In for a Dime, In for a Dollar – The Tale of Two Kitties

Part 2: Shadow

This is the second of V.K. Whetham's guest posts about the miracle cats who chose her household as their forever home.

A year ago this month, the wind was howling the entire night so hard the roof seemed to shake and I was certain the siding on the house was being peeled off – again. This is not unusual for where I live now. The wind is our constant companion throughout the year, but is always particularly unrelenting and brutal in January.

The dogs were restless that night. They woke me up several times, almost every hour. The first couple of times they went outside to do their business and to, no doubt, check on the siding and shingles for me. Strangely, the third time they woke me they refused to leave the house. They just stood watching me, tails wagging, ears perked up, clearly “on alert” but with no perceivable enemy or concern.

By four a.m. I was exhausted and exasperated by their behavior. “What is it?” I begged, more than asked. “What’s wrong?” I encouraged the dogs to go outside for the umpteenth time and my usually obedient canines looked at me like I had clearly lost my marbles. They were not going outside. It was windy and cold. They had no business to do out there.

My son woke up and came into the living room. I told him about the dogs’ strange behavior and he just shrugged, conveying not only disinterest but general annoyance as well. “They woke me up,” he groused, as he headed to the kitchen. Then suddenly he stopped. “What’s that?” he asked. I hadn’t heard a thing. “Can’t you hear it?” 

My son opened the front door then, dressed only in a shirt and underwear, went out into the 40-degrees-below storm. Moments later he returned with the saddest-looking thing that I’d seen in a long time.

The tiny creature looked like he was about six weeks old. His fur was thin and sparse. Alarmingly, I could see every bone in his body, including every tiny vertebra that made up his long, bluish-grey tail. Huge green eyes looked at me. And, unbelievably, this little feline was purring.

I shuddered. And I looked at my son. We rushed to show the kitten where the water and the food were located. A tiny shred of hope crept up my spine when the kitten drank a large amount of water, nibbled on the food and then returned to the water.

My son pleaded, “We have to keep him!” 

“Of course, no question; but, honey, I don’t know. He’s so tiny and sick. Little ones are fragile. You have to be prepared. He may not survive.”

My son shrugged, this time conveying the clear message he was siding with the dogs that night: I had lost my marbles and had no idea what I was talking about.

That morning we took the kitten to the vet. He was very emaciated but otherwise in good health. He was also more likely six months old than six weeks. He was very small for his age.

The vet gave us some food and told us to come back in two week when hopefully the little guy could be neutered and given his shots. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

Shadow

How did this tiny kitten find us? Our home is surrounded by eight-foot-tall bushes. A small kitten could crawl into the yard but dogs can’t, even in the winter. The porch light wasn’t on and there was no sign on our door that said, “Security found here,” despite what my family may think. Stranger still, we have never heard Shadow meow since that winter’s night. He purrs quite loudly but does not speak.

What was a six-month-old kitten doing outside in the middle of winter? Kittens that young don’t usually wander far. He may not have been out long in the cold, because it doesn’t take long for anything to become emaciated in freezing temperatures, but certainly he’d been out for at least a day or two. He was on death’s door – another few hours, maybe a day, and we probably would have found a horror on our porch and not the purring machine we did.

This past December, our beautiful black cat, Stryder (named after the king in the Lord of the Rings), passed away unexpectedly. One day, I may write about Stryder, who lived up to his name in every way possible. But not today. I have folded his memory away for now and hidden him behind a door. When the pain has lessened, I will open the door and tell you about the king. 

Stryder

Shadow is a miracle brought to us, I believe, by God. Fuzzy had not lived one day without a feline companion, and he was bonded inseparably to my son and to his buddy, Stryder. I think it was a miracle that saved Shadow, and I believe that God knew Stryder’s days were numbered and Fuzzy would need another companion. We would all need another companion; not to replace our old friend but to ease his passing so we could bravely let him go.

How else could Shadow – against improbable odds, facing a sure death, in a winter storm and in the dark – have found the one porch in the entire neighborhood where a family was awake and could hear his cry for help and take him in?

I have learned that faith is not only believing in God but also believing in all his promises. It’s why I pray, “Please make me the person my dogs think that I am, and thank you for my cats who remind me that I am not that person yet.”

