Little Boy Blue by Kim Kavin Read Free Book Online Page A

woman who had maybe raised a few kids and was now applying the full bore of her maternal instincts to saving dogs. I’m not sure how I conjured this mental picture, given that Armstrong’s cofounder at Lulu’s Rescue, Jane Zeolla, had looked youthful and polished when she’d come to inspect my home. I guess it was something about the name Lulu’s Rescue, plus the fact that the group is based in a town called Point Pleasant. The names just sound so gosh darn quaint that I’d formed a mental impression of Armstrong as being, shall we say, a hair shy of cosmopolitan.
    Instead, Blue and I were greeted by a woman who is about my age (forty is the new twenty, right?) and who looked nearly as fit and focused as any member of the U.S. Olympic swimming team. Armstrong wore no makeup, had her blonde locks effortlessly pulled back from her face, and was clad in faded jeans and a T-shirt that appeared custom-made to fit her like a runway model. To see her walking down the street in farm country along the Delaware River, I’d never have guessed that she’d lived a previous, professional life in New York City. And unless I’d talked with her, I’d have missed out on her absolute aura of intelligence. I’ve only experienced it before with journalists working to expose truths from war zones, and in volunteers working to save lives in the aftermath of natural disasters. Armstrong is the kind of person who needs precious little primping or adornment. Her honesty and beauty seem to emanate directly from her soul, brightened even more by the obvious smarts and sincerity that accompany her every word about the dogs whose lives she is trying to save.
    She and Zeolla, who together have more than thirty years of experience saving dogs, started Lulu’s Rescue in January 2010. That was just a few months before I applied to the group through Petfinder to adopt Blue, making him one of their first successful adoptions during their initial year of operation. The mission at Lulu’s Rescue is to get great dogs like Blue out of high-kill shelters and into permanent homes. Like many rescues, Lulu’s doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar facility, but instead uses a network of foster homes to keep each dog safe until a permanent home can be found.
    Armstrong and I casually grabbed an outdoor table at a restaurant whose owner is a Lulu’s Rescue supporter. We each ordered an omelet as Blue rested at our feet, happily chewing on a bone and enjoying a morning out of the house. It was the first day that Armstrong was meeting Blue, even though she’d been instrumental in saving his life. At Lulu’s, Armstrong focuses on tasks like vetting potential adopters, organizing major fundraisers, and helping shelters win grants that ultimately bring down their kill rates. Zeolla, meanwhile, has the unenviable job of sifting through the countless descriptions of dogs in need. It’s Zeolla who first spots the dogs who will be lucky enough to get a spot in the Lulu’s Rescue program. She is the one who saw Blue’s face in the photograph that Annie Turner’s group had put online, and she is the one who chose to promote him through the Lulu’s page that I saw on Petfinder.com .
    “He’s just so beautiful here in person,” Armstrong told me as the waitress brought our orders to the table. Armstrong sounded happy and hopeful, but her exuberance lasted only for a moment. “You know, I’ve tried to look at all of the photos of dogs like him on the computer, and I just can’t do it. I get physically sick. To see all those dogs and know that so many of them aren’t going to make it …”
    Her voice trailed off. She pushed her omelet around the plate with her fork. With her other hand, she reached down and gently rubbed Blue behind his ears.
    Our breakfast was supposed to be a casual conversation that I thought might help me learn more about Blue’s past, but I was brimming with so many questions that I feared they were going to blast out of my mouth like