Walks with Grover: A Doggy Memoir

By Victor Frenkel

On a Friday afternoon in March 2021, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Victor Frenkel and his two teenage sons drove from their home outside Baltimore to a quiet suburb in Northern Virginia. They returned home with an eight-year-old Labrador retriever, a rescue dog that would forever change their lives. Walks with Grover is a light-hearted memoir that chronicles the year that followed. Bringing along his family and friends, the author shares some of his more humorous adventures with Grover, taking you through his home and neighborhood and in and around the Baltimore area. Ultimately, through the stories he tells, he makes the case that getting a rescue not only changes a dog's life for the better, but also that of the people who adopt them. He sincerely wishes that if you haven't done so already, you will consider contacting your local shelter or rescue organization and come home with a dog you will cherish forever--a family member who will love you unconditionally and provide companionship and happiness to you and your loved ones.

Victor Frenkel was born and grew up in Montreal, Canada. At the age of twenty-four, he moved to Israel, where he lived on a kibbutz, served in the military, and completed his undergraduate and graduate studies. In 1999, he arrived in Baltimore for a postdoctoral fellowship. Today, he continues to enjoy a career in biomedical research, and occasionally dabbles in personal writing projects. He and Grover live just outside of the city with his two teenage sons.

ALL PROFITS OBTAINED FROM THE SALE OF THIS BOOK WILL BE DONATED TO ANIMAL SHELTERS AND RESCUE ORGANIZATIONS

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887313573

Book preview

1

In the Beginning

Every story has to start somewhere

When I first sat down to write this book, I wasn’t exactly sure how to begin. I had done a lot of writing over the years, but the texts that I had worked on were, for the most part, grants and manuscripts or other soulless documents that were part and parcel of the profession I was in. This was the first time I’d embarked on a project such as this one, and I found myself tracing back through the series of events that led me here. After mulling it over for longer than anticipated, I, one day, realized with sudden clarity that it all started with an email I’d received on a January morning in 2021, during the first winter wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

After breakfast, once I finished tidying up the kitchen, I reluctantly sat myself down at the dining room table and powered up my laptop. Staring at the screen littered with an endless list of nonsensical emails, I found myself drawn to one particular message, thanks in part to a bright red exclamation point to the left of the subject line. As I scanned the subject, I realized that although this priority designation was often overused—and usually not warranted—it appeared that in this specific case, the use of the marker might actually be justified.

It was a forwarded message from one of my colleagues, informing him that we were to receive a substantial amount of funding from a prominent federal agency for a grant we had submitted the previous year. I got up from our dining room table, which currently served as my makeshift desk, and walked over to the kitchen to make some more coffee.

I put on the kettle, and as I patiently waited for the water to heat up, my thoughts returned to the implications of the news. I knew I could now remain in my current position for the next two years or perhaps even longer.

It also meant that we could finally get a dog.

When I came to Baltimore in 1999, I was essentially starting my life over again. I arrived with two duffle bags full of clothes. The only other possessions I had were four boxes of books and articles that I’d sent ahead to coincide with my arrival. For the first few years, I focused on my work. Postdoctoral fellowships are, by definition, transitional positions. After finishing all the requirements for completing a dissertation, a postdoc provides you with much more independence. However, you must make the most of your time and available resources to forge your way toward more permanent and rewarding work. After investing my time in a number of projects, including a fair amount of travel and moving twice during my first three years, things really began to happen during my fourth and final year.

I was able to land a much better job (with better pay, too) I then got married, and we bought a house. The next thing we knew, our first child was on the way. We ended up moving into our new home only three months after the birth in the spring. As great as all this was, my new position—which would finally allow us some financial stability—also came with a two-hour commute. (This, I would learn, could extend to three hours or more because of accidents or weather-related issues.) As much as I still wanted to get a dog, I honestly couldn’t see myself leaving it at home for so many hours during the work week.

I continued to deliberate on this issue over the next few years, consumed with the challenges of a new family and new job, as well as an old house that required so much of our attention, when a second beautiful boy came into the picture. Over this same period, I would begin to occasionally work from home, where these telecommute days became progressively more frequent. Not surprisingly I also began to once again toy with the idea of getting a dog. However, as things would have it, new life challenges reared their ugly head, including a divorce and another job change, and the financial complications that came with these changes. I regrettably realized that I would once more have to shelve my plans of bringing home a dog.

And then the coronavirus pandemic happened.

From the beginning of the pandemic, I was working exclusively from home, just like most other so-called nonessential workers. Initially, all the research labs were closed at our institution, similar to essentially everywhere else on the planet. I stayed home and wrote my grants and protocols for the upcoming year. I also worked on manuscripts and reports using the data we’d collected up until the closures.

Eventually, as the labs began to gradually reopen, I found I could still communicate effectively with my staff and students via webcam when they required my presence during their experiments. Even as things continued to open up further, it still turned out to be more efficient for me to work from home, essentially eliminating the time I would normally waste on my daily commute. I realized now was the time to get a dog and decided not to put it off any further.