In for a Dime, In for a Dollar – The Tale of Two Kitties

Part 1: Fuzzy

This 2-part guest post is by V.K. Whetham, considerately filling in for me as I continue to not get my new Vet Tech Tales posts prepped in time. Patience, new Tales really are on their way! Meanwhile, enjoy V.K.'s lovely tail, er tale ...

Previously I have written about my love and dedication to the canine species. But my devotion to the animal kingdom does not end there. I had the privilege of growing up in a household that tolerated all manner of pets. We owned a particularly cool parakeet named Peppi and a fish aquarium. And, we had one great dog, named Trooper, who passed away at the age of 13. What we did not have, however, were cats. My father is extremely allergic, and this condition must have caused him to disdain the feline species.

My siblings and I have all adopted cats after leaving home. I suppose a psychologist would have something to say about this. After all, Dad can’t be in a house with a cat without breaking out in tears and hives and gasping for breath. It makes visiting his children difficult, to say the least.

I, on the other hand, would argue that our adoption preference is less about our relationship with our father and more about the character of cats. Both dogs and cats humble me, but in different ways. I pray God will make me the person my dogs think that I am and thank Him for my cats who remind me daily that I am not that person yet.   

We have two cats who allow us to live with them at this time, and they came to us uniquely. Cats seem to find their Person while people tend to find their dogs.

My first home was a small country house about a mile outside a rural town. It was a great place to live. Our backyard butted up against a cornfield. There were no street lights on our dead-end, dirt road that we shared with only a handful of neighbors. They were all great people, willing to lend a hand whenever there was a need.

There was only one spoiled apple pair in the bushel. And they lived directly next door to me.

They were nice enough. They had two young girls who enjoyed playing with and watching over my younger son. But I could tell they were a troubled family. The mother didn’t work and the father was frequently “laid-off.” The children were often dirty, with tangled hair, and were out at all hours of the day and night.

I could tolerate all of that. My real pet peeve was the propensity of the family for adopting puppies and kittens that always “ran away” before reaching adulthood. Phoenix wrote about a similar experience she had and she termed such people “puppy hoarders.” I had never thought about it like that – I just considered the family to be irresponsible.

Year after year, I watched the family adopt one puppy after another, one kitten after another, usually in the spring. The puppies and kittens would disappear sometime in the winter. The neighbor across the road told me all about it before I even had a chance to see it for myself. She swore one of their dogs was found miles away and adopted by a kind farmer.

The situation saddened me, but I hoped the missing dogs found better homes since the family didn’t spend much time with their pets after winter set in. It was too cold to play outside with wintery wind and freezing temperatures and the pets were never let inside.

Ten years ago this past fall, the family moved away to the city, in hopes of finding a better job, better schools, a better life. They left behind four cats, all barely a year old. The house they lived in was rented out and, dutifully, the renters dumped cat food on the porch every day for the cats. No care, no love, no dish, no water and no shelter.

The fall passed and then came the brutal winter with its freezing temperatures. My son, at the tender age of eight, would go out looking for the cats during the worst nights. We would feed them and give them shelter, but they refused to stay inside. One after another the cats disappeared until the only one left was Sasha. And Sasha was pregnant.  

The night before Easter, she came to our door. It was very cold and we let her in. We fed her and then we went to bed. On Easter Sunday we awoke to find that she had given birth to eight tiny kittens.  

We raised them until Sasha weaned them and she began to insist on being let out. I decided to take the kittens and her to a no-kill shelter in the city where I thought they had a better chance of being adopted into loving homes and not being left outside in the cold as mousers.

My son asked if he could keep one, and I agreed. He chose a particularly feisty kitten that he named Angel. I have no idea why. She was anything but -- always underfoot, always racing through the house and getting into flower pots while her littermates were content to rough house in their box and take long naps.

By then it was spring. The crocuses and daffodils and tulips were blooming. It was warm and sunny. The weekend before I planned to take the kittens to the shelter, we took them outside to romp around. They loved the grass and the sun. One kitten, named Fuzzy because of his long hair, took a liking to a bush and crawled under it.



Fuzzy

After a few minutes, Fuzzy came out with a two-inch thorn sticking out of his lower eye lid. It looked like it could have been all the way in his eye. I am bit less squeamish now than I was then, but I make no apologies for my scream, tears and panic. It’s not every day you see a thorn sticking out of a kitten’s eye!

