Category: Human-Canine Bond

Weekends at BARC

Micahel Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

Animal shelters can be hard places for dogs and for people too. Most of us choose not to go. They are places of heartbreak. We don’t want to see them. The faces tell stories of life on the street or of a person who died and left them alone or of a family who just didn’t care enough. We don’t go because then we will know. How many came in this month? How few will leave? What happened to the rest? If we pass the cage they will wiggle with excitement, maybe bark. Take me out of here. Take me away. Take me anywhere, anywhere but here.

City kennels are the worst. They are hidden down narrow streets near places we wouldn’t go anyway. It’s true in any American city, not just here. They are hard places. And there’s always controversy. Sadness pits people against each other. The work is difficult and low-paying. The funding runs low and the buildings run down. It’s true in Cleveland. It’s true in San Francisco. It’s true in Houston. We know they exist. But we choose not to go.

Most of us. Others, it turns out, choose differently. Every Saturday Morning they drive the narrow road in North Houston to the Houston Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC). One becomes two becomes 5 becomes 15 or more. They wear old clothes and good attitudes. They bring a cooler of water and soft drinks and lots of patience. Then, after some warm “hello’s” and a short “how was your your week,” they get to work.

“Weekends at BARC” started in January 2009 when the founders, James Oxford and Lance Marshall, visited BARC for the first time. The mission: give every dog (there are dozens) a chance to get out, get some fresh air and maybe get a little quiet time with a human being. Some even get a cool bath just for good measure. It’s hard work and sometimes messy work. But it’s important work too. The positive interaction with people, coupled with good physical and mental exercise helps stave off behavioral deterioration. Shelters are hard places. They can wear dogs thin quickly.

I worry about our relationships with dogs. Some we love to the point of insanity. Others we forget about at places where no one wants to go. How many this month? What happens to them? The truth is hard to face full on. But the folks who come to BARC on these hot Saturdays, these muggy or rainy Saturdays, know the truth. They know it and the come anyway. The dog they visit today may not be here next week. Not adopted. Just gone. There aren’t enough adopting families. And maybe this weekend at BARC a visit will have to be enough.

It’s hard to think about. And yes, there is an undertone of sadness here, even on Saturdays. But there is also magic. Every week this place we only hear about on the news becomes the place to be. Dogs lead people and people lead dogs to and fro. Dogs and people play in outdoor runs. They bark we clap and cheer. There are cool drinks and cool baths, warm hello’s, smiles and big faced tongue-hanging-out doggie grins. BARC comes alive and the lives here, human and canine, are better for it.

Here’s how it all comes together. The cages are marked with clothespins. If there’s a pin on the bars, that dog has been out. No pin? That one’s next in line. Every dog gets one-on-one time. Every dog. I pin the high bar of the cage five from the end and introduce myself to a big brindle pit mix. He slips easily into his collar and we head out for our walk. I give him a treat every time he looks up at me and we hit it off right away. (I love a dog with good eye contact.) He’s as sweet as my own dog but I have to be honest with him, you look terribly frightening. He stares up at me with a stupid face and a gentle blink to his eye. I name him “Brick.” We all deserve a name don’t we buddy?

They are such good people, these folks who find their way and choose to come every weekend to BARC. I walk Brick and smile at his big-faced grins. But I can’t help but marvel at these people, the one, the two, the 15, the 400 who now count themselves part of this group. Some have come once. Some never miss a Saturday. Either way they all made the choice and did the work. I watch a young woman running circles around the play area with a big white dog on her heels. She’s in the moment, un-tethered and free from whatever worries held her back before she got here. She could be anyone. But for that one moment she is everyone to that dog. She is his and he hers. It’s the simple commitment we share with dogs when we are at our best: I’ll pass the hours with you sweet friend. You’d do the same for me.

I put Brick back in his kennel and he looks back at me with calm resolve. He’s done this for many more weeks than I have. Maybe I’ll see him again. But more than anything I hope he finds his way home. Not gone. Adopted. Good boy. You’re a very good boy.

Dog-less

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

I promised myself I’d never buy a dog again and I intend to keep that promise. I wonder if you’ll join me in that commitment. There are lots good reasons that have nothing at all to do with full-bred dogs. They don’t have anything to do with money either.

I bought a golden retriever 11 and a half years ago. Juno died last week. And she was probably the best dog I will ever have. The cancer that eventually took her most certainly had a genetic cause. Too many goldens die from the same disease to deny that. But genetics isn’t the problem either. I’d have another golden. I just wouldn’t buy one.

Juno was my only dog. Once she got into her senior years I promised her I wouldn’t trouble her with a puppy and I kept that promise. Now that she’s gone I find myself dog-less. It’s an odd state. The house echoes with her absence. I sometimes think I see her from the corner of my eye. But it’s just the cat who seems equally perplexed. It’s a quiet time for tears and old pictures. But on the edge of things there’s the hint of another dog, the next dog, the one who will never take Juno’s place in my heart, but may someday take the one at the foot of our bed. I don’t know her. But I promise I won’t buy her.