Around six months earlier, a young couple had moved into the house next door. I was sad to see the previous owner leave, a single mom with two great kids who played on their front lawn and rode their bikes on the street out in front. However, they’d been looking to move to a larger house, and fortunately, they found one just a few streets away. I should mention that one day, around a year before they moved, they came home with a beautiful blond Lab, an overactive puppy just a few months old. This, as you would guess, had the effect of providing me with further motivation to get a dog of my own.

As I got to know the new couple that moved in, I was glad to find out that they were just as friendly as the previous occupants. Sam and Mollie were both teachers. And although they didn’t have kids at the time, their first one would be born during the same month we would celebrate the anniversary of Grover’s arrival. They did, at the time, bring another family member with them. It was, much to my delight, a full-grown blond Lab that they’d recently rescued.

What were the odds, I thought, that both families would have the same breed of dog? Rather small, I would think, as probably most of you would. Although one was a puppy and the other was full-grown, the coincidence turned out to be even greater, seeing that both Labs were also males. Now if you think the coincidence couldn’t get any greater, I was surprised when I learned the name of the new Lab. It wasn’t exactly the same as the puppy. That, of course, would have been much too weird. It was, however, as close as could be. Regarding the names of these two blond male Labs, I’ll just say, for now, that they are both monosyllabic and that each one has four letters, of which three are the same.*

A few days after Sam and Mollie moved in, we had the opportunity to talk more extensively than during our earlier meetings. Standing across from each other on our respective lawns, I asked them where they had gotten their pooch, who, despite appearing to be much younger, turned out to be almost ten years old (I attributed my inaccurate assessment of his age to his youthful demeanor, originally thinking he was not even half that age). Over the course of the conversation, Mollie gave me the name of the adoption organization that they’d used. It was one that exclusively found homes for Labs.

That very same evening, as I was eating my dinner, I began eagerly scrolling through the organization’s website. On each page was a photo of a beautiful dog, including their age and name and other relevant information. As excited as I was to eventually choose one, I was also aware that, based on statistics, so many others would never find a home again. I knew that there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I did, however, make a promise to myself, which I would eventually keep. After completing the adoption process, I donated additional funds (basically doubling the fee) so that at least one more family could afford a dog, too.

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I share custody of my two teenage boys. Seeing that it was still two days until they would be with me, I of course decided to wait until they were here so we could all agree on a dog to adopt. This didn’t stop me, however, from continuing to peruse the profiles which—much to my amusement—reminded me of going through an online dating site. Needless to say, looking at dogs for adoption was a lot more fun.

A couple of days later, when the kids came over, I broke the news of our grant, and we decided to celebrate and go out for burgers. As we sat outside and began to eat, I couldn’t wait to tell them what I really wanted to share. They responded with the overwhelming enthusiasm that I’d expected. Getting a dog dominated the conversation for the rest of the meal, as well as the drive back to our house and the remainder of the evening.

Once at home, I took out my laptop. We sat on the couch and brought up the Lab rescue site. I don’t remember when the last time was that the three of us had so much fun. We scrolled through the entries, laughing at the photos and pointing out our favorites. Lots of oohs and aahs were expressed. We ended up settling on a half dozen options, which I wrote down on a fresh page of my legal pad. The following morning after driving the boys to school, I hurried through my emails as well as clearing other annoying tasks off my work schedule. By lunchtime, I was finally able to begin the process of applying for a dog adoption.

You might be wondering at this time why we decided to adopt a Lab. I can’t really say for sure. It could perhaps be for the very same reason that your neighbor will buy the same car as you have. They know you’re happy with it and they respect and trust your endorsement. So why not get the same one? In the end, I guess, that was all it really was. I knew that Labs were gentle and good with kids, and this only helped to solidify our decision. The important thing was that soon there would be one less dog in a shelter, regardless of which kind we would end up bringing home.

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* If you happen to think that you know the names of these two Labs, please send me a message on Grover’s Instagram account (@grovey_grove), and we’ll let you know if you’ve guessed them correctly.

2

The Adoption Option

And why choosing a purebred isn’t a viable one

The first decision you’re required to make after you’ve decided to get a dog is whether you want a mixed breed (aka mutt) or a purebred. There’s no doubt that so many of the hundreds of purebreds can be truly beautiful. I’ll be the first to admit it. They can also possess behavioral characteristics that render them even more desirable.

Over the years, however, there’s been an ever-increasing awareness of the unique problems associated with so many of these purebreds. Perhaps the most important of these is that many breeds are predisposed to a variety of health issues that can significantly affect their longevity and quality of life.

Among the many problems associated with the selection process that dog breeders strictly employ to create and maintain a specific breed is that it can significantly reduce the size of its gene pool. A major concern of this consequence is an increase in the probability of inherited traits that will persist in these breeds, and that can ultimately be detrimental to their well-being. Collectively, purebred dogs have by far the greatest number of genetic disorders of any know animal. A recent publication on the analysis of over 80,000 dogs by the University of California, Davis’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital reported a greater prevalence of ten inherited conditions in populations of purebred dogs when compared