ok, so i went to the shelter early, to avoid the searing heat of afternoon. chose wee Mr. Banks for the first walk cause i'm thinking about getting him for my mother. i worry about her, at 86, living alone and far away. she needs something to obsess over and complain about and Mr. B is just the kind of dog she hates to love...
the shelter shares a wide lawn with the iconic Sunshine Home and Rehab. Most of the trees and therefore most of the shade is on their side, forcing me, as the day goes on, closer to their Sunshiney actual building. Today, i met Walter there. I'd watched him roll up and park and then i'd seen him watching me and Mr Banks as we sniffed our way through the shady grass. Of course i took his looking for longing and marched Mr B right up to the wheelchair and introduced ourselves. Walter seemed pleased to be petting a dog, again and he told me how he used to raise beagles. how he taught them to hunt and how they kept a pack so tight when they were moving that you could throw a blanket and cover 8 of them at once. i promised to return with beagles. but before i left, he pointed out a tiny blonde dog, standing under a car across the parking lot.
for the next 4 hours, i courted the little three pound stray. he was very interested in other dogs but wanted nothing to do with two-leggeds. approaching made him run toward the busy street, so there was no question of trying to chase him and he was too smart for the humane trap they set out, baited with a fragrant bowl of dog food stew. but he was curious about Mr. B and the succession of dogs that followed him. each time i emerged with a new dog he'd appear and march right up and introduce himself. i liked that about him. He met Chipper the chihauhua, Sharon, the beagle (who made Walter wonder if they let folks have dogs there at the Sunshine place), Frank, the other beagle (who Walt felt certain could be taught to hunt) and the exquisite, intimidatingly beautiful Jackson. The little stray liked all of them. and I could tell he was warming to me when he came over and pretend-peed on my shoes.
He wasn't as impressed with Iris or Mazie. Who he loved was Sissy. I brought her out and found a high spot of ground where we could sit and lean against a tree and Sis, who is, i'm sorry, hell on wheels inside the shelter and who, when she gets outside becomes very subdued, threw herself down beside me to gnaw on a stick. Before long, the little guy approached. There was the usual sniffing and wagging and then, in the most casual way, he walked very close to where i sat. i held my hand just above him, letting him decide if he wanted to be touched...which he did. he kept going till he was a few feet away where he found something very interesting that he needed to study for a bit. then he came back, passing close, allowing me to hold my hand above him, barely touching. finally, he lay down beside me and i gently stroked his head.
i waited a respectable time before i picked him up and carried him under one arm, back to the shelter. I told him he'd made a good choice and i believe that. His toe nails, the ones that aren't broken and dangling, curl in tendrils around his feet. His fur is matted and filthy. Something must be wrong with his mouth because he wouldn't eat, though he is barely more than bones. No telling what all might be wrong with such a one. The odds weigh heavily against his ever making it to adoptions because the shelter doesn't have the resources to nurse dogs back to health if they have a serious issue.
So i left him there and headed home. but the overwhelming image i can't shake is of his sweet, round head...the way it fit so well into the cup of my palm. and the feeling i can't ignore is that i was profoundly blessed in that moment when he surrendered...in that moment when nothing else mattered...nothing else existed...in that small and tender moment.
Monday, July 9, 2012
i'm not a big fan of guilt
as a motivator but yesterday, when i was too tired to go to the shelter, it finally drove me there. my first reaction, on finding that all the dogs had already been walked, was relief. it was too hot and like i said i was too tired and i had the choice to give them each a cookie and head home. but i chose, instead, the pleasure of surprising them with seconds. most, by then, were badly in need of another potty break. it made me think how many hours, on a normal day, they spend waiting.
it's so easy to get into a minimal mind set, where it feels somehow like a victory if every dog has had one chance to pee outside in a day. but many of these animals come from homes where they've been taught to wait and some of them, like little Jackson and sweet Nellie, will stop eating when they can't get out. once a day feels less than grand when you notice the way they suffer to keep from soiling their little space.
