puppy walked backwards two more paces, feeling for the curvature of the pot with his tail. His dark brown eyes, delicate and soft, were positioned evenly over a well-proportioned muzzle and button-nose.

I shifted the game on him, and moved back a bit. He paused, then pranced decisively forwards. From bashful and shy, he’d become positively cheeky.

At that moment, Zela appeared and traced my gaze to the target.

“Ah there you are, you little monster.”

I generously assumed she was talking about the puppy.

“You’ve found each other.”

“Come on little one,” the breeder coaxed, before scooping him up unceremoniously.

“Here – why don’t you hold him,” she said, extending the puppy towards me. Weeks old, he was tiny. My middle and index finger supported his chest, while my pinky pressed his rear to my shoulder.

I could feel the warmth of his little body. His expression changed again, and it seemed to project both sensitivity and intelligence.

He tried to climb up my sweater, then, deciding this was too much effort, snuggled down contentedly into my arms.

“Do you mind if I just sit here with him for a bit?” I asked Zela.

I read somewhere that it takes two minutes to fall in love with a dog.

I had been a bit tense on the ride up. Almost instantaneously I felt at peace, as if someone had stuck me with a tranquilizer. Oxytocin at work.

The puppy’s markings had become more striking since the last video I’d seen of the litter: He was mostly black, but had a grey-and-white muzzle, a splotch of white on his chest and paws, and another dash of white on his rear quarters.

Suddenly upright, he started to lick my chin, slowly and deliberately, with his tiny, raspy tongue.

I understood the little one was still too young to leave his mother — though she wasn’t anywhere in sight. This was to be a meet and greet, and I’d planned to come back a couple of weeks to get him.

As I gingerly passed the puppy back to the breeder, I could see him twist his head back towards me, craning to see if I was still there. I couldn’t be sure, of course, but he seemed to be asking: Are you coming back? Will I see you again?

Maybe it was all me, but felt as if I was being separated from the other half of a magnet pair. I didn’t want to let him go — Suddenly, the thought seized me: What if someone else took him. I momentarily panicked.

Zela read my face well.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “he’ll be waiting for you.”

**NOTE to readers: I’m still undecided about mixing my Middle East content with a ‘touch of dog’. If you're much more interested in dog stories than Middle East politics, I invite you to subscribe to my newer Substack, Dogmender, which recounts some of my life and adventures over 17 years and 5 countries, with the Habanero above.

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