After gathering up the kittens and Sasha, we rushed Fuzzy to the vet. I watched as he unceremoniously pulled the thorn out of Fuzzy’s eye with tweezers and then rubbed antibiotic ointment into it. Fuzzy showed no sign of distress the entire time; in fact, he was, quite curiously, purring. And, as I remember it now, he was purring with a smug look on his face.

The vet looked at me and I looked at him. He is one of those really cool vets who don’t believe in making fortunes out of caring for animals. He said, “He needs his shots and he’s old enough to be neutered. You can make payments.”  I kid you not. He was that abrupt and that matter of fact. What could I do but nod? Fuzzy had already cost me a vet visit. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

The next weekend, Fuzzy stayed home while his siblings and his mother took a trip to the city.

To this day, I am absolutely convinced that he knew about his pending trip and decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

Fuzzy is a great cat. He is totally and absolutely devoted to my son. He follows him from room to room like a dog. He also bonded with the cat, Stryder, that already lived with us. They became best friends and behaved like brothers. Most of the time, Fuzzy and Stryder would hang out together, groom each other and sleep soundly side-by-side. But, like brothers, they sometimes didn’t get along. Fuzzy would torment Stryder deliberately by swishing a tale in his face or nudging him out of the food bowl. Stryder, the tougher and more mature of the two, would tolerate this up to a point, but usually the teasing would end with a race around the house and Stryder thumping Fuzzy on the head.

Stryder



Then along came Shadow.

"Part 2: Shadow" will continue on Monday.

It’s a God-Thing: Part Two – Lady

Today’s guest post is from V.K. Whetham.

Lady (R) with Rocky (L)

Recently I was sobbing. 

Now, I must insist to make it known that I am not prone to fits of sorrow, frustration or anger. My father, who has never been one to give compliments, has given me exactly three that I can remember. Since this is the year where I will reach the exact middle of my life expectancy – if those “How Long Will You Live” calculators have any accuracy at all – and because I see my father as a very wise man, these compliments have meant more to me than just about anything else in the world.

I say this with no negative feelings or sarcasm.

What he said was, “I’ve always seen you as the most positive of people.”

This was in response to the first sentence and the second.

I was sobbing because I am a mother of a teenager. Being mother to a teenager is the scariest, loneliest, least fulfilling and most agonizing state of existence. It is all part of a great plan where we will give up our children to their futures, willingly. In fact, many of us will not only voluntarily show them the door, some of us will pack their bags for them and set said bags on the porch. Attached to one bag may be a bus ticket. Nothing else.

I wasn’t left to cry alone. Lady, my 10-year-old Mastiff, climbed onto the couch next to me, arthritic hips crackling, and then set her head on my hip. She then gently, quietly began to moan. This is Lady’s way of communicating. She moans from the couch so I’ll bring her treats from the kitchen. She moans at her water dish when it is empty. She moans when she itches and she moans quite loudly when she is outside in the rain and would prefer to be inside. She doesn’t know English but she does know the universal language of moaning.

“Patience,” I read in her big brown eyes.

“But –” I blubbered.

“Patience,” Lady moaned.

I petted her. She moaned slightly louder, then laid a big paw on my thigh.

Now I will tell you the secret of an optimistic life. First, be born into a family that loves you. Second, be born into a slightly dysfunctional family. Third, succeed. Fourth, join a profession where you have the opportunity to serve others. Then you will know how grateful to be. 

I looked down at my beautiful Lady – and I no longer felt like crying.

I adopted Lady from the Humane Society. I hadn’t planned to do it. It was an accident. 

I had just purchased a home and it wasn’t even a home that I really wanted. But it had “potential.” I fall in love with anything that has “potential.” Ask any of my exes. They all had potential.

Point of truth: Don’t date anyone with “potential.” Date someone who has lived up to their potential.  

Anyway, my new home had potential, which meant what it really had was a backyard, if one defines backyard as being LARGE: a 7000 square foot lot with weeds, a canoe with a hole in its bottom and a white wooden fence in need of repair. It is exactly 7 times bigger than my house. I didn’t see the weeds, the fence or the canoe. I saw gardens, grass, fountains and birdbaths. I smelled fertilizer and the acrid scent of herbicide. And I saw a dog. Maybe two.   

I was surfing “how to” gardening websites and ordering bulbs for spring planting (I purchased my home in August) with my computer resting on boxes to be unpacked. I was in seventh heaven. I had outlined ideas how I was going to landscape my new backyard before I set up my bedroom. So it was only natural for me to visit the Human Society to look at dogs. Not to adopt, but to plan.  