i read about a place called Dog Island where they say the animals are free...uncaged, unfenced to run as they please. they have no masters. there are no rules. they have returned to Eden. according to the website, the dogs come from individuals and from shelters. you apply and once he's accepted, you just slap a stamp on Bowzer and send him along. he will spend a few weeks being socialized with other new arrivals. when that group has bonded, formed a pack, they'll be released together to return to their feral state, spending their days hunting for food (the island has been stocked with a large rabbit population) and their nights sleeping together outside or in caves. in the few photos they share, the dogs look happy and healthy - engaged with one another as they play in the surf or sit side by side in doggie meditation.
there's little information available, a certain vagueness in the details, so i'm not clear what's behind it...how well it works or whether to trust that it is what it claims to be. it's financed by "very rich people." no joke. that's how they account for it's existence. really? it feels almost like some kind of sinister experiment...some Lord of the Flies, Canine Edition, so i'm definitely not recommending it, but i am suggesting that as a concept, there's something worth consideration. as a concept, it sets a few things in sharp relief - like the ways we mold our pets to fit our lives... it raises the question whether our demands are entirely fair or helpful...whether we might want to change a thing or two. i'm not suggesting you stock the back yard with bunnies and lock the dog outside. but maybe there's a middle ground - located between our ears - a place where we simply hold on to the awareness that the animals in our lives, despite generations of domestication, still have instincts and impulses and survival skills they need to exercise...that we might do well to respect them because when we don't, it can lead to those things that make us crazy and that we label as misbehavior.
i quit buying stuffed toys for Nini years ago cause all she did was disembowel them in the first five minutes. i realize now that she actually needed to do that...it's in her DNA, just like gnawing on a bone. if there's no bone, there's always a table leg or a running shoe, which for sure smells like the wild outdoors. up there beside you on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching Jeopardy, that's a hunter...a predator. cat's chase a feather on a string for the same reason dogs chase a tennis ball...cause in their instinctive brain, it's supper, getting away.
i have some uneasiness around the Dog Island idea...but despite my scepticism, the insatiably nosey part of me can't help wanting to go and work there, for the chance to see what happens. i'm curious what dogs are really like, when they're free of our society... when they don't have to wait for either our help or our permission to get on with living.
it's so easy to get into a minimal mind set, where it feels somehow like a victory if every dog has had one chance to pee outside in a day. but many of these animals come from homes where they've been taught to wait and some of them, like little Jackson and sweet Nellie, will stop eating when they can't get out. once a day feels less than grand when you notice the way they suffer to keep from soiling their little space.
i read about a place called Dog Island where they say the animals are free...uncaged, unfenced to run as they please. they have no masters. there are no rules. they have returned to Eden. according to the website, the dogs come from individuals and from shelters. you apply and once he's accepted, you just slap a stamp on Bowzer and send him along. he will spend a few weeks being socialized with other new arrivals. when that group has bonded, formed a pack, they'll be released together to return to their feral state, spending their days hunting for food (the island has been stocked with a large rabbit population) and their nights sleeping together outside or in caves. in the few photos they share, the dogs look happy and healthy - engaged with one another as they play in the surf or sit side by side in doggie meditation.
there's little information available, a certain vagueness in the details, so i'm not clear what's behind it...how well it works or whether to trust that it is what it claims to be. it's financed by "very rich people." no joke. that's how they account for it's existence. really? it feels almost like some kind of sinister experiment...some Lord of the Flies, Canine Edition, so i'm definitely not recommending it, but i am suggesting that as a concept, there's something worth consideration. as a concept, it sets a few things in sharp relief - like the ways we mold our pets to fit our lives... it raises the question whether our demands are entirely fair or helpful...whether we might want to change a thing or two. i'm not suggesting you stock the back yard with bunnies and lock the dog outside. but maybe there's a middle ground - located between our ears - a place where we simply hold on to the awareness that the animals in our lives, despite generations of domestication, still have instincts and impulses and survival skills they need to exercise...that we might do well to respect them because when we don't, it can lead to those things that make us crazy and that we label as misbehavior.
i quit buying stuffed toys for Nini years ago cause all she did was disembowel them in the first five minutes. i realize now that she actually needed to do that...it's in her DNA, just like gnawing on a bone. if there's no bone, there's always a table leg or a running shoe, which for sure smells like the wild outdoors. up there beside you on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching Jeopardy, that's a hunter...a predator. cat's chase a feather on a string for the same reason dogs chase a tennis ball...cause in their instinctive brain, it's supper, getting away.
