Stray dog as metaphor for life
On December 8, I took in a dog.
She had a red nylon collar but no tag. Seemed clean, not starving, not feral. She was a little spooky when I approached her but allowed me to slip my own dog's leash under her collar so I could walk them both home at once. Once at home, it was clear she had a lot of separation anxiety issues: the first time I tried to leave her in the house alone, she retrieved one half of five pairs of shoes, hid my watch, and ate a box of Kleenex. The yellow fur she shed onto everything those first few days was no treat, either.
I shot some pictures and made up a lovely FOUND DOG poster. The first day, I posted up 10 copies around my neighborhood and was certain nobody would want to let such a sweet, apparently smart dog just go. I projected my own values onto the rest of the world: If Daisy, my beagle, had gone missing, I'd hope to hell someone would put up some posters and make a real effort to reuinite us.
That night, I placed ads on every lost/found animal website I could find. I called my friends at ADLA about getting the inside scoop on no-kill shelters: Surely my deep connection to this scene would give me the inside angle on getting her into a shelter and, eventually, adopted. Right? No. My ADLA homies told me the shelters are overfilling with abandoned animals, as families dump their dogs because they think they can't afford to keep them.
The next day I ran 10 more posters and expanded my radius. One jackass from the web tried to claim the dog was his, but he couldn't positively identify a couple very distinctive details I've left out of my description. It escalated to a threat to call the cops, which I pre-empted and made first, and then ended with a long string of emails that started out with "haw haw, I was just fuckin' with you!" and ended with "jeez, I'm really sorry I messed up your efforts." I was an emotional wreck.
Every day since the 8th, I've run 10 posters. That's 80 posters total so far. I've gone south, I've gone north, I've gone east and west. If anyone in a 2 mile radius is missing a dog, surely they'd know about it by now.
My neighbors saw the poster and told me they'd seen this dog running back and forth across our major road a week ago. This was the last straw for me, totally heartbreaking. The dog has been running for miles and has been doing it for days.
I've taken her for a couple walks with Daisy and she loves it. She loves to be loved. She loves attention. This dog, like all dogs, thrives on her relationship with a human being. God damn whoever let her leave without a tag. God damn anyone who might have dumped her on the street.
Now I'm half-afraid to go on long walks, for fear I'm going to find another lost soul, and another, and another. Are people really dumping their dogs? Am I alone in giving a shit about these animals? But more to the point, and this is relevant to my recent life: Is it my job to save them all?
I've been avoiding naming the dog, because once I name her she's mine. I think she already thinks I'm hers. She and Daisy play and play; they'd make great lifelong buddies. I've begun teaching her how to sit on command, but that's hard to do without hanging the order on her name. If I ever want to take her for a run or a hike, she'll have to learn to be civilized off-leash. I'm just so hesitant to invest in her at all. I don't want my heart broken.