Who doesn't love a cookie?

After finishing the book portion of my learning through Animal Behavior College (which shall henceforth be referred to as ABC) I was set up with a local certified trainer. To complete my certification, I must observe a series of 7 classes, take a dog through the 7 week course (naturally, I'll be training Beau) and then help teach said classes. We're almost ½ way through the observation and participation segments (since there is more than one class per week, we get to double up on schooling) and Beau is doing GREAT! It gave my heart the warm and fuzzies to hear my mentor trainer tell me how smart she could tell he was, and that it's obvious to her how much work I've been doing with him at home. During his first class with me, she even said he should be a therapy dog because of how awesome he was with the children who came to love on him. I'm learning patience, which has never been one of my greater virtues, and it's actually paying off. Once we complete normal obedience training, my goal is to get Beau through the American Kennel Club's Canine Good Citizen program – which is quite a bit more rigorous - so that he'll have additional certification as well. To some it may just be a piece of paper, but to me it will prove that both of us have gone above and beyond the call of duty.

In addition to my schooling, in order to become certified, I must also complete 10 hours of volunteer work at a local shelter, along the lines of the Humane Society or SPCA. Because I know people at the Amarillo Humane Society, that's what got picked. Well, that, and they ASKED me to come work with them.

The paperwork that comes with the volunteer portion of my program is about 30 pages thick; I should have suspected as much since my “textbook” was such a fat bastard.

Upon being informed of my new career choice, my brother delicately inquired, “Why the fuck's it take a year and a half to teach a dog to sit?” Well, it's a little more complex than that. I'd never even heard the word “coprophagia” before but now I know its symptoms and how to write out a comprehensive treatment plan for it. Go ahead, Google it. I'll wait.

To begin my volunteer work at HS, I first had to fill out an application and was told by my coordinator from school that they'd need to run a background check. It makes me wonder why this process came to fruition. Was there at one point a string of hardened criminals lining up to walk shelter dogs? There's no point in me asking questions to rebel against the system, just run my shit and if we have to have the discussion about some bounced checks and traffic tickets from my early twenties, I'll deal with that when it gets here.

I did my “meet-n-greet” early last week with the HS staff, then went back the next day to observe a little bit of their day-to-day routine. After my butt went numb from sitting in a chair in the lobby, I decided to walk around a bit and talk to the dogs. After wandering through several of the buildings I started feeling guilty that I didn't have any treats for any of the animals. I was headed to buy some when the main lady said they kept some up at the front desk. “You wouldn't happen to also have a clicker, would you?”

Within the 30 pages of instructions as to what I was supposed to do while I was working with kennel dogs is a section entitled, “Make Your Shelter a Bark-Free Zone.” In a nut-shell, when you encounter a calm, non-barking dog, you're supposed to click your clicker then give the dog a treat. They have listed EIGHT steps to this process and made it seem nearly impossible. I don't see how this is supposed to keep everybody from barking all the time – random barking seems inevitable – but I'm here to learn. Right this minute I've got no clicker so I'm wingin' it.

I was given a full, sealed bag of cookie type biscuit treats. Knowing I didn't have enough for everybody to get one, I started breaking them into 2 or 3 pieces. From afar I could hear barks echo from every individual building, filling the sky with a chorus of stress and fear. I thought, “There's no way...”

Each dog run stretches from inside a building to an external portion, so they can have their heated or air-conditioned section as well as the ability to be “outside.” Either way you look at it, it's still caged concrete with very little interaction; I don't understand how anybody with half a heart can see these animals in this situation and not have it break a little.

When I went outside, the first dog I walked up to seemed happy to see me. For that matter, most of them are happy to see anybody. My instructions are to not treat the animals unless they are calm, of course not barking, and have all 4 feet on the ground. I figured out that as long as I was standing, most of the dogs would jump up to get closer to me. I don't know if it's considered cheating or not but once I squatted down to their level, all 4 feet hit the floor.