That’s when I saw Lady, a beautiful, red-brindle Mastiff-cross. I read her biography. She was 4-6 years old and had been at the Human Society for 3 years after being taken from an abusive owner. Apparently, they thought she was part pit bull and hoped she would be a good guard dog. They tried to make it so by being mean and abusive. Since Lady doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, it didn’t work. Lady licks, eats and guards the couch or bed, depending if it is day or night. She also moans. But she is not mean. She would only defend herself from an extreme situation.

So there she was waiting in the Big Dog Pen with other Big Dogs that were not very nice to her. They bullied her even though she was the largest, weighing in at 109 lbs. But she patiently waited, licking visitors with her tongue year after year after year. Three years is a long time to be waiting for a forever home, especially when you’re a dog whose life expectancy is 10. That’s 25 years in human time. Twenty-five years is a long time to be locked up. Murderers in this country get less time with good behavior.

I decided she’d done her time, and within 10 minutes after meeting her I was writing a $35 check and loading her up in my car. Best $35 I have ever spent. I should have paid them more.

Lady spent the first 3 months living by choice in an 8X10 room with the washer and dryer. She came out for bathroom breaks and food. She growled when anyone approached her but would let us pet her. I just figured that if this was the best she would ever be, then so be it. At least she wasn’t waiting anymore. I promised her that whatever life she had left would not be spent locked up with a bunch of bullies because someone had criminally harmed her. We punish our victims too often in this country. 

I needn’t have worried. Eventually Lady found my bedroom with the big queen-size bed. It was dark in the back room and much quieter than living with the washer and dryer. Once she found the bed it was good-bye utility room. This meant she had to sleep with me where she learned to moan to be petted. It was also where I discovered she snores quite well – but I think she already knew how to do that. 

Then she found the couch. Lady will tolerate almost anything and anyone as long as she is on the couch or the bed. She will guard her bed or her couch.

She does hide in the utility room, underneath a folding table, when she hears thunder and fireworks. Fireworks should be banned and those that use them inside city limits should be sentenced to spending their next 4th of July at the Humane Society. In the Big Dog Pen.

After I started fostering dogs from the Wyo Herd Rescue, also an accident (all the best things in my life have come to me unexpectedly), I discovered that Lady is a therapy dogs for other dogs.  She has been my best companion and my strongest aid in fostering other dogs. If a dog, male or female, is overly aggressive or domineering, Lady gives them “the eye.” It’s not pretty. If the dog continues, she pins the wayward soul down while barking and growling in the offender’s face. She eventually lets the dog up, tail between their legs and without a scratch. A third warning has never been necessary.

Timid, shy and injured dogs are allowed to lie next to her. Her soft moans and body heat gives them comfort. She lets the puppies sit and bounce on her. She licks the wounds of the injured, cleans the dirty and defends the weak with that “eye” and sometimes a sterner warning. If the dogs play too rough, inside or out, she growls, also in warning. Rough play ends immediately. Children running through the house also get “the eye” and then a warning. They stop in their tracks as well.

Otherwise, children love her. They offer her a treat and she thanks them with a large, wet lick that makes them giggle. She’ll clean their faces as well. She is the perfect mom, the perfect therapist.

But it wasn’t any of these things that stilled my tears. It was one thought, “How Big is God?”

God is Big Enough to move my heart to accidentally adopt this beautiful dog. He is Big Enough to keep a gentle giant patiently waiting for her forever home, knowing she would be needed for the dozens and dozens of dogs that would follow her. He is Big Enough to remind a grieving mother that Lady was not alone nor forgotten, and neither am I. He is Big Enough to remind me that if Lady had patience for 3 years, who am I not to?

What did I hear when Lady moaned on my lap? Not pity but “Patience, He is Big Enough.”

What is the fifth element to living an optimistic life? Faith. It is remembering that God has his eye on the sparrow. Does he care less about his children or love them less?

He has a plan. It is for good and not for evil. Eight years ago when Lady entered a shelter, beaten and abused, he said to her, “I have a plan. Patience.”

