Eleven or twelve years ago in California, we lived in a tiny apartment that overlooked the backyard of a family who kept a dog on a monstrous chain.  The dog's name was Dina.  She was a white pitbull with auburn spots and a patch over her eye.  I could look down at her little lean-to shelter and what I was seeing was her entire life.  What that life consisted of was her moving around as far as her chain would allow her to go.  

She and I got into a routine, I would throw down scraps and she would look up at me with her overbite.  She was adorable.  I knew nothing about dogs at that time.  I recognized that she was a pitbull so I was somewhat intimidated by her believing all the horror stories about the breed.  She belonged to someone and I assumed she was territorial.  I'm getting this out because had I been more knowledgeable about dogs and rescue, I might have saved her life.

Her life was a big nothing.  A chain. A backyard in a farming town in sunny California.  Sometimes a couple of little kids would come out and play with her but not often.  Mostly she was alone.  One Saturday, I saw the young man of the house and his friends drinking beer.  They introduced a large male pitbull and egged on a mating.  We went out but I couldn’t stop thinking about this - that she was being bred for entertainment purposes.  But what did I know?  I had never owned a dog in my life.

She remained on a chain in that yard.  The senior woman of the house was always home cleaning but she ignored Dina, whose chain would rattle because whenever I came out on the balcony she would stand up to look for me.  I started buying her dog biscuits because she seemed to be getting thinner, although her belly was growing.  I worried the biscuits might not be welcomed by her owners.  I didn't know it but I was the only one feeding her.  She was starving to death, while this family went about their business, washing rugs, sweeping their house, drinking beer.  She would lay in the sun, a beautiful dog but becoming so thin, it was obvious even to me, they weren't feeding her sufficiently.  

I became concerned and then involved.  I started calling Humane Societies, the ASPCA, the police.  Anyone.  In CA there are laws specific to each town and city.  Our town had a shelter in transition and no specific laws about starvation or neglect.  You had to be beating an animal to get any intervention from the town.  The shelter was nonexistant, in transition.  I contacted PETA, hoping someone might help me kidnap her, if only to get her to a shelter to be fed.  But there was no one who would help me.  They cautiously advised me to steal her myself.  But I was afraid.  I thought she might bite or bark and that would bring the young man, the police, maybe guns, maybe who knows what. 

She died one day, while she was still pregnant.  The mother of the children who would visit was standing over her body after she had collapsed in the backyard, still wearing her chain.  I yelled over and asked if I could come and help.  She was dying when I got there.  She moved into me as I sat down on the grass beside her, shifted herself towards my body and let me hold and stroke her. I will never forget that.  How unafraid of me she was.  How desperate.  She died later that day.  I got the story from the sister.  It was the young man's dog.  His mother didn't have money to feed her.  For them it was simple economics coupled with blithe indifference and ignorance.  I knew then she probably would have come to me quietly.  I might have been able to steal her to save her.   If anything, I could have tried.  Today I would without hesitation if I couldn't get any help from authorities.

What was the point of telling this story besides to break your heart?  (It is breaking mine again, remembering and telling it)  

Her death changed me.  I had always toyed with the idea of living with a dog but my life was too complicated and I hadn't ever made it happen.  A couple of months later, I knew it was time.  We sought out our dog, went to the pound and stumbled on a little brown dog who after a bath turned into an adorable white boxer with spots who looked an awful lot like Dina, right down to the patch over the eye.  

^{During Petunia's "getting to know you"/garbage raiding phase, when a kitchen was a wondrous place, kind of like the Automat.}  

^{nothing like a nose full of sneaker stank!}  

 

^{Ollie's rescue picture (you can see how bad it was for him)} 

When we moved here, we decided to find a companion for our Petunia, knowing dogs need other dogs and that they are happier when they have their own kind as companions.  So we went to Boxer Rescue and adopted Oliver, a young male who desperately needed a home.  We didn't pick him out, the dog with his head down, so sad and depressed.  In fact, I had already picked out a couple of puppies for my rambunctious girl, but they asked us to please please consider Oliver.   