i have some uneasiness around the Dog Island idea...but despite my scepticism, the insatiably nosey part of me can't help wanting to go and work there, for the chance to see what happens. i'm curious what dogs are really like, when they're free of our society... when they don't have to wait for either our help or our permission to get on with living.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
here's why
i haven't been writing. i've tried and failed cause, while i've continued my work at the shelter, my heart and mind have been tied up with other struggles, unrelated.
my daughter and her sons were in the first group to be evacuated from one of the wildfire areas in Colorado a few weeks ago. they wound up having to re-locate three times in three days, as the destruction moved up the pass...as one sanctuary after another was threatened. they watched the flames roar across the hillside above their little community. they searched for news of where it was headed, of when they'd have to run, again. they listened for the reverse-911 call that would tell them to go.
it scares me, even to consider what that was like...
the pressure of having to decide what to save...what was precious enough to be given space in the little car. so much of meaning in our lives is irreplacable but not necessary for survival and so, is left behind. is remembered with sadness. for people like my daughter, there's the challenge of trying to remain calm for the sake of the children and at the same time, moving with urgency to collect what's needed for an uncertain future.
there's the pervasive fear...for your own family, for your friends and neighbors, for the fire fighters. it fills my heart that in the first moments after she knew they had to pack, before the actual evacuation alert, my child took time to run across the road to warn an elderly neighbor. i couldn't be more proud of the way she handled the entire, extended nightmare...of the strength she found inside herself to deal with a soul chilling reality.
she returned, yesterday, to her home. the fire came within a quarter mile, but skipped over their little town. it surrounded them and so she will not be without grief. for some time, she will face the blackened remains of loss. and so the questions begin, of how you can...whether you can return to life as normal. how do you shake the fear? how do you integrate the experience of helplessness and vulnerability?
in the case of this fire, there is reason to think it was deliberately set, as several smaller ones in the area had recently been started. how do you resolve, in your own heart, the cold indifference of the anonymous other who held the match?
it brings home to me the fragility of the worlds we've created. it resonates with the familiarity of wars and natural disasters that beset us frail humans around the globe. it reminds me, again, of how we are the same in our desires and in our pain.
my daughter and her sons were in the first group to be evacuated from one of the wildfire areas in Colorado a few weeks ago. they wound up having to re-locate three times in three days, as the destruction moved up the pass...as one sanctuary after another was threatened. they watched the flames roar across the hillside above their little community. they searched for news of where it was headed, of when they'd have to run, again. they listened for the reverse-911 call that would tell them to go.
it scares me, even to consider what that was like...
the pressure of having to decide what to save...what was precious enough to be given space in the little car. so much of meaning in our lives is irreplacable but not necessary for survival and so, is left behind. is remembered with sadness. for people like my daughter, there's the challenge of trying to remain calm for the sake of the children and at the same time, moving with urgency to collect what's needed for an uncertain future.
there's the pervasive fear...for your own family, for your friends and neighbors, for the fire fighters. it fills my heart that in the first moments after she knew they had to pack, before the actual evacuation alert, my child took time to run across the road to warn an elderly neighbor. i couldn't be more proud of the way she handled the entire, extended nightmare...of the strength she found inside herself to deal with a soul chilling reality.
she returned, yesterday, to her home. the fire came within a quarter mile, but skipped over their little town. it surrounded them and so she will not be without grief. for some time, she will face the blackened remains of loss. and so the questions begin, of how you can...whether you can return to life as normal. how do you shake the fear? how do you integrate the experience of helplessness and vulnerability?
in the case of this fire, there is reason to think it was deliberately set, as several smaller ones in the area had recently been started. how do you resolve, in your own heart, the cold indifference of the anonymous other who held the match?
it brings home to me the fragility of the worlds we've created. it resonates with the familiarity of wars and natural disasters that beset us frail humans around the globe. it reminds me, again, of how we are the same in our desires and in our pain.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
you know how
when you're in the skid car and they take the traction off all four tires at once and you go whirling helplessly toward the flaming desert sun and it feels like you're on some kind of carney ride so you may as well relax cause there's nothing you can do till it's over, anyway? and you realize you absolutely love that feeling? and then it starts to slow and it's got that sweet, smooth glide to it and you can just hear Lara's Theme and the jingling of harness bells in your head? you slow to a stop. it's quiet except for the engine's tick but your body's still in motion...you're off center and out of balance and you're not sure you can stand, much less walk.
