"He is friendly," I assure them, "You don't need to worry about him."
(Unless you don't like a cold wet nose in your crotch, in which case, you are in the wrong house.)
We have not had an overnight guest since we have acquired Honeybun. She seems to like Wendy, but I am not certain she will behave if she sees a stranger emerge from a bedroom in the middle of the night. Honeybun is barricaded in Asherel's room for the evening, and Wendy closes her bedroom door- probably locks and bars it as well. Before we all head off to bed, I hear Wendy emerge from the room, and glance up from the book I am reading. Honeybun is standing in front of her, and Wendy is nervously saying, “Good girl....," obviously frightened into immobility.
Honeybun is looking at her with that unnerving, unblinking stare we have come to know and understand but is downright scary to the uninitiated. I assure Wendy it is ok to move. She keeps a wary eye on the silent little dog.
In the morning, Wendy comes out, and when Asherel's bedroom door is opened, Honeybun races out, overjoyed to see me as she is every morning, waggling her whole body and licking me. Then she sees Wendy. She catapults towards her, with the same exuberant full body waggle and licks her.
"She likes you," I cry joyfully, realizing that lately she likes everyone. Perhaps even more miraculously, Wendy likes her. Wendy pets our little dog, and I smile at her. When did Wendy become nice?
Dear Lord,
I didn’t realize how much fear has impacted both me and my dog. I mean I knew Honeybun was responding out of fear. I guess I am surprised to learn how much I was…am. I don’t seek others out enough, and I have been stingy with my time for others. I am always rushing, and I think maybe it is because then I don’t have to bear others’ burdens, or give too much of myself. I have never felt very comfortable with people. I think I may have been negligent in loving others as you have loved me. I have been pretty quick to find fault and to pass others by, all the while trying to teach my children otherwise. I have been snarling as much as Honeybun. I am ashamed Father.
I am not even as wise as our little dog. At least she is completely unequivocal in her love for all of us in her “pack”. I think sometimes I am perhaps hardest on those I claim to love the most. I know you have loved me despite my anger, pettiness, arrogance, and failure. I have not been so gentle with others as you have been with me.
Lord, this is a hard lesson. I don’t like what I am seeing at all. I hope the lesson includes what I am discovering about Honeybun….that it isn’t too late. “He who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it.”
I’m sorry , Lord Jesus. I want to be better.
Amen.
CHAPTER 8 Impatience
Last Chance Rescue, Malta's animal rescue farm is in the quiet empty countryside of South Carolina. She has paddocks filled with the rejected creatures that no one wants. The horses are from farms that no longer would or could afford to feed them, so left them to starve. The deer were found as fawns, and foolishly taken by a misguided but kind person from the hiding place the mother had probably left them. The pig was a pet that became too much trouble. The duck was tortured and left with just one leg (Malta named him Pogo.) The pit bull was a mangled fight dog, too aggressive and troubled for anyone else to want to help. The list is endless, as are the food bills, vet bills, and poop piles.
Malta met her husband Will when he came to inquire about one of her rescue horses. He fell in love with the horse, and with Malta. For their honeymoon, they traveled to New Orleans after the devastating Hurricane Katrina left thousands of pets homeless and stranded. Malta and Will began collecting some to return with them to the Land of Lost Pets.
Malta hates breeders, because she believes they contribute to the homeless pet problem. She has little tolerance for people who buy pets on a whim, and have not weighed the cost of the responsibility they now have to that animal. When I asked why she does what she does, she told me, “Animals helped me when I needed it. I can't repay those ones specifically, but I can help other ones."
