Early on July 29, 2017, I met a van that had driven overnight from a Miami animal shelter to the Lower East Side. The first dog onto the sidewalk was a skinny, wide-eyed chihuahua mix—a young adult male named Cam, or so I was told when I signed up to foster. It wouldn’t take long to discover that this dog was neither young nor male, and that she was much more of a Debbie, anyway. I hailed a cab home. On the Williamsburg Bridge, she buried her face into the crook of my elbow. She’d do that often over the years, and it would always remind me of the first time. Debbie took her last car ride in my arms on December 14.
I know I’ll love many dogs in my lifetime, but there will only ever be one Debbie. We are beyond heartbroken, but feel incredibly lucky to have known her. She was so sweet, so weird, so funny, so willful, so loud, and so brave. She was deeply loved and deeply loving. Never has somebody so small—10 pounds, but with the locked-joints inertia of a hippopotamus when she didn’t feel like walking—been so big.
Deb survived cancer in 2022. The surgery left her with an asymmetrical butt, somehow even cuter than before. She loved to bake in the sun and to nest in laundry hot from the dryer, especially if it was already folded. She warbled an aria when we cooked steak at home, and an entire solo opera for fish. She may have saved a stranger’s life once with a fatefully timed poop. She was never happier than when she was carried in her sling, one leg out, and became an unlikely Queens nightlife fixture that way. She had many aunts and uncles, whose laps were her favorite places on Earth. She picked out
@renostache for me—really, for herself—and missing Debbie makes us miss Baco, best of good boys, even more.
We’re grateful to
@amcny , who cared for her with kindness, and to
@waggytailrescue , who brought me my best friend. I’ll think of Deb always and I hope you will, too. But most of all I hope that you’ll foster or adopt a rescue animal like her.
Debbie rules, forever.
