I allowed her words to soothe my newly troubled conscience, but I continued to wrestle with the question of whether we are wrong to allow the whales to become so comfortable with us. After all, one of the cardinal rules of wildlife rehabilitation is to refrain from trying to turn a wild animal into a pet, which means that contact with humans is kept at a minimum. The whales have no need for rehabilitation, as they are already in the wild, but it seems as though the same principle would apply.
Part of my dilemma is that I don’t know what’s in it for the whales. They approached us, after all. We didn’t approach them. The fishermen in 1972 were trying to get away from the whale, but she persisted in forcing their acquaintance. When my fellow whale watchers and I went out into the lagoon, the pangateer didn’t chase after the whales. He waited for them to come to us. The whales aren’t looking for food, since food is not the primary reason they stay so long in Laguna San Ignacio, and no food is given to them by anyone in the pangas. There are those who believe that the whales seek interaction with humans in order to form a close bond and thereby ensure that we won’t threaten to harm them or their calves again. But I know of no research that would support this anthropomorphic theory.
Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe I should just trust the whales. If they perceive that there is value in making overtures to humans, who am I to say there is not? Still, I worry.
In our two trips a day out into the lagoon, I don’t think we ever went without a visit from a whale, although the tour operators always caution that there is no guarantee of whale encounters. We all became quite adept at coaxing the whales to the side of the panga so we could pat them, but I had an unfulfilled desire to kiss a whale before my trip ended. That seemed a little more difficult, though. Reaching my arm far enough over the side of the small boat to touch a whale with my hand was one thing, but leaning my whole upper body far enough out to kiss the whale was another matter entirely.
On the last day of my trip, I watched for my chance. I would have loved to kiss a mother whale, if for no other reason than to thank her for trusting us with her calf, but it seemed to me that the mothers always hung back just a bit, making us work a little harder to reach out and touch them. The calves, with their exuberance of youth, were more likely to come closer. With a heightened sense of awareness, I watched as a gray whale calf swam toward the panga. I began to ease up off of my seat and reach out into the water. I splashed a little water in the whale’s direction, leaning a little farther out of the boat the closer he came.
Suddenly he was rubbing up against the side of the panga, and everyone was stroking his satiny skin. It was now or never, I thought, and I leaned as far out as I safely could and kissed the side of his head. And then, with salt water still clinging to my lips, I gave him another kiss for good measure. Afterward, I alternated between a feeling of almost giddy excitement and an overwhelming desire to burst into tears. It was an intensely emotional experience, one that I would never have thought possible just weeks earlier.
I had to be in Monterey on business several months ago and I had a little time to kill before my meeting started. I took a walk along Fisherman’s Wharf and saw people waiting to go out on a whale-watching cruise. It seemed to me to be awfully late in the season for that, so I stopped and took a look at the trip board set up by one of the cruise operators to find out what they expected to see. It announced recent sightings: Killer whales! Blue whales! Gray whales! And I found myself wondering if any of my gray whales were off the coast of Monterey now. Would anyone on that whale-watching cruise, fighting nausea and being jostled by other passengers, see my whales? Would they see the mother whale to whom I felt such gratitude for trusting me with her calf? Would they see the baby whale that I kissed? Probably not, and even if they did see those gray whales, they couldn’t possibly feel the same bond to them that I now feel.
Perhaps reasonable minds can differ as to whether it’s a good thing or not for people to have such close encounters with whales as I did in Laguna San Ignacio, but one thing is certain: having kissed a baby gray whale, I will always feel that the responsibility for his fate and the fate of his species is in my hands.
In the Nick of Time
Sue Pearson
Family and friends each wrote goodbye notes and put them inside a grave marker, a memorial box that read Beloved Friend. One handwritten note read, “We will love you and miss you forever.” My granddaughter’s note read, “We will never forget what you did for so many, especially me. Thank you.” I tucked in a faded piece of newsprint, a story from almost a dozen years before. The first line read: “When life is moving very fast but everything seems to be in slow motion, you can be sure nothing good is happening. The events speed up the action. The fear slows it down.”
Holding the delicate newsprint in my hand, I could still see it all so clearly—Nick was still a puppy then, really—a Lab not yet two years old. Adam was the twelve-year-old friend of my son, Evan. What began as an adventure on a mountain river on a bright, warm, sunny June day was to take a sudden dark turn. It was the day before the first day of summer and the river beckoned. I told the boys they could only go wading and only in one shallow section of the river, upstream, and only if I went with them. It was that compelling an idea to them, even if Mom had to come along, so off we all went, including Nick the dog, to sample the first of summer’s refreshments. We arrived at the spot I had dubbed “safe” and the boys proceeded to roll up the legs of their jeans. Nick splashed along the shore, enjoying the cold water rushing by but in no hurry to join the strong currents bent on finding a more tranquil home in the valley. I had taken Nick’s leash off to let him play and I stood on the shore, watching the boys and the dog.