I don't know exactly what help Malta needed and specifically what those animals had done, but can relate nonetheless. I was a wretchedly shy child who didn't understand small talk, and stood speechless in the midst of crowds where everyone else seemed to know what to say. When something worth uttering occurred to me, my heart pounded so violently that I was sure I would die before the words escaped my mouth. It was better to be silent. I had few friends, but didn't mind too much. I loved to be alone, to draw and paint, to climb trees, and to ride my bike and pretend it was a horse. And I gathered strays and brought them home. Animals replaced the need for people who only frightened and confused me. The animals didn't laugh over stumbled words. They didn't judge my poor taste in clothes or disinterest in fashion or makeup. They were silent nonjudgmental companions. They eased the turmoil from child to adult. I know what Malta means when she professes animals helped her when she needed it most.
The vast majority of animals land at Malta's farm because they are considered unadoptable, mostly due to aggression issues. The remaining five percent are there due to injury or disability. Some of the animals, Malta finds herself. Almost anywhere, if you throw a t-bone in the air, twenty homeless dogs will be on it before it touches the ground. The rural south is a dumping ground for animals people don't want to bother with anymore. Not even having the decency to bring them to a pound, these callous owners drive down a deserted road, open the truck door, and boot the poor animals out to fend on their own.
Many of the animals come to Malta from other rescue sites and shelters. The animals Malta inherits are frequently too much for anyone else to handle. Malta is their last hope. Since 2002, Malta has rescued and placed successfully over five hundred horses, a thousand dogs, and countless other myriad creatures. Even more astonishing, Malta requires that potential adopters go through rigorous examination to prove they will care for these animals, not leave them to live outdoors, and promise not to breed them. She will not let her animals go home to just anyone. The animals are afforded a value by Malta that no one else can initially see or understand. She offers all adopters free follow up training if needed, and long term boarding for only $10 a day.
She has a pack of about twenty five dogs, some of which she owns, and most are up for adoption. Unlike other rescue centers, these dogs incredibly live in her living room. They all have crates, and new dogs are introduced slowly to the pack but Malta's mission is to completely rehabilitate these tortured creatures in the same setting she will eventually place them- a loving owner's living room. She has cats that are masters at training dogs to become cat- accepting. One cat is utterly unafraid of dogs, and by her sheer disinterest, dissuades many dogs to bother with her. Another cat terrorizes any dog stupid enough to mess with him. One well delivered swat, and most dogs are cured.
The core dog pack itself trains newcomers how to behave with other dogs. If the newcomer does not behave, the pack quickly and swiftly reprimands him in the manner a dog understands. And leader of the pack is indisputably Malta. If all else fails, there is Malta with whip in hand, and her no nonsense demeanor. If a dog is aggressive with a human, or any of her creatures, that dog gets rolled. And while she never hurts the dog, the dog is quite certain it is going to die. Malta rarely has to roll a dog more than once. Honeybun is obviously a persistent bad dog, given she has already been rolled a good hundred times, and is still not cured.
Malta’s dog stories can break anyone's heart, except of course the scum that abused or abandoned them in the first place. Those people clearly don’t have a heart. Maybe they haven’t reached Oz yet.
Mimi, the pug arrived in 2001 after a news reporter found her roaming the streets. A story was printed about her and nobody came forward to claim her. She had lost her eye and appeared to have had significant damage to her jaw as well. Mimi is at least fourteen years old, losing her hearing and sight, on heart medication, and still, Malta describes her as a dog “we cherish each day".
I rememb
er the day Malta came home with sweet Melissa, the Pit bull used in dogfights, mangled, aggressive, and in most opinions (including my own initially) irredeemable. When Melissa had kidney failure, Malta called on one of her fine volunteer vets, and panned her supporters for money to try to help Melissa. "Sweet Melissa just can't catch a break,” lamented Malta.
She sends her email group of which I am now a member- the friends of Last Chance Rescue- a letter, that speaks volumes about her heart:
Well we have done it now!!
We kept getting emails about a dog with no eyes..... (Yes no eyes) in
need of a home. So what better place than LCR for a dog with no eyes!? We have lots of experience with blind dogs so no big deal to us... But we need help getting her to the farm. We are backlogged with work at our real job and at the farm. We can't find the
time to get to the grocery store for human food right now. Thankfully
our weekends have been filled meeting adopters (super thankful for
that!)Can anyone help get Peepers to us?
