The morning after the evening of our return, we hurried to the land with only one thought playing over and over through our heads: would she be there? And when we called, she came. She ate. She took cookies from our hands. She played and played and played. She untucked her tail and we could see she was a she. And after all these months, when i sidled up to her, reaching out tentatively, wondering if i was to be bitten, she let me pet her. She leaned into the petting, quivering fearfully and yet dreamy-eyed as though this were better than the best of dog food or the best of cookies.

We discussed our next day's plan for double-dose sedating her and transporting her to the vet. But the next day she did not come. i hiked into the mountain, searching for her den in case she was too sick to make the trip to us. To no avail. We left for home that evening with me in tears and Mother praying fervently. The next day our prayers were answered and she came finally, late in the afternoon. Since the swelling was decreased and her leg seemed to be mending, we decided that it was kinder to let it heal before subjecting her to the stress of "capture" and immunizations and spaying.

That was a mistake, for the next day she could not come. Mother kept assuring me that she was just resting, but i knew she'd have come if she could. She'd stuck to us like beggar-lice the day before, seeming to make up for lost time. It had become plain that she preferred the affection even to the food and so her absence meant that she could not come. The nurse in me pictured an infected leg that made her septic or a cracked leg bone that shifted and severed an artery, leaving her to bleed to death without even the comfort of our presence. Again i cried and again Mother prayed.

i couldn't sit still to grieve the loss of her and i couldn't concentrate on any of the many chores at hand, so i took a can of dog food and hiked into the mountain to try to track her as i'd done unsuccessfully before. i admitted to myself that it was only to make myself feel like i was trying. i  knew i  was no more likely to find her this time than the last time i'd tracked her.

It was easy to find her tracks; how many dogs would be leaving only three of its four paw prints? i wondered at the very large almost perfectly round tracks mixed with hers and tried to tell myself that she'd found a big dog friend. But i knew it wasn't so because even a distant dog-bark sent her into hiding. She wasn't about to get friendly with some dog when she was extra vulnerable from her injury and two days worth of hunger. i'd been watching her for any signs of being in heat and knew she wasn't, so that didn't explain these large tracks over top of hers. As i tracked her to the top of a little ridge i called her name. i didn't call loudly, knowing the calls would go unanswered anyway.

Suddenly she materialized behind me. She was still limping on the injured leg, but there was no sign of infection and her eyes were clear, if frightened. Her gums were pink so i knew she was not bleeding into her leg. But something was definitely wrong. She was too frightened and distracted to concentrate on the can of food i'd brought along. She would come to me for a pat and then tuck her tail and head over the other side of the mountain. Something was scaring her terribly, but it didn't make sense since i was the only thing around and she no longer feared me. Just as i was about to follow her to her den, she seemed to decide to follow me. We hiked the top of the ridge to the monastery building site, as yet empty, where we could take the driveway down in order to ease the stress on her leg.

Once we reached the creek, she lost all fear and raced as fast as she could on her three good legs to her favorite human being in all the world, Mother Veronica. She played and played and ate and then played some more. And suddenly Mother and i had the same inspiration at the same moment: we have to get her to the vet now while we can. Finally four brain cells had fired simultaneously….

But we didn't have the sedative. And we'd never picked her up before and would that scare her off for good or get us bitten. . . But it had to be tried. She was God's Dog, too precious a gift to not take care of. i picked her up, she struggled. i held tight, she calmed. As we drove out of the gate enroute to the vet, we stopped for Mother to use our neighbor's phone to see if the vet could see us

The neighbor told her that just the previous evening, as unlikely as it seemed, at dusk he’d sighted a pair of cougars.

            A day later, Coyote lay at my feet on the rug, at home in our tiny apartment. She was still a bit woozy from her spaying earlier that day. We worried that when she was fully alert, she would realize her confinement and bolt. "i’m afraid she’ll jump onto the couch and right through the glass of that window," I worried to Mother. Sure enough, not too much later i said, "Oh no, Mother, there she goes," as she woke up, looked agitatedly around her, and bounded onto the sofa right toward the window. 

Pawed the pillows a bit, circled a few times, and lay down to sleep again.

Mother often jokes that, nine years later, she has not, as yet, seen Coyote leave that sofa.

copyright 2004

You can always trust Trusty Dog to want to play. To Trusty, play is love, and the purpose of life is to play. It has always been so.....