If you’re a dog person, people are always clamoring at your door to take in the dog with the sad story. If you’re a dog professional or even a dog writer, it’s twice again as bad. Juno had been gone less than 48 hours when I got the first email: two Labrador retrievers whose owner was moving away. Then it was a spaniel, a stray. And the clamoring in my head is just as bad. I admit, Tim and I went to the Houston SPCA this weekend to visit the dogs there. They were all good dogs and I can’t stop thinking about them. If I’d had a few dozen people with me we could have emptied the place. None of them are for sale.

I’d have paid anything for one more week with Juno (I did pay a lot in the final weeks and months). But at the end the price in pain was too high for her and nothing could stop it. We said goodbye on the cool wood floor where she loved to sleep. The vet carried her body to his car and she was gone. There’s no shame in telling you the sobbing cut me at the knees, sorrow drawn from the deep well of a happy life with a true friend.

Cancer took Juno from me and there was no choice in it. But so many other dogs live on without a home or a person in the world who cares. That wasn’t their choice either. It’s a strange thing. Some we love so much that even the thought of losing them catches in our throat. Others we cast aside without a thought. We offer them no love at all.

So in a few weeks or a few months one of those dogs will come home with me, one who was sent away and forgotton. She’ll soak up the love and attention someone else decided she didn’t deserve. And, yes, she may be a golden. I’ll suffer the risk of cancer again. And certainly there will be expenses: vet bills, food, supplies and even an adoption fee. That’s okay. It’s not about the money. It’s about a dog I don’t even know yet, one who may not even have a name.

I won’t buy her. But she’ll be mine just the same. And I’ll be hers. And no, my home won’t be her first. It will be her last. That’s a promise too.

Juno – Dreaming of Heaven

Shortly after Juno died someone told me I’d dream of her. What this person actually said was that she would visit me in my dreams. I didn’t believe. Even now it’s still hard to take in. But last night, less than three weeks after her death, it happened.

The edges are fuzzy and the transitions are abrupt. I only remember the end, the most important part. That’s how I dream. Things don’t connect well or make any sense. Then suddenly there’s a sequence that does, one that makes perfect sense, a bit of wisdom that breaks clearly through to waking life.

I was in a house, an old mansion with dark heavy wood, the sturdy kind that lasts centuries. It was cool and grey outside, like fall in the Midwest, not unpleasant, but not particularly pleasant either. There were many buildings on the grounds, hidden passages and walkways. There were other people around. None talked to me. I was a stranger and I’d traveled there alone. I was looking for Juno.

When I first saw her I thought it was a trick of the eye. In the waking world I sometimes see her just on the edge of vision, a flash of gold, a flick of her feathered tail. I saw her run back up to the front door like that just moments after our vet carried her body away. That was the first time. Since then, I only catch her in glimpses, hints of who she used to be, stretched out where she used to sleep, trotting up the walk with her ears forward and her tail high. I know Tim sees her too. It only lasts a second. But in the dream it was different.

Juno was walking on a stone path, a covered walkway 10 feet up connecting two buildings. I ran to her and she turned and came to me. Her fur was different, lighter, curlier, but I knew it was Juno. I can prove it’s her, I thought, I will find the scars. I searched her leg and parted her fur looking for the gnarled lines from two surgeries. They were not the same, so light and thin now, hard to see, even harder to feel. She lay still while I petted her belly and cried for the joy of seeing her again. I guess that’s when I noticed. The scars were faded. But the lumps were missing altogether, no angry tightly stretched tumors. She was smooth and soft and sweet smelling. The cancer was gone.

People started to notice us. I never asked but they knew I wanted to take her. We gathered in a room where Juno lived, high stone walls and heavy wood beams, old-style sofas and a perfect roaring fire. Juno settled down in a corner, while a smaller dog snoozed on one of the sofas. I couldn’t imagine how many people lived there; so many kept coming in. They were here to listen to me make my case, to tell the story of my life with this dog, the dog they now called Vivian. When I awoke the name made such sense, the Latin root: “full of life.”

My mother has never spoken to me in a dream until this one. A man had brushed up against me and she took my arm and said “He just tried to pick your pocket.” “No,” I said, “I didn’t even bring my wallet.” And we laughed. All that relates to an inside joke that my mom never knew about in life. I guess she knows now and thinks it’s funny. I only mention it because those were the only words spoken in the dream.

I never got to speak. I never made my case to bring Juno home. I guess that’s because she was already there. The last time I saw her she was sleeping just around the corner from the smaller dog on the sofa. The fire was warm and strong. She was with good people who loved her, people who had named her well.