that's how i'm feeling.
can't figure what's happened, how i got here, where to go next.
what more can i say about shelter work? it hurts. every single one of the animals is wonderful. every one. not to say i'd take all of them home....i realize i have a limit and that i simply cannot care for more. at least not in the way that they deserve. i'm down to four dogs now, with Felicia happily homed elsewhere. And it's not the feeding or the vet visits or the meds that make it difficult having four. It's the fact that i fell in love with each of them as individuals...developed a relationship with one at a time. By bringing them together, i've created a writhing pack of creatures in constant motion, in constant competition for that unique relationship we used to have but have no more because their collective emotional demands are infinite and my emotional resources are not.
i always think, about the shelter dogs, if they only had a place to run they'd be so happy, so healthy, so calm. it's what i always wish for them when they're adopted...that they get the chance to run and to behave like dogs again...but my dogs have that and they're not happy.
They're very well cared for, my dogs. They have good food, treats, toys. They have fresh air and the freedom to safely run and explore. They have each other for companions and they sleep in clean beds, just outside my room. We go for walks together, twice a day. And they're not happy. When they're made to stay outside, they suffer, wearing a path around the house from the back step to the doggie door, back and forth on the chance they might squeak inside. If they are inside, they're following me. They tussle outside the bathroom door. No one lies down, ever...they stand in constant attendance, pawing at me, jockeying for position.
And it hurts my heart to say but I'm not happy, either.
I have to question what i've done here. I have to ask if any of us are better off or whether, perhaps, i've just created another unhappy shelter...a different kind of hell where it's the soul caged and starving.
that's how i'm feeling.
can't figure what's happened, how i got here, where to go next.
what more can i say about shelter work? it hurts. every single one of the animals is wonderful. every one. not to say i'd take all of them home....i realize i have a limit and that i simply cannot care for more. at least not in the way that they deserve. i'm down to four dogs now, with Felicia happily homed elsewhere. And it's not the feeding or the vet visits or the meds that make it difficult having four. It's the fact that i fell in love with each of them as individuals...developed a relationship with one at a time. By bringing them together, i've created a writhing pack of creatures in constant motion, in constant competition for that unique relationship we used to have but have no more because their collective emotional demands are infinite and my emotional resources are not.
i always think, about the shelter dogs, if they only had a place to run they'd be so happy, so healthy, so calm. it's what i always wish for them when they're adopted...that they get the chance to run and to behave like dogs again...but my dogs have that and they're not happy.
They're very well cared for, my dogs. They have good food, treats, toys. They have fresh air and the freedom to safely run and explore. They have each other for companions and they sleep in clean beds, just outside my room. We go for walks together, twice a day. And they're not happy. When they're made to stay outside, they suffer, wearing a path around the house from the back step to the doggie door, back and forth on the chance they might squeak inside. If they are inside, they're following me. They tussle outside the bathroom door. No one lies down, ever...they stand in constant attendance, pawing at me, jockeying for position.
And it hurts my heart to say but I'm not happy, either.
I have to question what i've done here. I have to ask if any of us are better off or whether, perhaps, i've just created another unhappy shelter...a different kind of hell where it's the soul caged and starving.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
i want to write
something powerful and moving. or inspirational. or funny but i'm feeling none of those things.
there were many adoptions over the weekend besides our dear Felicia. there were many empty kennels out front today and i dunno, it made me so sad. it's wonderful for the dogs and cats who were adopted and for the ones who got to move up front where they can work their charms on the shoppers.... it's good for the staff, that there's suddenly room at the inn cause they've been on overload, running on adrenalin for months and this was the first day in a long time without the vague scent of panic. still, i feel sad because last week was tragic.
so i was thinkin', in totally unrelated business, about the year that my ex took me and our two twenty-something daughters to driving school. we were searching for the antidote to grief, which of course we never found but as distractions go, this one was effective. in Phoenix, city of the risen dead, right? ironical.
we did some book learnin'. we suited up in fire proof gear and got fitted for helmets and then, because we were lookin' so insanely cool, posed together for a photo op in front of a race car. as far as i was concerned, the day was complete. i was ready to go back to the air conditioning and my big box of kleenex but there was still actual driving to be done. to be honest, my heart wasn't in it.