It had gone as long as it could, and longer than it ever should, to live without a dog close by....at all times....

i gave Mother messages, "Gee this toast is good; if we had a dog, i could give it some crust. Blank stare.

"Mother?"

"Yes?"

"Just grunt or something, Mother, so i know you didn’t stroke out or something," i pleaded the old plea.

"Oh, uh, yes. Stroke?" she tried, in not much more than monosyllabic grunts.

"No, MoV, Dog." i monosyllabically grunted. ("They" say to communicate at the Other’s level....)

"Oh. Dog-again." she said in the aha tone of "now i get it".

(Double syllabic-grunts! Wow, this meant we were in for big-time discussion.)

"Well," she began as i settled back comfortably, " Look in the paper—there’s one in the indoor dumpster—and see what you find there to start with." i settled back even more comfortably—this was nice, talking about a dog. i looked up, to indicate i was listening.

She was gone.

Those long conversations tire her out.

And slow her down.

A few minutes later she showed up again with the paper from the dumpster turned to the animals page of the classifieds, and handed me an orange highlighter to mark the "possibles".

From that point on we did everything wrong. We did not rescue a throwaway, we wanted a Shepherd. We didn’t rescue a Shepherd. We looked in pups4sale ads.

Thank Goodness for the persons themselves. As unlikely as it could be, they were really really good folks who loved their dogs and took good care of them and all the other animals they rescued and loved. We still send them pictures of their/our Trusty dog.

We arranged ahead of time, before going to see the litter, that we could pay $20 a month till she was paid for. i was hesitant, because this was a white G. Shepherd. i’d never even seen one. All the Shepherds i’d known were like Rin Tin Tin, black and tan or copper or sable or anything almost except white.

But as soon as we met her, this curly fuzzy pink and white pup, i recognized her German Shepherd-ness, and although she was the opposite in many ways from my very first Trusty Dog, she was named for that lovely creature, who first made me fall in love with German Shepherds.

Again we were lucky. We did not put into that little puppy what we now know absolutely needs "put into" every little puppy, but especially large breed, extra intelligent dogs who might outweigh you by the time they are just barely out of adolescence. Because of the people and the doggie-parents, we think, Trusty turned out fabulous, despite our lack.

She is sweet-tempered and long-patient with baby-things. She will, for example, let a baby chickie crawl over her if we indicate she should. But she is impatient with any non-play-form of interaction, even petting, most of the time. It is a waste of her time. If Human has time to pet me, jump up and let’s go outdoors and play. If Human has time to brush me, jump up and let’s go to the refectory and play. If Human has time to put salve on my elbows, jump up and let’s go onto Mother’s bed and play (and wipe the salve off, kill two Human goals with one play session.....).

When Trusty was four or five months old, and still learning all the Humans’ Rules, it was her first Christmas. We had just moved here that October and, although we have them now, back in those beginnings, we didn’t have Christmas decorations or, more importantly, The Creche.

We invested in a little plastic bag of balloons from the Dollar Store and slightly inflated them as ornament forms. Wrapped in repeated layers of old fashioned newspaper strips in flour-paste paper-mache, and allowed to dry, they made nearly round balls that we spray painted with Dollar Sore paint. The somewhat scrawny tree that we’d cut from the woods held its little head high once we hung the ornaments on its limbs, and we still think we’ve not had as lovely a tree since.

For a creche, we twisted pieces of brown paper grocery bag into the shapes of our Blessed Mother Mary and her devoted husband, St. Joseph. The Babe was easiest of all to shape. We had swaddled him in a bit of white felt left over from something or other and had laid him in a manger of dried grass from right outside the door, where our Busta cat and her friend, Elderly Squirrel, frequently played with each other and then lay down  against each other in the warmth of the afternoon sunshine.

With white-felt-swaddled Babe nestled in manger of dried grasses, and Saints Mom and Dad overseeing, we tugged the remainder of the bag into the shape of a stable (how hard can it be to tug a rectangular bag into the rectangular shape of a stable?). And there was our little Holy Family in the Manger, snugly tucked under the Christmas tree.

But Little Sister Mary Trust, like many little humans at the sight of that tree, just did not understand.

Up to that time her favorite toy was a holey kneesock, tied into multiple knots, and named "Sock–y" ( pronounced with lots of spitty gutteral sound in the back of your throat on the cK part). Thrown into the air by Human, or hidden under the chair pillow by Human, Sock–y was a prime play-toy.