Name your price.... this comes out of our paycheck not the farm funds
or donations. We are probably the best chance for Peepers at this point.
Thanks, Malta and Peepers
Fortunately, one of the farm friend's writes back and is able to help Peepers.
There is barely enough money for the farm to survive. Malta is always trying new ways to attract donors, and volunteers, and create income. She and Will install television/audio systems for income. Will is a gifted cabinet/furniture craftsman, and they manage to survive with donations and their small business. As the economy tanks, so do donations, and they are constantly scraping. But one rarely feels that Malta despairs, though surely she must. She writes to me frequently with wonderfully creative ideas for raising money. Many do not pan out as she hopes. She organizes an open house to show everyone what a wonderful place she has but unfortunately, it is poorly attended. Even we are out of town that weekend. She wants to make doggie gift packs to sell to the new adoptive dog parents, and asks if I want to add my art to the gift pack. I agree and tell her a percentage of my sales can go to her farm. We are still broke, but we don’t have a hundred mouths to feed.
The ideas never seem to gather traction. A national contest awarding $25,000 to the top rescue site as voted by the public is announced, and Malta pours out emails, asking us all to vote for her and to send her name out to everyone we know. I vote every day. She rises to seventeenth in the state, but nationally, has no hope of winning. I want to help her, and we send donations when we can, but we have little extra money ourselves. With two boys in college now, our funds are helping young brilliant minds go to parties and meet nice girls. On the side, I think they are even attending classes.
And a nagging thought keeps itching in my head..... Money sent to Malta is money that might have gone to feed a hungry child. Is saving a dog to be put on the same level as saving a child? If the dogs and cats and horses are not being fed in this economy, what is happening to the poorer people? We give to charities, and there will never be money enough to eradicate poverty. I know that. Jesus himself said, "The poor you will always have with you..." What would Jesus think of so much money going to save animals? He would surely be pleased to help the donkey that carried him into Jerusalem but I don’t recall any other instances of Him hanging with creatures. Well, except for the irrefutable fact that if there were no animals there would have been no manger for his sacred cradle, and our Christmas cards would not have been nearly so charming. And if no one had cared about the needs of camels, it is likely the three wise men would have been carrying the gold, frankincense, and myrrh on their own sweaty backs and may have collapsed before they ever found Him. The song would have to be changed to “We three kings of Orient are, wishing our camels could make it this far….”
Whatever the heavenly plan for animal rescue might be, I am not privy to it. I know that for whatever reason, Honeybun and Malta have been placed in my path. All things happen for a purpose. This vast tapestry of life often is turned from me and I am a lobster crawling across the underside snagging its tangled threads with my scuttling claws. Not only does my crustacean brain fail to comprehend the magnificence of the whole heavenly masterpiece, but in my haste I may be ripping threads with clumsy sticky feet and perhaps altering it beyond repair. One day perhaps the masterpiece will be revealed and I hope my claw doesn’t break smacking my exoskeleton and wondering how I have been so off course. I may want to cure world hunger or stop ice caps from melting, or even be so convincing a witness that the whole world will seek God…. But God seems to have sent me a dying dog to heal first. It seems the prudent choice is to scuttle where I am being led through murky waters.
Right now those murky waters are the threat of financial ruin. When we first found Honeybun, she had a weeping eye and a small sty on her lower left eyelid. As this was the least of her worries with the plethora of urgent health and behavioral issues, we ignored it. I had had sties before, and they were annoying, but always went away on their own.
However, entering our sixth month with Honeybun, the sty remains. It occasionally becomes pus-filled, and she claws at her face. Her eyes are then teary, and eventually the sty opens, drains, and grows small again. But like a telemarketer, it keeps coming back. I don’t want it to be there, but have discovered that wishing things are not true rarely works. If that were possible, cellulite would have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Finally, I decide we have to have it examined. We visit the vet, the sweet woman who had paid half of Honeybun's heartworm test a lifetime ago, in the early AD era (After Dog-rescue). The technician comes in first and asks if, while we are there, we have any other health concerns.