the girls and i got into a car with an instructor who, when you were going fast enough would hit a button and one or more of the wheels would lose traction. zip! like that, you'd skid. you'd go again and he'd hit different buttons and you'd slide this way and that - eventually going into a full spinning rotation across the blacktop, sand flying, as he took the traction off all four wheels at once. of course we'd been instructed what to do to pull out of a skid, but it's a challenge in the moment to translate words into action and i sat glued to the back seat, dreading my turn, as first one and then the other of my daughters took the wheel.
dreading it but at the same time, strangely enjoying the safely out of control wheeee kind of freedom of it all.
when i finally had to drive, here's what happened...i rocked. seriously! dude, i learned to drive on ice. i'd skidded a quarter mile down it on the Dan Ryan expressway and done a couple 360's on the entrance ramp at Cermak Road and miraculously never put a mark on a car. and here i was in the heat shimmering desert, getting to use those skills i didn't know i had but which had become automatic over 15 bitter winters of driving in the midwest. I was feeling pretty pleased. I was wheeein' out loud. We moved on to other skills and some scary challenges and though i wasn't breakin' any records, i was at least feeling competent and able to be fully present for the rest of the experience.
Several years later, it saved two lives - mine and my best friend's. because i'd hung in there, back in Phoenix, i was able to thread the needle - put my car into the seemingly impossible, invisible space between a thundering construction dump truck and a concrete bridge abutment where Vicki and i had both expected to die.
as usual, i don't know why i'm telling you this or even what brought it to mind last night. gimme a minute. let me think.
ok. got it.
it has to do with moving through grief how ever painful or scary it is. skidding. spinning. out of control, but moving through. the loss of all those lovely creatures last week is wrenching and i'd like to stay home...dab my eyes and have another nap. but then, there is the work. then, there are the living.
if i can acknowledge my grief but still set it down for a moment and show up for them...for the living...maybe i can be fully present for yet another life experience...
and who knows what the hidden gift in that might be.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
ready for some good news?
Best part is i really liked the woman who chose her. It felt as if this was what it was all about...the reason i had to bring Felicia home...the reason she couldn't be left to be "taken out of adoptions"...cause this person was coming for her.
There are some things about it that actually give me chills as i consider them - but that i can't disclose without compromising her privacy. you'll just have to trust me...it's pretty cool. the woman, henceforth to be known as Charlotte, had asked some questions on line after seeing Felicia's picture and though her trip to the shelter was for the specific purpose of meeting our 'licia, she interviewed several other dogs before finally taking her out. I have this feeling that she promised someone she would look at more dogs than just the one, rather than rushing through the door waving a check. Smart. So she walked with several, asking questions about each of them, appreciating their sweetness or their silliness or in the case of Cutie, the way she looks just like orphan annie's dog.
Things changed somehow when we took Felicia out the door. Strange to say, but there was some new gravity to the conversation, some "now we're gettin' down to it" feeling, though many of her questions were the same as they had been with the others. it became clear that she already knew...that she'd been going through the motions with the others...that this was the dog for her...
She needed a one-woman dog who would look out for her and Felicia needed someone to love and to protect.
While her application was being processed, the smiling Charlotte walked back to Felicia's kennel, bent and kissed her lightly on the head.
Sigh.
tears of joy.Friday, June 22, 2012
she veers
left, right...whoa, she's hit some bumps...she's catchin' air....
there have been some grumblings about how i started out writing about my experience at the animal shelter and now i'm talkin about the wizard of oz forgodsake and gypsies and the web of life and at least one of my three readers would like to know where i'm headed with this whole thing.
fair question.
i dunno.
there was some irrepressible thing about hope and faith going on. something about believing in a better future. but today i'm back to sad reality. Brice was euthanized yesterday. Brice whom i loved but couldn't help. They call it "taken out of adoptions" or "no longer available." He was in foster care for a month or so and then he was returned and his number was up. according to the fates, he'd had his chance (you couldn't prove it by me) and so, also, had some of the adolescent puppies...too big, too uncivilized, too much challenge compared with the wee, cuddly, adorable ones that haven't yet gotten frantic with inactivity. the fawn-like little clown, Vaugh; sweetheart Cody, with the pleading eyes and galumphy Boone, of the ironically tiny ears...they and many more like them, no longer available.