A five month old pup could leap joyously into the air, testing ever-strengthening muscles and agility, to catch Sock–y, or nose all around the edge of the pillow to surprise-attack Sock–y, as a wolf might a mouse. In quiet times Sock–y could be snuggled close, to be licked hypnotically, dreamy-eyed, lids half-down, surrogate litter mate to replace all those who were there-always-there, just a few months ago, and then suddenly-and-forever-gone.

And best of all, since Trusty was teething, Sock–y was there to gnaw, for hours at a time, that biting down making her sore gums feel oh-so-soothed. If we humans could only recall our own teething times, we’d remember how very necessary it was to just chew.

At any rate, as Trusty (to be twelve this July) has been wont to tell her therapist, "It all started that first Christmas.....I was just a pup and in my teething months, and it made my teeth feel good to chew on Sock–y. But then my nose noticed this smell in the air—Human’s handsmell!! So I followed the smell and so then I came to this tree----really, a tree like outdoors, but inside, on a tablecloth. Really, a tablecloth like on the table that you must not lick, but this was down on the floor, you know on the floor where you must not tinkle but sometimes you may lick.

So I looked at it. And then I licked it. Yes, I did. Worse, I guess, since I really have no true remorse about this part, is that I bit it. Well , no I didn’t. I don’t bite. Honest. Well, I could, but I don’t. And I didn’t really bite it. I picked it up. If Human picks it up, I don’t scream, "Don’t clutch it with your paws!" at them, but for some reason, when I picked up that piece of New Sock—y thing from under the tree they brought in from outside and put on top of the don’t-lick tablecloth they put on the ok-to-lick- floor, I really didn’t know what I was doing.

It was just that my teeth hurt and I wanted to chew. Looked like a new Sock–y to me, smelled like a Sock–y to me, so I did the obvious...

The next morning, while they were in the food room again, I got the chewy LilSock–y from that grass under the tree on the tablecloth. But right away I knew I was going to get growled at (is that what negatively conditioned means?)

So with my pretty little German Shepherd ears drooping in proper puppy submission, I carried the LilSock–y to Humanangela and put it in her lap. Sure enough, that negative conditioning thing happened.

She jumped up and my chewy LilSock–y flew out of her lap ( I caught it.) She stomped out of the food room and into the tree room squealing and growling and hollering,"I never even heard that stupid trap snap,"...and SNAP. The trap which I’d carefully nosed aside, snapped her toe!! Really, just like in the cartoons.

And Mother, polysyllabic for once, offered, "We’ll have to change that pup’s name to ‘Sister Mary Trust of the Infant Jesus’."

We try to compensate, make a little careplan. Big goals, little goals, Faraway goals, almost instant-gratification goals (Trusty’s favorite). Methods by which to reach said goals, and activities by which to actuate methods. So, in order to take her out more, and especially in order to arrange her all-time favorite activity—"going to Big Swim" ( playing in the creek), we built Trusty a plywood ramp, at such an angle from the ground to the tailgate that it would promote increased balance, afford good pad-to-ramp traction (piece of carpet on plywood), and motivate the aging bitch to continue to participate in the activities of daily living of the enrtire family (or pack, according to your psychology).

Trust doesn’t’ like the ramp.

She understands it. Surely, though i’d swear Trusty does, i know a dog cannot, even a German Shepherd, cannot, possibly disdain something. So i cannot say Trusty disdains that ramp, but she surely does not like it. She LOVES going out in the truck, but she hates that ramp.

So, okay, we just have to condition her. Train her to use it. So, for months now, we force her towards the truck, which she starts avoiding as soon as she sees, "oh, we’re gonna do that stupid ramp thingie". She bolts to the left, which always almost makes her dysplastic hip slip enough out of place, that she falls or starts to. But Mother is ready and heads her off like a yearling calf, darting and dodging (not Mother, the dog.  Well, actually both.)

Then i get tired of waiting and suggest we start over again. We take advantage of the fact that, once actually on the move,  the poor old dog can only turn in one direction, left or right, but not both. That enables us to herd her, sortof, in a wide, wide arc, always in the direction she can turn, widening it concentrically, until we finally arrive at the base of the stupid carpeted ramp and sort of use our arms to corral her toward the ramp and up into the truck.

It always ends in exactly the same frustrating way. Finally Trusty gets into the truck, and

Mother says, "Angela, she jumped over the ramp again"....