After I finished feeding the dogs in the first outside run, I headed inside the Pit Bull building to visit the most vicious monsters on the planet. (Yes, I typed that with an eye roll.) The second I walked into the building most of them were quiet. One big dude on the end barked a little until he could see me. They had some puppies nearest the entrance and I could see 3-4 kennel runs back at a time – they were ALL calm. I broke my cookies up and squatted in front of each dog, talking to them and feeding them, wishing I could pet them. Every single one of them smiled and licked my fingers. Every. Single. One. Not one barked AT me. Not one tried to bite me. They all just wanted to be loved, as is in their nature.

It was in the “vicious monster” building that I ran into THIS little nugget:

Oh. My. God. Her legs were just over half the length of any normal pit bull and I came to the conclusion that she must have been mixed with a Corgi. I instantly fell in love with her. At first glance this picture might look like she's snarling but she's happily smacking cookie bits. I may have allegedly doubled (or tripled) hers just to see her make that face again. I wanted to bring her home with me SO badly but I've decided I can't have another dog until Beau is fully trained. The dogs here get 5 days for their owners to retrieve them. She's been at HS since at least last Tuesday. If I go out there tomorrow and she's not there, I'll know her 5 days were up and I WILL cry. That such a sweet animal was abandoned and her “people” didn't give enough of a shit to even go find her – sentencing her to death. If she IS still there tomorrow (which I highly doubt) I'll happily pay the $15 to extend her life for 5 more days... but to what end?

I made my rounds through the rest of the buildings and had time with everyone who would come to me. There were only 2 or 3 dogs who I could tell were too fearful to approach me or just didn't feel well enough to eat the cookie I handed them. Working with fearful dogs is a whole different bag and I just didn't take the time it would have taken that day to help treat them. You can't treat that in an afternoon; depending on the severity it can take months and even years for them to recover with constant work.

I'd like to say that every single dog in every single pen acted exactly as I wanted them to but that's just not true. ALMOST. There were 2 boxers penned together who were gnarly aggressive. They jumped and snarled and barked and frothed, even as I was sitting down in front of them. I spent a little extra time with them and after a few minutes they finally calmed down enough to eat their treats. They did NOT get doubles.

I didn't really do any work with any of them but it did help me get a feel of what I'll be dealing with. I just hope that during my time there I can grow the callouses necessary to deal with the fact that these dogs have a VERY short time left on this earth. Even the ones who are put on the side to be adopted only get an extra 5 days, bringing their maximum life span to 10 days from pick up if someone doesn't take them home.

It's ugly, but it's life. It's what I've chosen to plunge myself into with the hopes that maybe I can help save a life... or at least bring one more smile to one more dog's face and give them the opportunity to know that someone cares while they're still here.  

Goodbye, Indica

She had a long life but it wasn't the easiest. She was repeatedly beaten, neglected and mentally abused. I did my best to change that, and some days it turns my stomach to think I didn't do enough. All I could do was try.  

She came to me during the winter of a year I've tried to forget. She'd just birthed five puppies and was barely a year old. She didn't know how to be a mother to those pups, nor did I understand what it meant for me to be a mother to her. We both had to learn the hard way.

The man who brought her into my life was a horrible excuse for a human being and always will be. In many ways, Indica and I both endured the same pain... except that I eventually had to accept responsibility for putting myself in a shitty situation. She never had a choice. She was just “here” and didn't have the option of walking away. She stayed by my side for 15 years. I gain solace in the knowledge that MOST of those years were as comfortable as I could possibly make them for her.

She was the toughest bitch I've ever met and I loved her with all my heart. Although I was legally an adult when she came to me, I still feel like we grew up together. She was the protector of our domain; she took to no strangers and kept friends in check, as well as making sure there was never an abundance of free-roaming cats anywhere near my yard. I'll never forget the smiles it brought to her face when she caught one. Or the mess I had to clean up afterward.