Lady laid her paw on my leg and I heard, “Patience. He is here.”

~~~

Next time V.K. visits: Even cats find their way home. 

Adopt one, until there are none.

Rocky the Comeback Kid: It’s a God-Thing

This is a guest post by V.K. Whetham.

I remember the first day I met the small border collie like it was yesterday; some images just stick in your mind.  I picked him up from an animal shelter in a small, very rural town.  The entire shelter has ten kennels – and one of the runs is used as storage.

This little border collie was found by a sheriff’s deputy who undoubtedly saved him from death. The deputy had seen him several times on his patrols, clearly abandoned and becoming thinner by the day. Haunted by these sightings, the deputy searched for him on his day off.  After hours, he finally found the little guy and was able to coax him into a crate with pleas and food.    

The border collie was so thin every rib was visible. Dirty and shaved, he was every bit the picture of an orphaned waif. He was also terrified. It was quickly determined he wasn’t adoptable “as is,” and a search for a rescue began immediately. That’s how WyoHerd rescue and I got involved.

We have no idea how this little dog ended up all alone in rural Wyoming – far from any home, town or farm.  We don’t know why someone shaved him.  We don’t know if he fell off a truck or if he was a dump job.  Many people do dump dogs in rural areas knowing that some kind farmer will find their dog and give him/her a home.  People believe these dogs are better off dumped in the middle of nowhere than in a shelter where they could be euthanized.

People are mistaken. Dumped dogs more often than not end up dead from being hit by cars, starvation and disease. They are easy prey for predators. Sometimes they turn to hunting small farm animals or robbing rubbish bins to survive, and farmers shoot them.  Farmers don’t want strays mingling with their dogs because strays often carry disease and parasites, nor do they want their pets threatened or attacked by strays.   

We also didn’t know what this little dog’s name was – no tags, just a collar. I knelt down next to him and petted him. I whispered in his ear, “I’m naming you Rocky.  You’re going to be a great comeback story, just like that boxer Balboa.” Rocky peed on my sandals.

It took a few days to coax Rocky out of the crate and even more time before he didn’t run and hide when the doorbell rang. Rocky was fairly easy to housebreak, but marking was another problem.  He was only about a year old but had already started marking everything in sight – and when I say everything, I mean everything.  Once this behavior starts, it’s very hard to extinguish. 

Rocky had some things going for him that other rescues often don’t. He is a beautiful dog with remarkable markings. He is also an unusual color for a border collie – reddish/brown and white rather than black and white. At the time he was very young and small. He looks purebred, just smaller than most border collies. He was also in good health.

I didn’t have Rocky for very long when a couple called from out of state to adopt him. I talked to them twice on the phone, but I had some doubts. I told my rescue coordinator that I wasn’t sure about them. They claimed they wanted a “special needs” dog.  They said they were experienced with dogs and could tolerate the marking problem. Still, Rocky had a lot of needs; I was confident he would be a great dog but he his rehabilitation was going to take some time.  I wasn’t sure he was “ready.” They said they understood. They could handle it. And Rocky was adopted within two months.

This was in September, and by November a relationship I had been in for three years crumbled around me rather unexpectedly – well, unexpectedly for me anyway. It was a crushing blow. I was humiliated and horrified. The details are brutal. I ended up homeless, living with friends for a month until I could move back into my home I had rented out. I was paralyzed with grief for months.

In December, I received an email from the rescue coordinator. Rocky’s adopted family no longer wanted him. Turned out the marking behavior was more than they could handle, he began attacking their small poodle out of jealousy, he wasn’t very obedient, and the husband didn’t have the time to spend with him.  He was needy and demanded constant affection. Would I take Rocky until another home could be found for him? I emailed her back without hesitation. Rocky had a home; he just had to come home.  

So Rocky came home. He walked into the house without hesitation and folded himself into my arms. He hadn’t forgotten me either. My Mastiff, Lady, all 109 lbs. of her, jumped – okay stepped – from the couch onto the coffee table to get a better look at him, tail wagging, protruding butt wiggling. My Aussie sniffed him, snorted and, in her usual princess-like attitude, began to walk away. She didn’t get out of the living room before turning back. She licked his face. Even my princess, snobbish and particular about who she greets, couldn’t resist him. We were so happy; Rocky had come home. He really was the comeback kid!

Rocky didn’t demonstrate any of the problems he had at his first adopted home except for the marking, which has improved with time. He can be needy and demanding of affection, but with time and obedience this too has lessened. He still will occasionally mark when he’s upset or anxious.

Sometimes when people adopt special needs dogs they treat them like fragile figurines and don’t provide correction and obedience training. The problem with this is that dogs are pack animals and if guidance and corrections are not provided to anxious dogs, they become more anxious. They know they can’t be the leader of the pack and if their humans don’t provide the leadership, they become frightened, desperate and sometimes a bit bratty. 

Love, food, water and medical care are the bare minimums. Obedience, time and guidance allow dogs to feel safe.  It works the same for children.

Border collies are notoriously smart, and Rocky is no different. As I turn off the lights for bed, he rushes to the bedroom and curls up on the pillow next to mine. That’s his spot and no one is going to get it.  Also, he never lets me go to sleep without touching me. Sometimes it’s a paw on my shoulder or a tail across my legs, but always he is there. Remember Nick? Rocky became a bit jealous when Nick began to sit on the couch to be petted, so he would run to Nick’s bed and sit on it – staring at him. This made Nick nervous and Nick would go back to his bed so Rocky could have his spot back. This doesn’t work anymore because Nick doesn’t care if Rocky has his bed as long as he is sitting next to me, so Rocky lays on him now to get him to move.

Also like most Herd dogs, Rocky always has his eyes on me. He’s never underfoot but always near. He’s not a brave dog, so I suspect his plan is if danger approaches me, he’ll be there to show me a way to escape. Lady’s our muscle, and, at 109 lbs., she doesn’t run very fast – or ever. Rocky would probably convince her to guard our backs.     

Rocky’s return was salve to my open wounds. I realized when he returned things were going to get better, happiness would return and this too would pass. He offered renewed hope and optimism.   

I also saw it as a “God-Thing.” Some people say they don’t believe in God because they can’t see him. It’s hard to find something if you’re not looking for it. I don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe that Rocky came home by accident. I don’t believe he was found accidentally by a sheriff’s deputy or that he came home exactly when I was able to provide him with the care he needed. 

I believe something more was involved, something bigger. I believe he was a part of a bigger plan that was executed exactly in the manner it was meant to. I have no proof of this, of course. But how big is God? Certainly he’s big enough to save a little dog’s life and to bring him home when his family needed him the most. 

How big is God? So big that when I whispered in a little dog’s ear that he was going to be the Comeback Kid, God heard my promise and made sure it came true.  

