When I moved from a studio apartment in Los Angeles
to a farmhouse on the Ohio River, I knew I’d have
a dog before I had a job. One Saturday evening, a
month before I started teaching at the
local college, my roommate and I took
a leisurely drive along the local country
roads. My roommate said, “I think the
dog shelter is up ahead.” We stopped by,
knowing full well that it was closed. As
we drove down the gravel road to the
shelter, we slowed down to pass a little
girl walking along. She waved to us.

“Are you going to see the doggies?” she
asked.

Her name was Lydia. She was nineyears-
old and an obvious expert at afterhours
dog canoodling. She ran around
the side of the building and showed us
where the dogs could come outside from
their pens. Each dog had a concrete patio,
secured by cinder block and chain link.
All the dogs ran to their fences. They
barked in unison. Lydia pulled us by our
hands around the building to the drop box
where people could leave unwanted dogs and cats without consequence.
There was a lone puppy in the little enclosed cage. He
was a quiet guy. Lydia leaned in and scooped him out.
She set him on the ground and went back to the other dogs in
their half inside/half outside pens. My roommate went with her.
I was alone with the drop-box pup. He stood, alert, ears up, tail
up, and looked at me without fear. He was sizing me up.
Like my family’s dog before him, he was the color of rust. He
had a black muzzle and a black stripe down his back that led to
his little rat-tail. It looked like it had been dipped in paint. His
legs were long. His ears were too big for his head. His rib cage
was the most prominent feature on his
scrawny little body.

Lydia left and my roommate and I
stood there with the puppy at our feet.
I picked him up and climbed back into
the car.

“Well, I guess you’re it,” I said to the
puppy in my lap.

We stopped at a pet supply store to
pick up the essentials: food, collar, toys.
The customer service associate, in a slow,
southern drawl, said, “That dog is all
leg.” I knew to look at his paws to predict
his size. They weren’t large. At least, they
weren’t disproportionate, like his ears.
We didn’t sleep that first night. He
raced around the living room and peed on
the carpet. I followed him around with a
roll of paper towels and begged him to lie
down. We weren’t yet speaking the same
language.

He was light enough for me to hold like rag doll. I carried
him around by his belly, my hand wrapped around it, holding
his back to my chest. We faced the world together. I brought
him into the vet’s office and set him on the scale. He was seven
pounds. The vet found worms in his little belly, which we fought
for those first few months. He had worms while he learned to go
potty outside. He had worms while I figured out what to name
him. He had worms as he grew into those ears.

He was thirty pounds in no time. He was forty pounds by the
time he was one-year-old. There was another ten-pound growth
spurt soon after that. By then, he’d discovered the Frisbee. He
was strong and solid from his twice-daily game of catch. He’d
grown from a seven-pound puppy into a fifty-pound athlete,
prompting me to often imitate that pet supply store customer
service associate’s accent and say, “That dog is all muscle.”

But that muscle came a lot later in our life together. During
that first year, he grew accustomed to the name “Seven pounds
and wormy.” Over those first few months together, he started
coming to me, or, at least, looking at me, when I said it. I said
it a lot. I said it in baby talk when I would coo at him and I
said it to strangers at the dog park when they told me he was
a good-looking dog. When people asked me his breed, I said,
“Whatever breed starts out seven pounds and wormy.”

I still say it a lot. Anytime anyone compliments me on his
good behaviour or his Frisbee skills, I always say, “He was
seven pounds and wormy.” I’ve said it enough times while looking
at him or pointing toward him, or even while holding him
when he was still small enough to hold by the belly, that he
understands that quick descriptive phrase as well as he understands
his own name.

It took me a week or two to find the right name. In the
meantime, he learned to come to me when I called for, “Baby
Puppy,” “Sweet Boy,” and, of course, “Seven Pounds and
Wormy.” The first two nicknames eventually fell away as he
grew accustomed to “Brodie.” The name seemed to suit him
somehow—the handsome boy, the bourgeoning athlete. His
name doesn’t eclipse what he was when I found him, though:
seven pounds, wormy, and ready to be loved.