^{Oliver with one of his ballyballs.  He loved them, would stand and bark at them for hours.  We never understood what it was about, but it was funny as hell.} 

His situation was dire and he was a mess.  He had been in a kill pound, riddled with parasites, sick with infections, emaciated, lonely, maybe two years old.  

^{Not really a tag team, they were inseparable as dogs are in a pack, even if it's not a great match. Like a bad marriage, they were in it for the long haul.}    

He needed a permanent home immediately.  What the hell, give us Oliver, we said.  A chain of rescue cars got this lanky boy from PA to CT.  He and Petunia never quite hit it off, but nomatter he was our boy.

Turned out he had allergies, serious allergies, which were in fact cancers.  Mast cell cancers.  Young and strong cancer.  We had him for 20 months.  Within that time he had chemo and major surgery that nearly killed him while rearranging his face without a chunk of it and we incurred debt we never dreamed we'd take on right after buying our first house.  

But nomatter what we did (I ground bones for him, made all his food and chauffeured him across states, taking him up to Tufts, hoping to save his life) it was to no avail.  He died in our arms.  I went into a deep depression after his death....I never imagined I could love a dog so much.  

^{Poppy puppy's adoption image.  Boxer mix.  yeah, right. (check out the white hair on her chin which made her look like she was grinning....well...it LOOKED like that to me anyway)}

Next came OCD dog, Poppy.  She was supposed to be one thing (a Boxer mix), but turned out to be another (a West Virginia concoction hound).  Ate her way through our woodwork along with two couches and various other costly items.  More than once we considered euthanasia after unsuccessfully trying to find her another, more suitable home with people who hunt or are very outdoorsy.  

Why not just send her along to another home, any home that was willing to take her? Because we were convinced she would have been abused by just about anyone, she was such a destructive, loud, neurotic dog.  Or worse.  We believed there was a huge chance she would have ended up in a pound, waiting for someone, anyone.  And being big and loud and nervous, she would have become one of the millions upon millions of dogs who live out their sad lives in no kill dog pounds, crazy, lonely, miserable, running in endless circles in a small cage.  If she was lucky.  For a dog who lives to run and bark, this would have been torture.  I realize we were projecting, but we had to.  She is our responsibility.  So out of necessity we worked it out.  And she grew up (a little. enough.). 

This is the way it is with loving animals.  They are what they are and you have to take care of them because they trust you to, hell or high water.  Our destinies are intertwined like vines that have wrapped around each other to the point that to remove one destroys the other.  We are many become one, animals and humans. 

 ^{who could not love this idiot hound?} 

^{Petootie and Poppy, BFFs} 

My Petunia is now 11 or so..close to 12.  She is dying.  She has Cushings Disease, is becoming senile, had some teeth removed this week after which her gums became infected and that nearly finished her.  We are stone cold broke and just hit up our credit cards to buy a little time for her.  Why?  Because she is our family.  Because she would do it for us if she knew to, if she had a credit card that wasn’t maxed out on toys and bones.  I know she'd lay down her life and die for me this good natured, attention stealing, food tripping dog.  

Her time is coming to an end.  She may have weeks, she may have a year.  We cannot know.  But I guess you could say that about any of us.  We are all here for however long we are.  

Yet, nomatter what, we are here for these animals.  Their lives are so much shorter than our own and yet we continue to seek them out and bring them into our homes and hearts, loving them without reservation.  They love us back so powerfully, we are compelled to keep doing it again and again and again.  For love. 

None of us who love animals can ever walk by a cage with an animal in it that we will not look at and consider, if only for a split second whether or not we can take that animal and make a space for it in our lives.  This is how we are hardwired now.  We are people of animals.  Our destinies are intertwined.  We are the better for it.  

 ****

This post is dedicated to Scanner and his wife Terri.  I had just read Scanners terrible, sad news about the accidental death of their little pup Zoey.  They only had this tiny girl a month, and her death comes on the heels of the accidental death of their beloved Scanner, only a month or so ago.  It's like he and Terri can't catch a breath without their hearts breaking. I wish I could do something or say something to lift their load.