~~~

V.K. will share Lady's story here soon!

Adopt one, until there are none.

Nick's Story

This is a guest post by V.K. Whetham.

Nick is a “special” dog, which is a polite way of saying his chance of being adopted is slim to none.

It is not because Nick is old or sick. He’s only 4 and in perfect health. Nor is he ugly or too black [ed: there is documented evidence black dogs are euthanized at a higher rate than dogs with any other trait]. He is a beautiful tri-color border collie/ Australian shepherd cross. That makes him a herd dog twice over, and in the West where there are more predators than people, more free range than fenced, a good herd dog may be the only insurance a rancher has against bankruptcy. We love our dogs here. We depend on them. They protect our homes, livestock and families. Even more than family members, they are a part of who we are.  

But Nick isn’t an ordinary herd dog. He has issues. So many issues that if he were a child he would very likely be shipped from one foster home to the next until landing in a residential group home and, finally, institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital. Because Nick is a dog and not a boy, his future was even more grim and in other circumstances he would have been destroyed. In fact, his final walk had already been planned when he got lucky and came to live with me instead.

Nick is a rescue from an animal hoarding situation. Although we can’t be sure, we believe he may have been born in the very cage he was rescued from when he was 2 years old. That’s a very long time to live in a cage. After months of trying, his rescuers determined he was unadoptable and a desperate search for a foster home began.

St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. I like to believe he and I would get along quite nicely. The good saint was looking after his own when he dropped Nick into my care.

I can still smell him. Within an hour of his arrival, my house smelled so bad it could have been a kennel. He had this huge Buddha belly but his legs were small, under-developed. They had atrophied. I will never forget the first time I put him into the backyard. He stood completely still and stared. He tiptoed across the grass, suspicion in every step. He didn’t know what grass was, had never felt in under his paws. He ran to a corner of the yard and shivered underneath a Lilac bush. He wouldn’t move. I had to put him on a leash to bring him back inside. Then he ran to his crate and cowered. We repeated this several times a day for 4 months.

