Resilience From A Rescue Dog

A scruffy white rescue dog, $50 to my name, and a split-second yes that rerouted my entire life. Season three begins with the story of Chance, my soul  dog, and the reason this season centers on the human dog bond. If you have ever loved a dog, lost a dog, or felt like you were barely holding it together, this one is for you.

At 33, I am waiting tables, stuck in panic attacks, chronic pain, and the fallout of an unhealthy situationship. I know I need a change, but I didn't know what that was.  Then I meet Chance at a Santa Monica outdoor adoption through Perfect Pet Rescue, a nine-month-old pup  with a goofy walk and a calm kind of magic. 

From there, life keeps shifting: I get fired during the 2009 financial crisis and somehow feel relief, then dog walking turns into a dog care business that we build together for 16 years. Chance teaches me mindfulness and presence by refusing to be rushed, and he pushes me to do the slow work of trust through his stranger danger and anxiety. His resilience through skin issues, tummy trouble, cancer, and mobility changes shows me that strength is not just endurance, it is choosing joy and love while you keep moving.

If this story resonates, subscribe, share it with a fellow dog person, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. What is the most enduring thing a dog has taught you?

Transcript

Welcome Back And Season Dedication

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi, and welcome to the Bureau. My name is Charlotte Bain, and this is season three of the Brew. We took a little bit of a break, but we are back. And this season I am dedicating to the human dog bond in honor of my boy Chance, who passed away September 2025. I thought, what better way to launch this season than to share our story with you? So before there was a Baru, there was a little dog named Chance. And he lived nearly 18 years and he changed the course of my life. He inspired my dog care business. He inspired this podcast. And when I think back to when I was thinking about this episode and thinking back to all the things that Chance taught me over his many years, I could say love, I could say loyalty, I could say companionship. And he did. He taught me all of those things. He opened my heart. He taught me how to love freely. He taught me how to receive love. But I think the lesson, the biggest

Hitting A Wall At 33

SPEAKER_00 1:08

lesson, the one that stayed with me the longest is resilience. When chance came into my life, I was 33. I had hit a wall. I was waiting tables trying to get by, trying to figure out what to do next, the accumulation of really poor choices and an extremely toxic situationship throughout my 20s. It was all culminating in panic attacks and chronic pain, fatigue. Every part of my body was screaming that I needed to make a change. And I just didn't know what that change was. So a friend of mine mentioned I should consider getting a dog. And I love dogs. We had a small poodle growing up. His name was Algae. I do not know why his name was Algae, but it was. And my mother always said that I had a special connection with him. So I went to the shelter and I came across one dog, one young, beautiful girl. She was some kind of mix. And I just I wasn't quite ready. I was nervous. For whatever reason, I didn't take her, and I'm not sure. I mean, now I know why, but so I went home

The Dog I Did Not Adopt

SPEAKER_00 2:18

and I thought about her for two days, and then I called the shelter, and she'd already been adopted. I was pretty heartbroken at the time. But about a week or so later, my ex, the situation ship, and I went out to Santa Monica just to celebrate his birthday. We were really trying to be friends, and that wasn't a good idea, but we were trying anyway.

Perfect Pet Rescue And First Walk

SPEAKER_00 2:45

And we stumbled across an outdoor adoption. It was perfect pet rescue. And I desperately want to give them a shout-out because they brought me to my boy. And he was a big white, nine-month-old scruffy mix. He was 42 pounds and he was surrounded by all these little tiny terriers. I think that's like mostly what they dealt with, smaller dogs. And as we were driving by, my ex said, you should pull over and look at that guy. So I did. He was the strangest, most interesting looking puppy. He had this like scraggly white hair. He had pink around his eyes, a little pink spot on his nose. And not wiry scruff. Later, people would tell me he reminded me of Falkor, the dog dragon from the never ending story. There was just something about him. He was, he had some sort of a magic, some kind of wisdom. So I asked the woman running the rescue if I could see him, and she said, Why don't you just take him for a walk? So we walked down the block, and he was so young. His legs hadn't caught up with him yet. He walked all kind of caddywompous, not quite sure of his own body. But he was happy. He was like, We are going somewhere. I don't know who you are, but I trust you. And we're doing this. So when we came back, something greater than me, something that I've never felt before, literally just pushed through me and it said, I would like to take him home. I had no money. I think I had $50 to my name. And I told the woman, I don't have any money. I only have $50 to my name. And she said, Well, why don't you just give me the $50? And I trust that you're good for the rest. I think the adoption fee was something like $200 at that time, but she let me pay it whenever I could, and I did. So I put him in the car, and on the way home, he sat in

The Moment I Chose Him

SPEAKER_00 4:57

the back with my ex and I remember jazz coming on the radio. And I remember asking this silly little creature in the back of my car if he was a jazz man. I think that the mixture of excitement and numbness was just kind of taking over my body. So I took him home. And for the next few days, we just kind of stared at each other. I didn't know what to do with him. I completely froze. And after about three days, which to me felt like two weeks, my ex finally said to me, You need to figure this out. Or you need to take him back. And at the moment I heard those words, every part of me said, I am not taking that guy back. And that's when I knew. He was mine and I was his. And I needed to figure it out. So the panic washed away and the numbness washed away. And as soon as I became clear, we slowly began to learn each other's language. I don't think I fully understood at that moment or from the moment that I met him. I mean, I'd never heard of the whole who rescued who thing before, but I don't think I understood that I wasn't just rescuing him, that he was rescuing parts of me also.

