Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I've Cried About

The memoir opens in summer 2024 as Isabel, a dog foster advocate in Brooklyn, prepared for her first national television appearance on the Today show. In her lap sat Twinkle, a Chihuahua with the worst behavioral rating at New York City's open-intake shelter, found in an apartment with a dead owner and multiple dead dogs. Days earlier, Twinkle would not let anyone near him. Through patient sessions of sitting motionless outside his crate and offering slices of deli ham, Isabel earned his trust. By the time the cameras rolled, Twinkle slept peacefully in a stranger's lap. When the anchor asked how it all began, the narrative rewound a decade.

In 2013, 20-year-old Isabel arrived in New York City after a string of restless detours: dropping out of Ithaca College after one year of deep depression, working as a camp counselor in California, backpacking through Europe on a shoestring budget, and laboring on a sustainable farm in Hawaii. She enrolled at Marymount Manhattan College on a scholarship and moved into a basement apartment on the Upper East Side with two high school friends, Phoebe and Emily. Feeling isolated, she began volunteering at an animal shelter near campus, discovering that her love could transform scared animals.

That fall, Isabel entered her first relationship with Charlie, a man six years her senior whom she met through Phoebe. The dynamic was unbalanced: Charlie fell hard while Isabel never truly reciprocated. She also fostered her first dog, Marble, an anxious puppy who self-soothed by suckling on her jacket sleeve. Neither experience was what she imagined. After Isabel caught Charlie sending shirtless photos online, the relationship dragged on for several more months before she ended it in July, feeling only relief.

In her final semester, Isabel applied for a job as assistant to Elias, a well-known dog photographer. She made a deal with herself: If she got the job, she would stay in New York. A creative application process led to an offer, and the job anchored Isabel's life for the next several years.

In fall 2014, Isabel met Will, a tattooed man working at a restaurant counter. On their first date, he revealed he lived in a halfway house and was recovering from drug addiction. She accepted him, and they spent two turbulent years together, though Isabel never fully trusted him. She fostered Fonda, a severely reactive senior dog, drawing a parallel between her patience with difficult animals and her tolerance for a difficult partner. On August 31, 2016, the night before they were set to move in together, she opened Will's laptop and found two years of messages to other women. Will confessed the cheating was compulsive. Isabel told him there were no more second chances and walked out.

She answered a Craigslist ad and moved into a Bushwick apartment with three strangers who became surrogate sisters: Hannah, Sarah, and Mia. Isabel fostered Poutine, a shut-down dog whose body bore signs of being used for breeding. Over six weeks, Poutine revealed her personality, playing with toys and chomping joyfully at water from the garden hose. Despite needing major ear surgery, Poutine's adopter was undeterred.

In summer 2017, Isabel met Sam on a dating app. He was kind and devoted, but Isabel was plagued by doubts she could not name. They moved in together, and she cried every day the first week; her therapist warned that devotion could sometimes function as manipulation, but Isabel dismissed the insight. In winter 2019, she saw a photo of a puppy online and felt an overpowering connection. Found in a shipping container on the streets of Korea, the dog became her own: She named him Simon. Weeks later, Simon had his first grand mal seizure and was diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy, a lifelong condition requiring medication four times daily. As Isabel adjusted to caring for him, she increasingly imagined a life with just the two of them. The day after Valentine's Day, she told Sam she was done.

After the breakup, Isabel returned to her parents' home in New Jersey, where the family reminisced about Ruby, the golden retriever who died when Isabel was 16 and first taught her about unconditional love. In spring 2020, she moved into a Brooklyn apartment with her oldest friend, Megan, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simon became her reason for getting out of bed most mornings. That December, she matched on a dating app with Jacob, a kind and curious man from Kentucky. When they met in January 2021, Jacob had prepared a charcuterie board for Isabel and a plate of dog treats for Simon. Within weeks, he told her she was the love of his life.

Six months later, they moved in together, and conflict quickly surfaced. Accustomed to partners who needed her obsessively, Isabel struggled with Jacob's emotional independence, interpreting his steadiness as a lack of passion. She picked fights and ultimately ended the relationship. Moving into a tiny apartment on Clinton Avenue, she began living alone for the first time and started weekly therapy with a therapist named Lauren, slowly tracing her anxieties to childhood patterns and past trauma. She fostered Tiki, a dog whom behaviorists believed was beyond rehabilitation. It took 13 days before Tiki allowed Isabel to touch him; his transformation became a rallying cry among her friends.

That fall, Isabel heard a song she and Jacob loved on the subway and gave herself permission to miss him. They reconnected, and she delivered the apology she could not offer before. They spent a year rebuilding through honest conversations and continued therapy. Isabel also fostered King, a paralyzed French bulldog in a wheelchair who raced through ocean waves at Coney Island and was adopted by a couple planning to use him as a therapy dog for children.

A year after reconnecting, Isabel and Jacob moved in together for the second time. She was unexpectedly let go from her job with the dog photographer, forcing her to acknowledge she had been building someone else's dream. While unpacking boxes, she discovered a photo she had taken of the dog park in December 2020, two weeks before she and Jacob first spoke. A runner was framed on the path. She recognized the runner as Jacob, who had been running toward her before they knew each other existed.

Jacob ran the New York City Marathon for Paws NY, an organization connecting volunteers to elderly or disabled pet owners. Afterward, in Central Park at sunset, he dropped to one knee and proposed, telling Isabel he wanted to keep running toward her for the rest of his life. Back at their apartment, 70 friends and family surprised them with a celebration. The inscription inside her ring echoed a postcard Jacob had sent from the Grand Canyon during their time apart.

The memoir returned to summer 2024 as the Today show interview concluded. Twinkle was adopted by a couple who texted a photo of him smiling in his new kitchen. Isabel reflected that her love could heal broken dogs, though people had to heal on their own. She agreed to foster another dog but first took Simon on a walk to the water. The book closes with Isabel and Simon curled into bed, waiting for their new foster dog to arrive.