Free Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family--and a Whole Town--about Hope and Happy Endings by Janet Elder

walking toward the bus stop. Like a toddler who had just learned to walk, Huck wanted to stop and examine every piece of paper, every person, every other dog, every parked car, and every mailbox. The five-minute walk from our building to the bus was starting to look like it would take an hour. Michael, unable to really get Huck to keep walking, turned the leash over to me. My luck wasn’t much better. I realized this was not the moment to teach Huck to walk on city streets. Michael was about to be late for school. I picked Huck up and carried him to the bus stop.
    Michael stepped onto the bus and then turned to wave at Huck and me, blowing kisses until the bus pulled away. I turned and put Huck down for the walk up East End Avenue and back home. On the walk home Huck was just as determined to explore everything and everyone on the street as he had been on the walk to the bus stop. He’d linger at a fire hydrant and then try to dart across an intersection. I began to wish I were one of those monks.
    At one point, Huck started pulling hard on his end of the leash. Before I realized what was happening, he had slipped his collar. I was panic-stricken. “HUCK! HUCK!” I screamed. “Oh no! Oh my God!”
    Huck went tearing up East End Avenue. He’d stop for a split second to sniff at something and then take off again. He was a five-pound puppy, loose, with no collar, and no experience on busy city streets. He didn’t really even know his name.
    I was terrified. I was afraid he’d be hit by a car. How could this be happening? People tried to help, but that just made Huck run more. So did my running after him. For a moment he stopped to sniff another dog. I was too far away to catch him, but close enough that if I threw my body to the ground, I might be able to fall on top of him. Forgetting all the warnings from my doctors about not getting hurt or cut, that is exactly what I did. I hurled my body on top of Huck.
    I now had Huck in my arms. Several people stopped to help. Someone put Huck’s collar back on him. I carried him home. Once we were safely inside, I discovered my own bloodied knees and realized that in the chaos, I had lost the scarf I had been wearing to cover my still bald head. It was a metaphor of sorts; our little dog, our Huck, had from the very beginning made all of us forget about cancer and its debilitating emotional and physical effects.
    I knew in that moment how much I already loved Huck, something I had never thought about before we got him. I had only thought about how happy he would make Michael. From the moment he arrived, Huck brought a lot of love into all our lives.
    Like all new dog owners, it took a while, but eventually Huck and we developed our own rhythms. Michael taught Huck how to high-five. “Give me five, Huck,” he’d say as he raised an open hand. Huck would raise a paw and touch it to Michael’s hand. “Good boy,” Michael would say, smiling triumphantly.
    It, too, was a metaphor of sorts. We had closed the door on a very dark chapter in our lives. We had a victory of our own, and Huck had been our mascot.
    I found I had learned from Connie and the monks enough about the fine art of crating, which made training easy enough. Huck never chewed on the furniture or did anything destructive. He had a couple of accidents on the living room rug, but nothing to speak of. After that first day on the street when Huck had slipped his collar, we hired a private dog trainer for one or two sessions, hoping to be taught how to get Huck to walk next to us instead of in front or behind. But it seemed overdone for such a small dog. It was such an over-the-top, New York thing to do. In fact, it was embarrassing. The trainer talked to us about signing a long-term contract, which pretty much put an end to that.

    In early December, a close friend, the same friend who had given me the antique-looking earrings, convinced me to give up my reticence and allow myself to be in the spotlight for a night.