It took many more months of coaxing before he would let me pet him or take food from my hand. It's clear he thought I would grab him or hurt him with the other hand. Months passed and still he wouldn’t willingly leave the crate. Finally, I had to take it away. Many anxious days followed when Nick paced and paced, looking desperately for his cage, all the time pleading with his eyes. I would sit next to him and sing – one lullaby after another, Christmas songs and hymns – the only songs I could remember. He tolerated me, but only just – tense and shivering, looking for a way to escape. One day he lay down and rolled over. It’s like he was saying, “If you insist on assaulting me with your horrible singing, scratch my belly while you’re doing it”. So I did.

Nick’s better. His progress has been slow but steady. There have been no big “Aha” moments. No ooohing or awwwing, just remembering how far he has come, one tiny little step at a time. Today, 18 months later, Nick almost looks normal and only the most astute stranger notices the fear in his eyes and asks, “What’s wrong with that dog?”

With me, he is calm now and all smiles. I laugh as I watch him swagger across the yard. I’ve never known a dog so careful about finding the right place to mark his presence. All my other dogs take a few seconds, but not Nick. Our 3 a.m. bathroom breaks are at least 15 minutes long now, sometimes longer. I don’t care because even so early, sometimes in the bitter cold, and always in the dark shadows away from the porch light it makes me laugh.

But then I watch Nick back up to a tree or fence to do his major business. What a smart way to keep your cage clean! But it’s sad as well. I know how and why Nick got so smart. My chest feels heavy when I think of why Nick, for the rest of his life, will do his major business like this.

Nick and I talk when he sits on the couch and the other dogs are playing. He isn’t much of a player. He enjoys my touch and no longer flinches or tenses up when I pet him. No longer does he look for a way to flee in case something happens and he finds I can’t be trusted after all. When strangers come over, even the young men and giggling girls that trail after my son, he no longer slinks off to the bedroom, hoping no one sees him. He sits with me and we watch the strangers. In his eyes, I can see him thinking, They are very loud. I nod. “But fun to watch,” I say. He looks at them and then at me. Loud wonders. I nod.

There are days when I look at Nick sitting on his bed, staring off in a distance. I know he is remembering things I can’t imagine. There is sadness in his soulful eyes, a loneliness, a painful remembrance. I lay my hand across his shoulders and he looks at me. The sadness fades. I nod. He knows I understand how far he has come and I don’t care how long the road is that he has yet to travel.

One other thing you should know about Nick: He was rescued from a “rescuer” with over 100 dogs. The owner was brought up on 100 charges of animal cruelty. She was offered a plea deal that if she relinquished her property – her 100 neglected dogs – charges would be dropped. Less than a year later the owner was charged with 51 new counts of animal cruelty.

I cried when I heard that. Then I remembered the starfish. I can’t save all of them, but I can make a difference to one at a time. Nick understood. He wagged his tail, slightly.

I also cried for this woman. As a therapist, I serve those who are often despised by others. I understand feelings of loss. I understand obsessive-compulsive disorder. Is Nick’s broken spirit and heart greater than this woman’s? She feeds her emptiness, fears and longing for happiness with animals she can’t care for. Is this so different than another who feeds his emptiness with wealth only to find there is not enough gold in the world to feed the bottomless pit of despair?  Is it so different than another soul who feeds the pit with food?

Nick looks at me. I look at him. We understand. He wags his tail, no longer tentatively but assuredly, joyfully, and my heart swells with love and hope.

I thank God for Nick. Nick shows me a tiny bit of God’s huge, omnipresent heart. He has learned to trust, love, forgive and hope against all odds or reason. Nick’s heart was surely made from God’s for Nick had no more reason to love, forgive or hope than God, yet they both love unconditionally, fully, deeply, in ways I can only imagine.

Nick was my foster dog but now has joined my growing family – three other rescued dogs and three beautiful cats. They all come with a story worth the telling.

If you would like a herd dog of your own – once you have a HERD you’ll never love another – please visit HERD rescue of Wyoming at http://www.herdofwy.com/ or any other rescue in your area. If you encounter a “rescue” that is not reputable – meaning the animals are not well-cared for – please report it to your local authorities. In Wyoming, before additional criminal action could be taken, new laws had to be passed. Nick’s “rescuer” was raided the second time less than 30 days after the governor signed the stricter laws. It’s frustrating that it takes so long but people really do want to do the right thing.

Next time I’ll tell you about Rocky the ComeBack Kid. Rocky can’t wait! He likes the spotlight!

Adopt One, Until There Are None.