Yesterday, I drove to exit 121 (Buckhead) off I-20 to meet Sweetie, a purebred Chesapeake Bay Retriever who had been dumped at Cobb County Animal Control, northwest of Atlanta, to be euthanized. She was eight, heartworm positive, with a limp, so was deemed "unadoptable".
Sweetie was lucky. Though the cement floor of the shelter was hard on her joints, she was purebred, her ticket out. It doesn't always work that way, of course. Plenty of purebreds are euthanized, despite the slope of their flanks and the cut of their muzzle. But word travels very quickly when a purebred winds up in Animal Control: "PB Chessie in Cobb County" or "PB MinPin: Contact Spalding AC." Because many rescuers choose to organize themselves around preservation of a particular breed, there are groups and resources to pull, transport, and foster these dogs until an adoptive home can be found.
"How many Chessies do you have?" the woman who was going to foster Sweetie asked when I met her in the church parking lot we had designated for hand-off. I had arrived a little early, and so I walked Sweetie around the grassy area by the entrance to the Prayer Garden. Her leg sometimes slipped, but she pulled with real strength, at one point rolling onto her back and wriggling around in what must have been some yummy smell.
"I'm not really a breed person," I said. "We have four dogs, all mixes."
She told me about her "three permanent Chessies" and how she fostered one or two as the need (and there is always a need) arose. Sweetie was up for a bath and then headed to the vet that very afternoon to see about her limp, which made me feel very grateful to the woman who was giving so much of herself to a dog she'd never met before that very minute.
As I drove off, I wondered about the resistance--even resentment--I feel sometimes toward what I have come to think of as "the breed people". On the one hand, there are so many dogs in danger every minute of every day in every county across the South, there is no way a person can take it all in and act without some boundaries to help focus that action. We do what we can. We do what we are led to do.
On the other hand, why was this dog more deserving of rescue than the big black lab mix puppy or the medium sized brown and white terrier of indeterminate provenance? Why would no one look twice at the young dog with years of life ahead (if we chose to save him), but several organizations scramble to find a slot for the senior Chesapeake Bay Retriever? It made me queasy to think of the frightened dogs left behind in Cobb County AC, the ones who weren't anything special, who didn't measure up, somehow. Not long ago, I had emailed a woman with a local greyhound rescue about a greyhound mix on the "euth list" the next day at a Georgia shelter. I offered to find someone to pull him, I offered to get the dog to her if she could find a spot--
"We don't take mixes," she responded curtly. No offer to help, no sheepishness, just that single stone cold sentence. Breed Nazi I thought, then: No. We do what we can. We do what we are led to do. I tried to believe it.
Later that evening, I received an email from the woman who'd taken Sweetie:
"She has some major issues going on. At the end of her vertebrate there has either been an injury or infection or tumor or something which has majorly damaged it. She also has 5-6 vertebrate down her back that have crippling arthritis and on top of all of that there is an underlying neurological problem. The vet said it is rapidly progressing and she would be paralyzed with in 6 months. So.........we are going to look for a nursing home for her to live out her days and she will not be treated for heartworms. She will just be made comfortable for her remaining days. She is getting showered with lots of love. She has found "her" spot in the house it is under the piano so I put down a blanket for her. She has already gone out to potty and come back in and went straight to her blanket under the piano. She looks very happy to be off the shelter floor on her own bed. It is too bad that she is ill because she is so sweet and beautiful but at least chessie rescue made it possible for her to live out her final days in luxury."
I sat and cried. Until then, I thought I had learned my lesson. But the universe had more to teach me: What hubris to take pride in our compassion! What hubris to think we can even know its effect in this world, that we can determine the outcome. We do what we can, we do what we are led to do with the dog who presents herself, the dog in front of our noses.
We sit, palms up, and whatever comes, comes. Whatever falls from the sky, we take.
Sweetie was lucky. Though the cement floor of the shelter was hard on her joints, she was purebred, her ticket out. It doesn't always work that way, of course. Plenty of purebreds are euthanized, despite the slope of their flanks and the cut of their muzzle. But word travels very quickly when a purebred winds up in Animal Control: "PB Chessie in Cobb County" or "PB MinPin: Contact Spalding AC." Because many rescuers choose to organize themselves around preservation of a particular breed, there are groups and resources to pull, transport, and foster these dogs until an adoptive home can be found.
"How many Chessies do you have?" the woman who was going to foster Sweetie asked when I met her in the church parking lot we had designated for hand-off. I had arrived a little early, and so I walked Sweetie around the grassy area by the entrance to the Prayer Garden. Her leg sometimes slipped, but she pulled with real strength, at one point rolling onto her back and wriggling around in what must have been some yummy smell.
"I'm not really a breed person," I said. "We have four dogs, all mixes."
She told me about her "three permanent Chessies" and how she fostered one or two as the need (and there is always a need) arose. Sweetie was up for a bath and then headed to the vet that very afternoon to see about her limp, which made me feel very grateful to the woman who was giving so much of herself to a dog she'd never met before that very minute.
As I drove off, I wondered about the resistance--even resentment--I feel sometimes toward what I have come to think of as "the breed people". On the one hand, there are so many dogs in danger every minute of every day in every county across the South, there is no way a person can take it all in and act without some boundaries to help focus that action. We do what we can. We do what we are led to do.
On the other hand, why was this dog more deserving of rescue than the big black lab mix puppy or the medium sized brown and white terrier of indeterminate provenance? Why would no one look twice at the young dog with years of life ahead (if we chose to save him), but several organizations scramble to find a slot for the senior Chesapeake Bay Retriever? It made me queasy to think of the frightened dogs left behind in Cobb County AC, the ones who weren't anything special, who didn't measure up, somehow. Not long ago, I had emailed a woman with a local greyhound rescue about a greyhound mix on the "euth list" the next day at a Georgia shelter. I offered to find someone to pull him, I offered to get the dog to her if she could find a spot--
"We don't take mixes," she responded curtly. No offer to help, no sheepishness, just that single stone cold sentence. Breed Nazi I thought, then: No. We do what we can. We do what we are led to do. I tried to believe it.
Later that evening, I received an email from the woman who'd taken Sweetie:
"She has some major issues going on. At the end of her vertebrate there has either been an injury or infection or tumor or something which has majorly damaged it. She also has 5-6 vertebrate down her back that have crippling arthritis and on top of all of that there is an underlying neurological problem. The vet said it is rapidly progressing and she would be paralyzed with in 6 months. So.........we are going to look for a nursing home for her to live out her days and she will not be treated for heartworms. She will just be made comfortable for her remaining days. She is getting showered with lots of love. She has found "her" spot in the house it is under the piano so I put down a blanket for her. She has already gone out to potty and come back in and went straight to her blanket under the piano. She looks very happy to be off the shelter floor on her own bed. It is too bad that she is ill because she is so sweet and beautiful but at least chessie rescue made it possible for her to live out her final days in luxury."
I sat and cried. Until then, I thought I had learned my lesson. But the universe had more to teach me: What hubris to take pride in our compassion! What hubris to think we can even know its effect in this world, that we can determine the outcome. We do what we can, we do what we are led to do with the dog who presents herself, the dog in front of our noses.
We sit, palms up, and whatever comes, comes. Whatever falls from the sky, we take.
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