It's almost time to vote again, and to quote Forest Gump, "that's all I'm going to say about that!"
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This post is for Kathy and Kalail, who just rescued ChooChoo;
and for Beva, who wants a dog of her own.
Growing up in a rural area, I saw a lot of dogs abandoned along the dirt road that ran by our house. It was heartbreaking to see these lost and frightened, often abused animals that had once given someone their undivided love and loyalty, now struggling to survive, chased away from place to place, sometimes shot at, hiding among the trees and brush, conditioned by their fear and anxiety to mistrust the approach of any human.
Domesticated animals are helpless in the wild. It became my family’s practice to leave food in areas that we knew a stray was frequenting, especially if we knew it was a female, usually emaciated, ribs protruding, teats dangling, that was nursing pups hidden somewhere nearby. It often took a long time to convince these strays to trust us, but eventually we would win some of them over. We took them in and fed them, nursed them back to health, and did what we could to find loving homes for them and their pups when we could. We always told the people adopting a dog to bring it back to us if things didn’t work out. I don’t recall us ever taking any of these strays to the pound.
We didn’t have the money to take these dogs to veterinarians for shots and treatments unless it was an emergency; and what constituted an emergency was occasionally debated in our home – passionately, loudly, and sometimes tearfully. So it was my mother who nursed these ailing creatures back to life and health while I stood at the ready to assist her. Most of the time mother used what knowledge she had gleaned in her lifetime from her mother, who had been a nurse in WWI. The rest of the time it was my mother’s gentle voice, reassuring touch, and, I know with conviction, her fervent prayers that brought these forlorn unwanted creatures back from the brink of death.
My father’s participation in all of this was frequently under duress. His family didn’t have pets when he was growing up. My grandfather’s philosophy had been that an animal was worth only what it could contribute. The family mule, which pulled the plow my father and his brothers worked daily, had great value, sometimes more than the boys. Consequently, my father’s attitude toward pets was less than desirable to the rest of us. At best, my father tolerated the strays. But his outlook changed during the years of my childhood. It had to. To paraphrase Shakespeare: some are born with compassion, some achieve compassion, and some have compassion thrust upon them. My father falls into the latter category. He was swept along by the wave of compassion that swelled and moved through a wife and two daughters. He was compelled by the chorus of tearful pleadings to venture out on cold winter nights, flashlight in hand, to search out the plaintive cries of an abandoned litter. And it was he who built shelters and filled them with warm hay, and was occasionally seen patting the head and stroking the fur of a four-legged, tail-wagging canine that shadowed his every step, and looked up at him with trust and gratitude, and love.
It wasn’t surprising that my first marriage was to a man whose compassion for animals exceeded my own. Barry had collected several strays before we met, and together we collected several more. Ours were the unadoptable, those dogs the shelters would be forced to put down when they ran out of space, but each was wonderfully lovable and full of personality. We were blessed to be able to afford all eight of our dogs and the cost of their medical care.
Barry passed away in January, 2004. By then, six of oureight dogs remained, and I was managing them alone. In 2005, when I married John and moved to the farm, my six dogs (Sam, Charlie, Goldie, Crossword, Barney, and Taco) joined his three dogs (Charlie, Toby and Mitzi) and one pot bellied pig (Lulu), to live where they could run and play and bark as much as they wanted to. Two years ago we adopted a puppy (Patty), and this summer we adopted two more dogs (Lucy and Maggie) whose owner could no longer care for them.
Since moving to the farm, Sam, my Charlie, and Taco have all passed away in their old age with various problems. I nursed each through his last days as though he were my baby, and held each in my arms in the final moments of his life, whispering my love in his ear as I wept for the loss of my beloved companion.
We picked out a special spot on the property to bury Sam when he died. Taco, and then Charlie joined him there, and some day, when they have chased their last ball, bird, or rabbit, the rest of our dogs will too. Whenever I pass by that special spot, I greet each by name and tearfully recount how much I miss them.
I like to think that Sam, and Taco, and Charlie have gone to Heaven, and that they've found Barry, and that the lot of them are having a grand good time. Perhaps that's silly, but it offers me a touch of peace; and it comforts me to know that these animals that Barry and John and I have loved and cared for have not known hunger or cruelty or fear while they've been with us.
Now, if we could just figure out what we're going to do with the pig when she dies! And I don't want to hear anything about barbecue!
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