"Yes," I remember, "Sometimes she smells fishy."
He sniffs her.
"Not right now," I explain, "But sometimes it is a strong odor."
"Have you ever heard of anal glands?" he asks.
I have, but I am quite certain I don’t want to hear what I fear is about to follow.
"Some dogs have trouble expressing those glands, and they fill up. They need to be manually expressed, in that case."
Lovely. Apparently this most basic of functions is not always automatic in some dogs, and if the glands need expressing, the vet charges $18. Of course this is not a once in a lifetime condition. It is like oil changes on a car, needing to be done about every 3,000 poops or so.
"If they are full, it is a strong odor," he continues, "So I will do it in the back room. I’ll have the vet look at her eye as well."
He picks Honeybun up, to our amazement. She hangs in his arms like a sack of potatoes, no growls, or snarls. Just hangs there, with a woebegone look on her face. He carries her into the back room, hoisting his load of dog like a football. Asherel and I sit on our little bench silently. Then we hear a loud exclamation from the back room. Honeybun comes trotting back in, obviously perfumed on her butt.
"They were REALLY full!" he exclaims.
"Is this something that will need to be done regularly?" I ask, cringing a bit.
"I have to bring my dog in once a month," he concurs.
I do the quick math. That adds up to over $200 a year to squeeze out foul smelling goop from my dog's bottom.
"And what about her eye?" I ask the vet, when she enters the room.
She begins punching in numbers, lots of big numbers into her computer. She hands me the bill, obviously too kind to want to speak that number out loud. $400-$500, and that's if all goes well. My eyes well up... and I don't have a sty. I suspect if I did, it would cost less than $500 to remove.
"I am sorry," I mourn, tears dribbling, “You all are so kind to me.... but $500. I cannot bear to tell my husband."
I sob then unable to hold back the grief over money we don’t have disappearing for a dog we don’t know will ultimately be safe who can’t even express her own stupid anal glands. Somehow that seems a cosmic joke of particularly cruel proportion.
; "Do you need a hug?" she asks.
I nod, overcoming my own stranger anxiety, and she hugs me. I don’t feel a whole lot better, but they do remove the cost for the office visit, saving me $40. As I stand at the counter, paying for the anal gland expression with all the joy that such a procedure fills my heart with, the kind secretary notices my dribbling tears and cries, "Oh no! Is Honeybun okay?"
"Yes," I stutter, "But that teeny little sty will be $500 to remove."
Asherel returns from walking around the store, and doesn’t even ask why I am crying. In fact, she asks if I can come see the cute little hat she has found for Honeybun. I laugh through my tears.
We drive home and I cannot stop crying. What will I tell Arvo? Christmas is two months away. The financial crisis in America is battering everyone.... and the dog we have pulled from the brink of death is about to cost $500. The vet warns me that if the sty is not removed, it could hurt Honeybun's cornea. It has to come off.
"Something will come up," promises the ever faithful Asherel.
When we get home, we take the dogs on a walk, and pray for a miracle.
After the walk, I research low cost vets, calling one, but the evaluation alone will be $50. The operation is not going to be a bargain there. Asherel sits in the sunroom doing her math work.
"Don't worry," she calls out, hearing me moaning and muttering, "It will all work out."
In misery, I email Malta. Does she have a suggestion?
"You bet I do!" she fires back. Call her vet, she demands, call before 6:00. They will pick up Honeybun the day before surgery and deposit her back the day after. Her wonderful vet will be far cheaper; she guarantees it.
I call her vet, and ask for Melissa, as Malta has instructed. Melissa, with the sweetest voice I have heard in a long time, tells me they will do it for $150 tops, and only that much if there are problems.
I'm Listening With a Broken Ear Page 13