Use Your Words

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Mark Twain

There is something extra about a rescued dog.  A dog who has been abused, starved, abandoned or a combination of all these things and then has been taken in and fed, sheltered, and, above all, loved has an extra appreciation for his surroundings and those people in them.  Here at home, my dogs are always excited to see me but at my new digs at the rescue, they have an intangible appreciation of my presence.  They’ve been to hell and back and they like back a whole lot better.

Take Sparky here.  He was found abandoned, tied to a post on a one foot chain with a dirty bucket of water beside him.  How anyone could do that to an animal is beyond me.  What did he do that was so wrong?  Pee on the carpet?  Chew up a few shoes?  Give me a break.  Every morning this athletic guy leaps his 40 pound doggy body into the air because he is just gosh darned happy to be alive, be surrounded by other equally happy rescued dogs, and be loved and cared for by folks who give a sh*t.  He’s smart, much smarter than bloodhounds for sure; he understands direction, behaves admirably, and is excellent company for a new employee spending her time setting up computer systems and organizing veterinary medicines.  I love the little guy and wish I could make him mine but instead appreciate the time we spend together and hope a good family will come along and adopt him into their fold. 

On the feline side, and usually on my desk, is Father Ferdinand.  A rescued adult stray, he has appointed himself the caretaker of kittens.  At present, we have two, though more are being fostered in caring homes.  If any of the dogs start getting a little too close to either Midnight or Charles, he places himself between the aggressor and agresee and escorts the little one back into the “cats only” room, protected from canine interference by a plastic baby gate.  Mostly, though, he snuggles beside me and gives me very nice face to face rubs. 

We have seven dogs, three cats, and two goats at the facility proper but far more being cared for elsewhere by volunteers.  In this very morning’s paper, a very sad and disturbing article stated that 150 animals a day are being dropped off at county shelters in

Phoenix

and many of these will have to be euthanized.  I know I am a little over the top as far as my love for animals but this non-committal practice of keeping a pet while it is convenient and then dropping it off, or worse, abandoning it in the desert, when things become at all challenging is beyond the pale. 

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

Anna Sewell, Black Beauty, 1877

Use your words for them everyone.  I know you’ve all got it in you.

Comments

[Debbi]

Congrats on the new job! The animals there are so very lucky to have you.

[Margery]

That has GOT to be the best job!