When I feed our dog Pickles, a white, 50-pound pit bull mix, I have her sit a few feet away and make eye contact with me as I put her dish on the floor. Then I straighten up, staring into her big brown eyes, and pause.
I make her wait a few seconds. She might squirm, or drool, but she doesn’t pounce until I say “go.”
Visitors are often surprised by how patiently she waits. Not as surprised as I am!
This week’s Animal Issue made me reflect on a story of resilience under my own roof.
This week’s Animal Issue made me realize what a long way Pickles has come. As our writers went out to fetch stories about the creatures with whom we share our state, I couldn’t help but reflect on the tale of animal resilience that has been happening under my own roof.
In 2023, my wife, Ann-Elise, spotted Pickles on an Instagram feed called Strays and Gays, run by a lesbian couple who rescued stray dogs in rural Georgia. Pickles was abandoned on a roadside with siblings who were twice her size and apparently had been eating all the food. Her eyes bulged out of her malnourished body.
Ann-Elise’s maternal instincts kicked in. “She looked so sad and hurt,” my wife told me recently. “I wanted to help her.”
The timing was right — Ann-Elise, a postpartum nurse, was on a six-week leave from her job, recovering from surgery. Our two teenagers needed us less and less. “I was ready for a project,” she said. Friends of Duke Rescue brought Pickles to Vermont a few days later, and Ann-Elise picked her up at the Chimney Corner park and ride.
We gave Pickles a goofy name because she was a goofy-looking pup, with pointy, bat-like ears that were too big for her head.
At 8 weeks old, she weighed just 5 pounds. She wouldn’t climb the two stairs of our back deck. She wouldn’t walk on a leash. She startled easily.
Ann-Elise decided to hit the reset button on her puppyhood and treated her like a newborn, putting the dog on her chest and sleeping with her like that on the couch.
She built Pickles a scrap-wood ramp over the back stairs. She covered it with carpet, so her fur-baby wouldn’t slip, then led her up and down with treats. She coaxed Pickles on walks, trying to go a little farther each day. Once, Ann-Elise said, a truck blocked their path. “I spent 10 minutes talking to that truck and rubbing its fender to introduce it to her, so she could walk past it.” Eventually, she did.
Mealtimes were the biggest challenge. Despite the fact that Pickles ate three times a day, as soon as we’d pick up her bowl to fill it, she would start screaming with desperation. I’ve never heard another animal make that noise.
We fed her in her crate, and she’d lunge toward the food, sending her kibble flying. We couldn’t see her eat, but the plastic box would shake violently.
We already had a puppy when we got Pickles, a 1-year-old white-and-toffee-colored Catahoula mix — another discarded Southern belle, this one from Louisiana. We named her Tomte, a Swedish endearment for a mischievous elf or gnome who guards the home. She does, in fact, have a strong herding instinct.
Tomte immediately embraced Pickles as part of our pack. They snuggled together in one dog bed until Pickles got big enough to need her own.
Unlike Pickles’ real siblings, Tomte is a finicky eater who often turns up her nose at food, especially when it’s kibble from the bottom of the bag. We try to grab her bowl when that happens, but if Pickles gets to the chow first, she devours it.
Once we got rid of Pickles’ crate, we realized she was attacking her dish like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Sometimes she bolted the food so fast that she’d throw it up — then eat it again. Gross.
So Ann-Elise found a mazelike dish to slow her down and started training her to sit and wait for the command to eat. “It teaches her that she’s going to get fed even if she’s not frantic,” Ann-Elise explained. “And it shows her we control the food.”
After a few months, Pickles stopped shrieking. Today she’s playful, healthy, affectionate and walks confidently for hours. She and Ann-Elise just signed up to do the VT Dog Hiking Challenge.
It’s amazing what food, love and consistent care can do.
This article appears in Animal Issue • 2026.
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