Life couldn’t be better. Everyone was having one of those moments of simple pleasure that we look back on years later and realize was in fact a treasured memory…one of the reasons life is so sweet. The next moment Adam was joking with Evan…giving him a twelve-year-old’s challenge. “Go all the way under, Evan. I dare you!” Evan was laughing and hesitating. Suddenly it was Adam who was all the way under. He’d slipped on the rocks. He was immediately swept into the unforgiving current. In those split seconds, which have now become vivid snapshots of terror engraved in those parts of my brain reserved for life-and-death reactions, I remember thinking I was watching a tragedy unfold. I ran to the edge of the water and yelled for Adam to catch the dog leash I was about to throw. I missed. He missed. He went under water again, surfaced and looked up at me. His eyes, wild with fear, seemed to plead, “Help me!”
I saw paramedics arrive after Evan ran back to the cabin to get help from his dad. I saw them pull Adam’s lifeless body from the chilly water and work on him for an hour. I saw Evan sobbing on the shore, forever changed. I called Adam’s parents. There would be no birthday party next Saturday. Instead a funeral. I could never forgive myself for letting the boys go in the water. Adam’s loss would weigh us all down for the rest of our lives. None of us would love the little cabin in the mountains again. This landscape would be a tangle of pain and grief and sorrow.
But none of this happened. In those split seconds of heightened awareness I saw a blur of yellow fur flash by. It was Nick. He jumped in the water and swam to Adam as the current thrust the boy away. I saw Adam grab a handful of fur and skin like his life depended on it. It did. Nick never hesitated. He swam to shore, pulling Adam with him. Adam climbed out of the water, shaken and shouting at the same time, “Nick, I love you!” Nick shook himself off and casually walked over to me and sat down.
Thank you, God. And thank you, Nick—for saving us in the nick of time from a lifetime of grief, deep sorrow and regret.
My hero dog, Nick, lived to be thirteen, and not only was his a good life in the country, with ten acres to explore and rule, but it was a life full of more heroic deeds. He had that courage in his DNA. In the years after he saved Adam’s life, he was always on duty to perform more acts of courage on behalf of everyone nearby, casually nudging a todd
ler out of harm’s way near a bucking horse, defending a neighbor against an attack by another dog, helping my granddaughter overcome a fear of dogs. He was most dramatically protective of me. When a visiting dog rushed me at full speed, catching me behind the knees to flip me into the air, Nick was there. I landed on a hard slate patio…heard something snap…my femur. The dog was on top of me instantly, mauling me. A snarling Nick with his hackles up bit the dog, pushed the dog away and then kept it at bay until help arrived.
As we closed the memorial box with our notes, which we’d tucked into a plastic bag to keep time and weather from destroying our tributes, we held hands and prayed at Nick’s final resting place in a sunny spot on my ranch. “We thank you for this guardian angel who saved lives, chased danger into retreat and washed away fear.”
Standing there in the sunlight now, I try to imagine what heaven is like for dogs. I know one exists, because God wouldn’t let these loyal creatures go with no reward. It must be a place with not just ten acres, but a million acres, with an eternity of holes to dig and smells to sniff. If it turns out there really are pearly gates to heaven, I see Nick waiting there for me, leash in his mouth, looking forward to another long walk.
Wednesday in the Wall
Chris Fowler (Roller Derby name: Cherry Madness)
The softness of the kitten was a relief in my hands. Her small black form had been wedged in the confines of the brick wall. Now she was safe with me.
It was a Wednesday, a chilly October afternoon, as I worked quickly to unload supplies in a pre-WWII warehouse in downtown Sacramento. This cold warehouse with redbrick and lead-lined walls is the proud home of my team, the Sacred City Derby Girls, a women’s flat-track Roller Derby league. It is said to have originally been a WWII ammunition storage facility, then a candy factory sometime in the sixties. Its history is then lost for a few decades. After several years of neglect it was home to a “bounce house turned rave nightclub” venue. We acquired it at an auto auction a few years ago and now had a training ground for a team exuding feminine strength and endurance, a team of derby girls. On this blustery fall day, three members of Sacred City were brought to a stiff standstill with the softest “meew” from inside the walls.
“Stop!” I suddenly yelled to my husband, Clayton. He was affectionately known within our derby world as Mr. Madness. My friend Michelle stopped, too. She skated under the handle “Her Meechness.” She had these amazing, long, strong legs that made her an asset to our team. They both froze, looking at me to figure out what I wanted. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.
“Meew.”
There it was! Oh, it was so small. That was the precious, squeaky sound of a newborn cat. We moved softly to the east wall of our building and waited for one more.
“Meew.”
There it was again, the sound of a tiny new kitten, coming through the half-a-century-old brick and mortar. We stopped unloading the truck and instantly became a Roller Derby kitty rescue team. This kitty needed our help. As the team medic, that is what I do—I respond to those who need me, whether on the track or, now, in the alley.
But where exactly was this cat? In the wall? Yes, and we were on the other side of the wall, separated by a long enclosed alley. To get there we’d have to move a gigantic sliding steel door that had come off its rusty old track. It took all three of us to muscle that heavy steel door open enough for one of us to slide through. It made a horrible scraping noise on the concrete floor. We stopped. There was silence.
“Meew.”
