Letter to Foxy the Dog

           dog’s head in my lap

           she knows only this moment

             – i am still learning

Dear Foxy:

You illustrate why I usually prefer animals to people.

Before you came to us, you experienced more bad things than I know about.

Of the time before Maggie rescued you from the shelter we know only that you had a litter. I often wonder if they shot your pups. You so fear gunshots, even at a distance, that when you’re enjoying a walk by the river, it’s over if we hear them shooting to scare birds from the pecan orchards. Fireworks are torture. Thunder sends you scurrying under my desk, the most solid protection you can get under.

Maggie rescued you, and cared for you; but, decades before your birth she was gang-raped, and she suffered other hardships thereafter. She was a sweet, intelligent, pleasant old lady; but she was convinced that the boys who had played tricks on her in the town you lived in initially were now in Las Cruces, breaking in at night to frighten her, and would soon kill her.

To protect herself and you from her oppressors, she kept the doors barricaded and you in a cage. Letting you out involved ten minutes of moving chairs and boxes and what-not. As dogs often take on their human companions’ moods and fears. I wonder how Maggie’s fear and paranoia affected you.

(Digression: in our youth, a woman friend always picked exciting guys who had a nasty edge to them; nice guys were boring; she loathed milquetoasts. Once when she visited my parents’ house, an exceedingly nice guy (Tim) was also visiting. As she came in the front door, her dog took off for the back of the house, where Tim and my father were mixing drinks, and instantly bit Tim, whom neither girl nor dog had ever met.)

When, Maggie fell ill and you came here. You loved Dael, who had sometimes brightened your life when you were with Maggie; but you weren’t too sure about me, perhaps reflecting Maggie’s understandably suspicious view of men. New circumstances made you nervous.

Watching you flower here brought me joy. No more cage. Your own small door let you go out and come in at will. Your own garden. Dael taking you for long walks every day, without fail, and us both taking you to the river when weather and schedules permit. No fear.

You’ve been remarkably well-behaved! While clearly from no obedience school, you’ve quickly recognized our preferences and accommodated them. No mutilated cushions, excessive barking, or other modest sins.

We also learn from you. You live so much in the moment, your reddish tan body barely able to contain your excitement when a Saturday morning bone appears! No sulking over disappointments or visits to the vet. No looking very far into the future. Making the best of stuff. Loving, unconditionally.

But it’s heartbreaking to hear friends’ stories of the overcrowded shelter, and of the horribly stupid neglect some humans destroy animals with. A bicyclist friend, a retired law-enforcement officer, talked often with his neighbor’s dog, and sometimes supplied water or other missing necessities, was saddened one morning when, not unexpectedly, the neglected dog was no longer. People who abuse or abandon animals should be abused. (They probably were.) 

Humans are a sorry lot. Governments aren’t coping with the wild-dog problem we’ve created, or with the devastating canine attacks on human beings.

 

 
                                            – 30 --