by Linda Rodriguez
(This
is an older blog that I am reposting for two reasons. The first is
that I have been quite sick and I'm not back on my feet yet, so not
in good shape to write a new blog, and the second is that this same
dog this post is about is now elderly and facing the end of his life,
going through bouts of confusion and paralysis in his
hindquarters. So this is a memorial of the dog he once was.)
I’m
a big rescue-animal person. I’ve had rescue dogs and cats all my
adult life. When I’ve lost a dog to the cancers and other
vicissitudes of old age, always a heartbreaking situation, I go
looking for a replacement in the dogs on death row—those scheduled
for euthanasia. I have found so many wonderful dogs in this way.
I’m
thinking about this because next week is the adoption anniversary of
our current dog, Dyson. Five years ago this fall, we had lost our
much-beloved sixteen-year-old Husky-Sharpei, who’d been adopted at
seven on what was supposed to be the last day of her life and given
us so many more wonderful years. After grieving for a month, we began
looking online at the adoptable dogs of local shelters. Hearing that
the Kansas City Animal Shelter was overcrowded, we decided to go
visit and adopt one of their desperate dogs slated for death.
I
walked into the shelter the week before Thanksgiving with certain
criteria in mind. I wanted an older female dog who was already
housebroken and calm. I knew older dogs were harder to find homes for
and figured I’d be able to choose among several older females. No
stubborn, rambunctious, untrained young males for me. I was no longer
the young, strong woman who had trained such dogs years before.
As
luck would have it, someone showed us an emaciated, big, male dog
with a strange brindle coat, starved and sad-eyed, who was scheduled
for euthanasia the next day. He walked placidly for me on the leash
and looked at us without hope. My husband and I were hooked by those
big, sad eyes. Even when we were informed that he had heartworm,
which costs hundreds of dollars to treat, we weren’t dissuaded and
signed up to adopt him that day, all the time telling ourselves how
crazy this was. As we signed papers and laid down money, people who
worked at the shelter began to filter into the office. “Are you the
folks taking Dyson?” they would ask, and then shake our hands and
thank us, telling us what a good dog he was. Then, we found out he
was about a year old, big as he was—and that he was a breed of dog
we’d never heard of before, the Plott hound.
Dyson,
who should have weighed at least 70 pounds at that time, was so
starved that he weighed less than 40 pounds. (The second photo is of
him then, the other photos of him now.) He had never been neutered
and never been in a house, we discovered. We would have to keep this
long-legged creature crated for weeks at first because of the
heartworm treatment. If he became too active, he could have a stroke.
What possessed us to continue and sign up for this dog, I can’t
begin to understand.
Thus
began my education in the dogs Cormac McCarthy calls “the ninja
warriors of dogdom” and of whom he says, “They are just without
fear.” Developed by a German immigrant family (from whom they get
their name) in the Great Smoky Mountains who never sold any outside
of the family until after World War II, Plott hounds are the state
dog of North Carolina. They were bred for centuries as trackers and
hunters of bear. They are practically triple-jointed and can perform
acrobatic feats while avoiding the claws of huge bears they have
brought to bay. They are highly valued by big game hunters all over
the world, who pay thousands of dollars for trained Plott hounds to
use to hunt bear, cougars, and other large predators.
We
don’t hunt. While on a leash for walks, Dyson constantly charges
into the hedges and emerges with a big possum or feral cat in his
mouth, which we’ll make him drop—always uninjured since he has
the softest mouth. Other things we’ve discovered about Plotts are
that they are extra-smart and yet goofy and playful. And so he is.
Also, loyal, affectionate, protective, and he loves fibers and
textiles, often in early days pulling my knitting out without harming
it and lying before it confused at why he couldn’t do what Mommy
does with those sticks.
Though
he was the opposite of the placid, female, older dog we wanted and he
truly does seem to be without fear, Dyson has been the perfect dog
for us, always a source of fun and joy. And the inevitable mischief
that a young, boisterous male (for once he regained his health, he
regained his personality) commits is a small price to pay for the
love he shows when he lays his massive head in my lap and looks at me
with love in his big, now-happy eyes.
That
lack of fear that McCarthy so admired and the resilience that allowed
Dyson to bounce back from abuse, starvation, and potentially fatal
illness are two qualities I'm trying to achieve for myself as a
writer. Dyson refuses to believe that he can't take on any challenge
that presents itself. He's absolutely sure that he's equal to any
task. Such confidence drives out fear, and I'm trying to cultivate it
in myself. I suspect that belief in self is also linked to the
resilience Dyson has exhibited, that ability I desire to be able to
recover from professional, physical, and financial disaster. The sad
dog I rescued has become my senzei in professional matters. If
Dyson had opposable thumbs, how would he handle this?
has become a recurrent question.
Happy
birthday to His Majesty Dyson the Toy King Sweetie Boy
Rodriguez-Furnish!
Linda Rodriguez's Dark Sister: Poems
is her 10th book.
based on her popular workshop, Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published in 2017. Every Family Doubt, her fourth
mystery featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet Bannion, and Revising
the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2019. Her three
earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken
Trust, Every Last Secret—and
earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart's Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, has been optioned
for film.
Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft
Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City
Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com