I was out of town this past October when she started losing control of her bodily functions. It took multiple visits to the vet and a string of medicinal experiments to figure out what was required to keep her balanced. It was during this time she was eventually diagnosed with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and I was told she'd be on medication for the rest of her life. I was willing to deal with that.

This became her morning dose of medication, followed by round 2 in the evenings:

It was close to the end of November when she picked Beau to be the newest member of our pack. Because of her arthritis, she didn't really want to play with him. I started noticing how easily she tired. Her days were beginning to fill with frustration and, I feared, a slight resentment. She wasn't getting 100% of my attention anymore. Although, until I got him neutered, she sure as hell had 100% of Beau's attention. All he cared about was her vagina, and that well had dried up long ago. She spent a significant portion of her time telling him to fuck off. I thought it showed how much she liked him by the fact that she hadn't drawn any blood on him... turns out, she probably didn't have enough teeth left to get the job done.

On the evening of December 23, my friend, Jena, came to visit. She brought early Christmas toys for Beau, none of which Indica paid any concern – she just wanted to rest. After a while, Jena had the smarts to put Beau in his kennel to let Indica have some peace. As I watched her lie on her self-designated section of the couch, the weight of her reality started to kick in. It was heavy on my sternum like a steel-toed boot tied to cinder blocks. I began to sob.

I kept thinking, “But she's still happy sometimes. She smiles and wags...” And then I considered how much effort it took her to give me those smiles and wags and realized how random they'd become. She never wanted me to know she was in pain and she hid it well. She also had a heart murmur, growing lymph nodes, and a constantly irritating growth on her snout she'd break open every day but it couldn't be removed because of its close proximity to her eye.

She was tired. So very, very tired. I forced myself to come to the realization that it was just plain selfish of me to demand she endure this. As much as I hated it, I knew what I needed to do.

I had Jena pick me up the morning of Christmas Eve because I knew I wouldn't be able to make the drive by myself. The vet was only available for an hour that day and it didn't make him very happy to see me under the circumstances.

As we walked down the hall to the back of the clinic, Indica spotted a cat and perked up momentarily. She had no desire to chase or mangle it. My hart sank a little more. I looked at the doctor who had become all too familiar with us in the past 15 years and said, “I don't WANT it to be time, but it's time.” He asked if I was sure. Tears began to flood my steaming, red face. He said, “Shea, at her age, you can't make the wrong decision.”

Jena had the forethought that she didn't want Indica's last moments to be cold or uncomfortable so she brought a soft, fuzzy blanket that she laid upon the “exam” table. As we hoisted Indica to her spot I tried to stay strong for her. “Momma's here, it's gonna be ok.” I switched positions with the administering vet techs to make sure I could hold her. I watched them inject her and held on tighter.

“I'm right here, momma dog... I've got you. I love you SO much...” She didn't fight it at all. She went peacefully limp in my arms. I didn't want to let go. The tech came back within a minute to check her heart-beat. She didn't have to tell me – I knew – she was gone. I stayed with her a little bit longer, to get one more hug and give her one more kiss on her head... until I felt the last puff of air in her lungs escape with a gentle cough.

I have to know I made the right choice. Although I was devastated, it would have been much worse had I returned home one day to find her gone and had missed out on the opportunity of holding her while she passed.

My gift to Indica was to relieve her suffering. Her gift to me was not returning to an empty house. I had Beau's bouncing, smiley face to greet me upon my arrival. I believe she put him here to help heal my heart. He's curled up on my feet under the desk as I type this. It's painfully adorable; and by that, I mean it's cute but I'm losing circulation. 

A few days later I was called to go pick up her ashes. That day was almost as hard for me. We had one last car ride home, then she was laid to rest upon a shelf over my bed, next to her boyfriend, Darwin. 

I like to think they're together now, chasing rainbows and butterflies. It's more likely that they're slaughtering little angel kittens... but either way, I know they're happy now. And so am I, knowing I have my furry guardian angels watching over me.