Getting Fired And Feeling Free

SPEAKER_00 6:34

So after I made the commitment, I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could. And I was still waiting tables. I was still feeling super overwhelmed by life. But before chance, I had already started helping a few friends with their dogs, just kind of dog walking for extra cash. And two months after chance came into my life, my sister's friend moved from New York and she was looking for somebody to help with her dog. The night before I was supposed to go meet her, I got let go from the restaurant. And I can say that that's the only job I've ever been fired from. Apparently, I got a bad review, but I'm pretty sure they could just tell I was super over my job. So I walked away from that conversation feeling relieved. And I should have felt worried because it was 2009 and there was the financial crisis and there's no job lined up. But instead, I really felt free. Um, I was a little excited, even at like something was about to shift, and I think I felt it deep down inside that it was for my good. So the next day I met my sister's friend. They said, sure, of course, you can absolutely help us take care of our dog. And that was the beginning of the next 16 years. Chance and I built a successful dog care business. It was

Learning To Slow Down

SPEAKER_00 8:08

really his business. Chance taught me to slow down. He was incredibly sensitive. He was incredibly intuitive. If I was frustrated or I was rushed or mentally somewhere else, he would stop. He would refuse to be hurried. And there were times when I really thought he was just being stubborn. But when I look back and I think about it, I think he was really trying to teach me because he wouldn't let me stay in that frantic state. And with that, he he taught me to be present. You know, dogs live in the moment. His favorite place was down by Palisades Park in Santa Monica. He'd just sit there and he'd take it all in. He'd watch the dogs, watch the people, he'd watch the ocean, he would listen to the water. And looking back at those moments with him, I realized that's where I started to learn really what it means to just try to be content in being. Chance was incredibly sensitive.

Stranger Danger And Trust Work

SPEAKER_00 9:32

When he came into my life, he had Stranger Danger. I don't know what happened to him before me. If anything, I know anxiety can come from nature, not just nurture or lack of nurture, but he had it. Every dog loved him. I don't think we ever came across a dog that didn't like chance. He had this calm confidence with dogs. But with humans, it was stranger danger. It took about six years of really hard work to slowly build his confidence and his trust. And I had to show up every day creating positive associations with humans, building him up to the point where he could trust them. I watched his confidence grow through that work. And through all those years of helping Chance find his confidence, while I was writing this and kind of organizing this episode, I realized that Chance was really uh helping me find my confidence too. He was so resilient. That boy came into my life with skin issues, tummy troubles, eye problems, he got cancer, mobility issues starting at seven, but he just kept going. He still loved his walks,

Resilience With Joy And Love

SPEAKER_00 11:20

he loved being with his friends, he loved being with me. He loved chasing the ball. We used to joke that he was an NBA star because in his younger years, the air that that boy would catch going for the ball surpassed any dog I've ever met. My friend used to call him Twinkletoes or Fancy Pants Chance. He had so many nicknames. But he was a pro baller, that's for sure. But what he taught me when watching him and his resilience throughout his life, that it's not just about powering through the hard times. It's about continuing to move through with joy and with love. No matter how hard things get, no matter if nothing about life is going your way, or life starts to change. He had to share me with other dogs, and he really never seemed to care. He moved through it with patience and that same calm confidence. We also used to joke that he owned a law firm, Chance Chesterson Attorney at law. And he even had his own theme song with his commercials that my friend made up, which I will not sing. But he always, he always seemed to know he was in charge. It was very quiet. But he never he never had to prove it. My sister said something to me recently, and she said that chance was a mirror of me. And

A Mirror That Changed Me

SPEAKER_00 13:18

I always knew we were similar. I mean, sensitive, cautious, incredibly observant, and we both need a lot of reassurance, and we're both slow to trust. But I think what she was really saying to me was that chance reflected the parts in me that I needed to pay attention to. And I think that throughout all of these years learning to have compassion and empathy for those parts of him, I was able to learn compassion for those parts of me. He he changed the course of my life. He gave me purpose, he inspired the Baruch more than anything else could. And I would not be I would not be the person that I am today without chance. So this season is dedicated to him, but it's also dedicated to all the dogs that leave us better than they found us.