Meeting the Bean

So here’s how everything went down when we first met Franny last weekend.

The plan was to head up to Westchester County and “look” at the dogs they had up for adoption.

Right.

If we were going out there, we were coming back with a dog.

It was a semi-rainy, gray day when we hopped on the subway to Grand Central station, where we’d be taking the Metro North line for about a half an hour. Luckily, our nerves were distracted by the insane gentleman sitting across from us on the subway, slowly eating a Styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup, bite by bite. (At one point I turned to Crissy and whispered, “Is he--” She said, “--eating it? Yes.”)

When we hopped off the train in a little quaint town called Larchmont, we had a quick 7ish minute walk to the foster home, which was holding a litter of 5 female terrier mixes. We quickly found our direction (oh iPhone, what would I do without thee?), and excitedly headed towards the house, ignoring the question of how the hell we were gonna bring a dog back with us on the train once we pulled the trigger.

The foster parents were a very kind, friendly pair of empty nesters named Paula and David. Judging by the zoo-like smell of their house, they'd either been doing this for a long time, or were completely insane, or both. David let us into the house with a nod while on his cellphone, and Paula guided us out to the backyard.

As soon as we stepped outside, we were immediately mauled by five muddy, spastic puppies of all colors and coats. In a matter of seconds, it looked like we'd both army crawled through a mile of sewage. It was complete bedlam.

Now, I’m counting on the fact that Francine will never read this post, which is a gamble considering how fast she’s learning things, but I have to tell the truth here.

Here goes...

Franny wasn’t our first choice.

Hang on hang on! Let me explain.

As soon as we got outside, we both pointed to her and said, "That's the one." But the truth is, the as-yet-to-be-named Franny was not that into us. At all. She was pretty freaked out, actually.

She was the shyest puppy in the litter which, to be honest, made us really nervous. We didn't want a skittish, cowering dog that was gonna be afraid of it's own shadow, not to mention the roaring terror of a Manhattan rush hour. So we started eyeing a confident little black pup who made Crissy's face so filthy she looked like Al Jolson.

But something didn’t quite feel right. When we tried to take her for a walk, she whined and pouted and scrambled to get away from us. Not exactly love at first sight.

We started to agonize over it. Maybe this wasn't right after all. After a hour and a half of hand-wringing and apologizing and asking questions we already knew the answers to, we started to get cold feet.

And just when we decided to abort mission, one of the other dogs came over and sat in Crissy’s lap. Both of our eyes widened in excitement. “Sorry,” Paula said. “That one’s already been adopted.” Strike two.

Then, finally, Franny made her move. She screwed up all her courage, slowly staggered over, and with a big, lazy sigh, plopped down into Crissy's lap. And that was all she wrote.

David and Paula were great. They gave us a crate to bring her home in, and David drove us back to the train. After the half an hour back to Grand Central, and Franny's inaugural terrifying New York cab ride, we were finally home with our new pup.

And let me tell you something. I think we found the greatest dog on earth. All she wants to do is whatever we want to do. "Hey Franny, wanna go for a walk?" Walktime. "Yo, Fran, wanna sleep on the couch until noon?" Sleeptime. "Hey, Bean, how about we head outside and you drop a deuce?" Boomtown.

I don't know what we did to deserve this dog, but she's been a complete dream. I mean, she came housetrained, for god's sake. She's less than five months old.

They say dogs are good first baby practice. As long as our first baby is calm, quiet, and exits the womb potty-trained, we'll be all set.