they took in 150 animals in 3 days this week and the shelter becomes a death machine when that happens and if you aren't pedigreed or lucky or little, you get chewed up. that's not to say the folks at the shelter prefer the pedigrees or even the little dogs. it's to say that the people adopting prefer them. we had a shitzu (gawd i hope i spelled that right) a week ago and it flew back out the door trailing a waiting list of applicants who got there too late but who, nonetheless, threw their names into the pot, just in case. people still come in asking for him.
everybody's got a breed preference, i guess. somebody at the shelter loves beagles. at one point there must have been 7 or 8 purebred and an additional couple mixes, some of them difficult placements (behavior and medical issues) that were there for a surprisingly long time. they never got taken out of adoptions. the hard cases hung around till a space opened up at a breed rescue, "no-kill" agency. it's weird, how you come to resent their obvious immunity when you're fighting to save your own favorites and if you were in charge the place would be thick with big, ugly workin' dogs or little shivery shy dogs or pits and rotties and labs.
me, i like a nice mutt. something untidy and not entirely tamed...like me.
(which makes it all the more confounding how i ended up with the adorable, fluffy rottencockers. i must have been having heat stroke or something cause to this day i look at them and shake my head and wonder what was i thinkin? i love them but they are foreign to me.)
as i left the shelter yesterday a woman got out of her car, opened the back seat door and i knew. it's a telltale sign, the pull up/get out/open the back door sequence cause it's almost always followed by the reach in and the voila!
and sure'nuff, large black adolescent puppy. the kind that's already too big, too uncivilized, too much of a challenge in a dog eat dog world.
there have been some grumblings about how i started out writing about my experience at the animal shelter and now i'm talkin about the wizard of oz forgodsake and gypsies and the web of life and at least one of my three readers would like to know where i'm headed with this whole thing.
fair question.
i dunno.
there was some irrepressible thing about hope and faith going on. something about believing in a better future. but today i'm back to sad reality. Brice was euthanized yesterday. Brice whom i loved but couldn't help. They call it "taken out of adoptions" or "no longer available." He was in foster care for a month or so and then he was returned and his number was up. according to the fates, he'd had his chance (you couldn't prove it by me) and so, also, had some of the adolescent puppies...too big, too uncivilized, too much challenge compared with the wee, cuddly, adorable ones that haven't yet gotten frantic with inactivity. the fawn-like little clown, Vaugh; sweetheart Cody, with the pleading eyes and galumphy Boone, of the ironically tiny ears...they and many more like them, no longer available.
they took in 150 animals in 3 days this week and the shelter becomes a death machine when that happens and if you aren't pedigreed or lucky or little, you get chewed up. that's not to say the folks at the shelter prefer the pedigrees or even the little dogs. it's to say that the people adopting prefer them. we had a shitzu (gawd i hope i spelled that right) a week ago and it flew back out the door trailing a waiting list of applicants who got there too late but who, nonetheless, threw their names into the pot, just in case. people still come in asking for him.
everybody's got a breed preference, i guess. somebody at the shelter loves beagles. at one point there must have been 7 or 8 purebred and an additional couple mixes, some of them difficult placements (behavior and medical issues) that were there for a surprisingly long time. they never got taken out of adoptions. the hard cases hung around till a space opened up at a breed rescue, "no-kill" agency. it's weird, how you come to resent their obvious immunity when you're fighting to save your own favorites and if you were in charge the place would be thick with big, ugly workin' dogs or little shivery shy dogs or pits and rotties and labs.
me, i like a nice mutt. something untidy and not entirely tamed...like me.
(which makes it all the more confounding how i ended up with the adorable, fluffy rottencockers. i must have been having heat stroke or something cause to this day i look at them and shake my head and wonder what was i thinkin? i love them but they are foreign to me.)
as i left the shelter yesterday a woman got out of her car, opened the back seat door and i knew. it's a telltale sign, the pull up/get out/open the back door sequence cause it's almost always followed by the reach in and the voila!
and sure'nuff, large black adolescent puppy. the kind that's already too big, too uncivilized, too much of a challenge in a dog eat dog world.
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