It lasted this way for a few days before the pangs of hunger began to sink in. I scavenged from trashcans when I could, but anyone who caught me would shoo me away, sometimes kindly, others with exasperation. So I would try to catch an occasional rabbit or squirrel, but they were too fast, and I quickly lost interest in them. I could drink water from puddles when it rained, but I ran out of places to look for food. I became emaciated, my hair matted, nose cracked and dry. At times I almost went back to the bad-man. Almost.
One day I ran a little farther into the wild than I ever had before. I could barely do more than trot I was so hungry and tired, but I’d spotted a small rabbit and followed it as quickly as I could. Now I’d lost it, had no idea where it had gone. A pitiful whine escaped me. I finally shook and collapsed on the side of a dirt road, unable to walk any further. I was frightened, and utterly alone. My eyes began to feel heavy and droop. I was so, immeasurably tired. Maybe a quick nap, and I could find the rabbit later. Just a nap was all I needed!
I woke, panicked by the realization that I’d fallen asleep. Suddenly, I realized I was being carried. This was terrifying, and I did the best I could to protest, give some sign of a struggle. But I couldn’t; I could barely move, much less escape once again from who I was sure was the bad-man again. He was going to punish me for my escape, chain me so that I could never do so again. How had he found me?
I spent the next few days recuperating in a small house, in the corner on and beneath a blanket that smelled unmistakably of other dogs. To my utter surprise, it hadn’t been the bad-man who found me after all. It was a female, with firm but careful hands and a calming demeanor. She fed me, had washed me, and I slowly regained my strength, a sense of my former self. For a while I didn’t trust her. The only humans I’d come in contact with before had hurt me, or ignored me completely. A part of me still worried that she was fixing me up so I could go right back to my owner. She knew my name somehow: Marney. So she must have known the bad-man too. But he never came around, and slowly I began to trust and even to love the woman that had taken me in.
And now she places me in a large yard, messy and overridden with other dogs. Strays, just like me, I suppose. They came toward me in a writhing heap, dust and fur a cloud in their wake. So here it was. This was the bad-man’s punishment at last. I roll over onto my stomach, a gesture of supplication. The dogs sniff at me for a moment, a few stare a little defensively, and they all disperse. Suddenly I was just a part of the pack. I could run and play and sleep and eat whenever I wished. For the first time, I feel something akin to peace. But is this a home forever? It’s so much better than what I’ve had before, but still there is no one looking just for me. I wanted to know what it was like to be truly loved. I shake this feeling off and run to join the rest in the shade of a tree.
A few weeks later, I sit under the very same tree, and watch as a group of people I’d never seen before open the gate and ease themselves cautiously into our yard. They spend some time greeting the dogs that meet them there, but I am too content in the warmth to follow suit. One of the males, the tall one, comes over to my and squats down by my side. He scratches my ears and moves on. I like him. So when he sits down on the porch, I walk over to his side and hop into his lap. Maybe he likes me too. Maybe he’ll take me home?
I sat down on the front porch of the SARA Rescue Farm, and one of the multitudinous dogs I’d met that day: a slender, black and brown female whom I was informed was named Marney, walked cautiously over to my side. “Hi! Hi sweetie!” I said, hoping she would understand by my tone that I wasn’t here to hurt her. This fear was short lived, as she immediately came up and put her front paws in my lap. At first I was simply stunned. I had assumed all of these animals would be somewhat shy of humans, especially of tall males like myself. Yet she seemed perfectly at ease in my presence. Simply looking for someone’s attention. And with Marney, her propping up on my lap wasn’t wild or jarring and did not seem to come from an overabundance of energy. She wasn’t hopping up and down or licking my face. She just wanted to be there with me. I have a dog at home, Huck, who does this exact thing. Perhaps that’s why I was so taken with Marney. It seemed: polite. “Would you mind scratching my ears, please?” I imagined her saying. “Thank you so much.”
I sat with Marney for about twenty minutes. After three of four of those, she decided there were other pressing matters that warranted her attention, and began to walk around the porch of the small house within the fenced-in yard. She sniffed a cushion, nuzzled around for a stray bit of food, and would come back every now and again for me to give her another scratch. Never once did I hear her bark or growl at anything, but it wasn’t for fear of any of the animals. From the brief window of time I spent with her, Marney was matter-of-fact, completely at ease, and a fabulous communicator. All in all, she was one of the most immediately likeable dogs I’d ever encountered. It made me wonder how she ever could have ended up there. Was she given away? Surely not. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be rid of her. Yet here she was.
I called her over to me, and did my best to look into her eyes, looking for some sort of connection. What made this so difficult was my tendency to project what I thought she felt onto her, rather than truly taking in what I found. The image that I got from her overall was simple loneliness. She was surrounded by hundreds of other animals but had no one looking out for specifically her. Just as a human being would feel if they were alone in a crowded room. I left a melancholy sensation in the pit of my stomach. Then I tried to imagine my way into her history: what events could have led her to SARA and to the personality she developed. Interestingly enough, my dog Huck, whom she so reminded me of, was rescued from a similar situation. We rescued him from a pound when he was already about 18 months old, an age comparable to Marney’s. Is that where she was, in a pound? Or possibly Huck had been in an abusive home prior to this and his subsequent adoption, and as such so was Marney? The thought sickens me a little. Their personalities may have originated from a need to please an angry or vicious owner, to keep themselves unobtrusive and out of the way. That being said-- and going on the assumption that Huck and Marney are from similar backgrounds-- there is hope. Huck has been in my family now for about four years. Although he still is extraordinarily polite and sensitive to his owners’ feelings, he also expresses the kind of carefree joviality that one can only hope all dogs get to feel. He runs and plays energetically with our other dogs, and lets loose of round of booming barks when he sees you get out of your car. Maybe one day Marney will get to experience this same range of emotions.
But that’s just it. She and Huck may be similar, but he is in a loving home, and she is not. At this point in her life, she most likely has no idea what it’s like to be given regular and undivided attention. As fantastic as the people at SARA undoubtedly are, they simply do not have the time or resources to meet every single dog’s needs. I feel that many people must think when dropping off unwanted animals at a rescue such as this that the animal will be in a better place. While that animal may have its most basic needs met—food, water, and shelter—there is still a great need in that animal for individual affection. Not to mention that it is nearly impossible to tend to every animal’s health needs on so large a scale. A dog may get taken to the veterinarian when sick, but it would most likely take much longer to notice than if it were in a private household. Marney needs to be adopted by a loving family, and soon. She deserves that kind of affection, and in return, that family will receive one of the most amicable and sensitive dogs I will ever meet.
WORD COUNT: 1789. Sorry.
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