Crusades
Out Of
The Mouth Of Babes
by
Dannielle Malcolm
I am a Type A personality. Ask anyone who knows me. Ask anyone I’ve never even
met- my reputation precedes me. I thrive on chaos. My life is a soap opera. I’m
self employed, have five large breed dogs, one small child and the care of an
elderly friend who just acts like a small child. My cup, as they say, doth
runneth over. But I manage. Don’t we all?
Life gets hectic, and just when you think you can’t handle one more thing, life
knocks you upside the head and changes everything.
The stud puppy back from a breeding I had a year and half ago came back to me.
When I got the call, I stepped up. That’s what we do, right? We are Responsible.
We are Ethical. We are Breeders, with a capitol “B”. Even when we are exhausted
soccer moms and overworked dads, it’s what we do. The munchkin notes the new
arrival.
“Uhm, mommy? There’s a new dog in the garage”, she points out.
“Thanks baby, I know.”
“What’s he doing here?” she asks.
Now this gets a bit harder. How to tell a sweet little thing of seven tender
years that sometimes people are selfish and cruel and believe that our beloved
companions are disposable? I can’t shelter her forever, can I?
“Well honey, his family decided they couldn’t keep him, so they brought him to
us”. Maybe I can slide with this…
“Oh”, she ponders the thought a moment, and I know the wheels are turning. No
way I’m gonna get out of this one. “Was he a bad dog?”
Now comes the talk. About how he’s not a bad dog at all, even though she isn’t
to play with him for a few days while he’s being quarantined and evaluated.
About how the family decided to get a new puppy and didn’t have time for this
lovely boy anymore. About how we didn’t want him to go to strangers at a
shelter.
“Are we keeping him?”
“No, he’s just staying here for a while so we can take care of him. He would
have been very lonely out there by himself with no one to feed him or love him
and keep him warm, so that’s our job for now. Until we can find him a new
family.”
She seems to get the idea. We’ve had conversations about kindness to ‘living
things’ before. Why you don’t pull starfish out of tide pools at the beach and
why you never hurt an animal for fun. So off I go on my merry way, impressed
with my super parenting abilities and back to the day to day events that make up
this whirlwind I call my life.
The weather turns foul, but the rescue dog is doing great. He’s responding
beautifully to strong leadership, respect and affection. He’s getting along well
with other dogs, responsive to commands and appears to be healthy and happy.
Amazing, really, considering we’ve had storm after storm after storm the past
few weeks. My kennel roofs collapse and there isn’t a single rainless day to
repair them. Everyone gets crowded inside into crates and small runs until the
flooding stops. Still, he’s doing well and looks like he may be ready to think
about moving on. I begin screening new homes for a placement.
An interested family is supposed to come by at ten am to meet the dog. I roll
out bed, toss on a jacket and the nearest pair of sneakers. Dutifully potty the
indoor dogs and give out breakfast, refill water buckets, grumble g’mornings as
I pat heads and wish that today the sun will come out long enough to dry the
standing water in my kennels and let everyone out to plays. Six indoor dogs on
my schedule? Involuntary insomnia.
I shower, throw on a robe and open my dresser drawers looking for…well the kind
of things you put on first. “AAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!”
There are snails in my underwear drawer.
Yes, snails. Slimy little creatures in funky little shells. Roaming about my
unmentionables. There is no way they got there on their own.
The munchkin hears me screaming and comes running in. “Mommy! What’s wrong?”
I sit down on the bed and point to the drawer “You want to explain that?”
She looks in, completely calm. “Oh that. It was raining”
.
“Raining?”
“Yeah mom”, this said with the duh, adults! tone, “It was raining, and they were
cold and lonely and didn’t have anywhere to go, so I’m taking care of them until
you can get them a family”.
I’m speechless. This is an outright miracle. Not the snails. Me being
speechless. Just when I think this kid of mine can’t surprise me anymore.
In the first column I wrote for The Dog Place, I asked what lessons we were
teaching the next generation. I meant the ones we purposely taught, formatted
and planned, an instructional guidebook for our sport. What I didn’t think about
was the little lessons they learn from everyday acts of kindness or neglect.
She saw an animal in need be taken in because it was the right thing to do. Her
generous heart didn’t distinguish between species. She saw what she believed was
suffering and did her best to alleviate it. Those snails weren’t bred by her or
owned by her but technicalities mattered little to a munchkin on a mission.
She has a broader definition of responsibility than I could have imagined.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of us did the same? I think that’s worth a snail
or two in the underwear drawer.
© April 2006
Handy links:
__________________________________
If Dogs Had Wings, Flying With Your Companion Animal
Breed Police aka: Paw Enforcement