By Natalie Bickel
Explicit pop music pulsated, drowning out everyone’s labored breathing. An Olympic-sized pool couldn’t hold the class’s collective sweat as we moved in sync, connected to strangers. The cycle instructor relayed what should have been good news. But nothing felt good after the recent loss of my beloved beagle, Otis.
“This next song is for you and you alone,” she said, referring to the part of spin class where we’re encouraged to listen to our bodies rather than try and match the rhythm or move in unison with the group.
A cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” played, and several riders cooled down in the saddle. It felt tempting, but I refused to sit. I don’t slow down: I take unconventional routes that overexert my willpower, like choosing to adopt, writing books while working multiple jobs, and saying yes when my calendar has zero wiggle room. I double-book my life without sharing the load—never allowing for a dull moment, until I was met with an unexpected tragedy.
“You got Marley and Me’ed,” my friend said to me two weeks prior, referring to the early 2000s film that closely mirrored my situation. In the movie, a young couple starts new jobs, and finds a new home, and then falls in love with a mischievous puppy who makes their lives crazy but brings out the best in them.
On the day my husband and I got our Marley, I remember his nose poking through deck columns, eager to sniff the visitors who would become his parents. I should have known he would be untamable by how he unabashedly plopped in our laps, flipped his ear over his head to mimic a beret, and kissed, nibbled, and peed on us. We called him Otis—a dog gifted an old man’s name who never actually grew up.
Similar to my spin classes where we ride in sync the majority of the time, Otis made me feel like I was part of a pack. Whether it was keeping pace with each other on walks while nearby bushes of maiden grass tickled his face, playfully howling together, or pausing for cuddles during his training sessions, we found common understanding and rhythm between human and canine.
However, his pack was only for those he trusted, and he was skeptical of most. We believed part of this stranger-danger response was a result of early trauma. Otis had been rescued by a family before us, but they soon found out their child was allergic to dogs, so they had to give him back. And, once he lived with us, he immediately got sick with parvovirus, which is deadly to most dogs. We had to give him intravenous fluids around the clock for several weeks, watching him turn to skin and bones before he made a full recovery. Once he was healed, he had a run-in with a neighbor who came onto our property and tried to grab Otis to make him stop barking because he was trying to nap. Ever since then, Otis was terrified of most strangers, but especially men. This kept us from socializing and inviting people into our home and his space. Working remotely enabled this seclusion, and the three of us spent more time together than with anyone else on the planet.
My heart was full—but after having Otis in our lives for five years, my husband and I were ready to expand our family. With much consideration, we were drawn to international adoption—a process requiring endurance, self-evaluation, and education on parenting kids with special needs, trauma, and transracial family implications. We were inspired by an intergenerational community of friends who had either been adopted or whose families had an experience with it. We had found a community—another pack—that was running alongside us with continual encouragement and support.
Yet Otis was losing his battle with separation and social anxiety, feeling the need to constantly overprotect us. On walks, he’d bark ferociously at anyone who passed by on the other side of the road, and at home I couldn’t even go to the bathroom and shut the door without him whining while he waited for me to return. We wanted our house to be a place of peace in the chaotic world, especially for an adopted child moving to a new home in a new country with new parents. A loud, howling—and seemingly scary—canine didn’t mesh well with that vision.
So we quickly found a renowned trainer and practiced our learnings for countless hours. We integrated new people into our home, played videos of kids, and went on daily walks with variations of stimulation and distraction, hoping to get our beloved O used to unfamiliar faces and sounds coming and going more regularly. After progressing for several months with improvements in redirecting his attention to us rather than what he perceived as a threat, he hit a plateau and still wasn’t able to fully trust our judgment when people were invited into our home or were seen nearby on walks—so we went to a vet behaviorist to find the best medications for him and his fears. We tried numerous prescribed combinations, but nothing seemed to improve his agitated state. My worst fears kicked in. What if, in order to adopt a new family member, I had to first imagine what it felt like to let an existing family member go?
We debated rehoming him, especially if the next several months of training and medications didn’t take permanent hold in his temperament. It pained me to envision him driving away in the backseat of someone else’s car after eight life-changing years together.
Then, the worst thing possible happened. An unexpected visitor got hurt after approaching our doorstep at the same unfortunate moment I opened the door to let Otis out.
In desperation, we spoke to multiple veterinarians and our trainer, and then exhausted outreach for potential “dog rehabs.” With no luck, our hearts began to crack. I never thought that permanently saying goodbye to Otis, to our pack, was an option we would have to face. With tears painting both of our faces, my husband and I begrudgingly chose to protect the outside world from one of the sweetest souls we knew.
When the dreaded day arrived, we stayed with Otis the entire time, singing a song he knew well, one that helped him calm down on rough days. We told him how much he meant to us, and as he took his last breath, the vet said, “You did everything you could for him.”
It was comforting, but it didn’t replace the fact that my best friend with whom I overdosed on oxytocin daily was now gone. When we came home, I noticed a decorative pillow sitting casually on an armchair, a light-hearted housewarming gift from years past, with a printed message that rang especially true, “A house is not a home without a dog.”
One month later I dragged my grief-filled self to a spin class. My life felt as stationary as the machine under me. My weary legs slowed, and I thought about sitting as I fought to stay on beat. As I began to give into the weight of my emotions, tears teased the backs of my eyes. Then, the rider next to me got out of their seat and joined me, changing “I” to “we.” I now knew going slow was okay, beneficial even, but everything in my being wanted to be running freely alongside Otis—sprinting in a field with no inhibitions. Riding steady with someone else gave me the relief I was longing for.
“We are not competitors. This whole room is moving together,” the instructor affirmed.
My legs caught back up, and I let sweat and endorphins baptize me, empowered to trust that I wasn’t alone in or outside of class. In a room full of strangers—with the bass pumping as a unified heartbeat—I found peace, release, and parochial love, caring deeply for the members of class who had just sacrificed an hour of their time with me to push past their limits.
Walking out of the dark room and into the daylight gave me this feeling of transcendence. With sweat still flowing, I got into my car and found one of Otis’s hairs still stuck to my leggings. He was with me, but it was a nudge to start a new pack—not with another dog yet, but with humans. It was time to open the doors of our home that had been closed far too long to people with whom we wanted to become great friends.
Natalie Bickel is an energetic storyteller and publicist who aims to move people to action with her words with bylines in the Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Darling Magazine, and more. She’s also the author of the children’s books, The Christmas Clue and The Volcano No One Could See and the young adult novel, The Catalyst. When she's not writing, you can find her taking film photos, pressing flowers, or blazing new trails with her husband.
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