It was still there! Slightly louder now, letting us know of its whereabouts. I slid through and was in the alley, surrounded by almost pitch blackness at first. My eyes adjusted. I felt along the cobweb-covered wall. There were no lights. The dim afternoon haze thru the cracks in the roofline was no help.
There were two white, midsize industrial trucks parked in the alley. They came into view quickly and I recognized them as belonging to our neighboring business. It was a tight fit, a shimmy to squeeze by, and I got dusty webs on my clothes as I brushed against the wall. I could hear Michelle as she was sliding along the same wall, following me on this rescue mission.
We had not heard a sound for a few minutes. I made my way down the alley, softly calling out, “Kitty, kitty, kitty.” I hoped we weren’t too late…. Finally, there it was. One final sound was all we needed to locate our target.
“Meew.”
Just behind an oddly shaped alcove in the alley was a very slight, very hungry jet-black kitten. As I later discovered, a girl. She seemed hesitant to emerge from the wall, but she was curious. She did not object as I reached into the wall for her. She was so small. She looked at me with her green eyes. I might have been the first human she’d ever seen.
I snuggled her against my shirt. We shimmied our way back down the alley to the steel door and slid through. Once back in the well-lit warehouse, we did a full survey. She was darling. There were no apparent injuries, but yes, a flea or two. And now that she’d been rescued, she would not stop talking.
“Meew, meew, meew, meew!”
It was a constant flow of sound, like an infant’s attempt at communicating. It was as if the kitten was saying, “This baby needs to be fed and bathed! Prompt attention please!”
Scrambling around the warehouse and rummaging through our cars, we found a few things. Kitty was placed in a cardboard box with a soft blanket and some water. The water spilled within moments as she wanted to leap and jump and play. She was so small, we were afraid she would get wedged in another nook in the warehouse. So we closed the box and watched it hippity-hop around the floor as she objected to her confinement.
We’d all planned to work on the building that afternoon, but now those plans were canceled. I loaded up our impatient orphan and took her home. Once she was bathed and cleaned up, she settled right in with a litter box and some food. It was time to search for a loving family. I love cats, but I already had two. A third addition was not a wise option. Someone else would have to be persuaded to take this kitty in.
I thought of a solution. Another Roller Derby girl, Tiffany, with raven-black hair and the skate name Pink Devil, had a penchant for wayward animals. A dog with one ear and a kitten with one eye were just two of now five animals that shared her home. Maybe she needed a tiny black kitten…. I convinced her to come over for a visit. I was certain if I could just get her to meet this little wallflower, she would be smitten. Unfairly, I cajoled her with text message pictures and tales of the kitten’s rescue.
She responded quickly, and soon enough we were all three sitting on the floor of the garage. I watched Tiffany and the new kitten interact. She’d recently lost a beloved pet, and it was clear she was quite taken with the midnight-colored feline. Our gentle little rescue walked over to her adoptive mom and climbed into her lap, snuggling into the folds of her skirt. I described her rescue from the wall the day before, and Tiffany nodded in approval as I detailed how we had all moved the steel door together. She stroked the kitten as I talked.
“So,” I asked gently, hoping to seal the deal, “what do you want to name her?”
“Well, it is October,” she said. “She is black as night. Her day of rescue is very fitting. We shall call her Wednesday.”
Hammer
As Told to Morton Rumberg
This is the story of Hammer. He was unconscious when I met him for the first time. Our animal control officer had seized five pit bulls, charging their owner with being an unfit caretaker and with cruelty to animals. The house they lived in had been condemned because of accumulated filth, debris and fecal matter. The animal control officer took the dogs to a veterinarian for examination. Four were young dogs: one young male, a breeding female and two young females. They were moderately to severely underweight, filthy, and infested with fleas, hookworms and whipworms. The male had numerous bite scars, especially on his legs and head, but all the dogs were friendly and surprisingly trusting. And then there was Hammer.
Hammer was attached to
a short, thick chain that could easily be used to tow a truck. The chain weighed twenty-seven pounds. The spike anchoring the chain to the ground weighed another ten pounds. Hammer was the guard dog, the fierce protector of the only home he knew. The owner said that he had to keep Hammer chained because he was so aggressive. Hammer had to be tranquilized to enable the veterinarian to examine him safely.
Hammer was a pit bull; a large, full-grown, heavy-boned dog, but he weighed only fifty pounds. Every part of his body was witness to the hell his life had been. The details were grim. He was emaciated—every rib, every bone in his spine was clearly visible. Bite scars were visible all over his body. His ears, severely cut in the “fighting crop,” were swollen, inflamed and badly infected. A fist-sized growth, probably an untreated tumor, protruded from his side, and several smaller tumors were located elsewhere on his body, including in his groin area. He had an open abscess on his front leg.
His entire abdominal area was blackened from a long-term, untreated bacterial infection. His neck and throat were raw, inflamed and infected from pulling against the chain. He had an unforgettable rank odor of filth and infection. His canine teeth were broken, and all his other teeth were worn down almost to the gums, probably from chewing on the chain. It was impossible to estimate his age, given the condition of his teeth and his overall physical condition. He could be anywhere from five to fifteen years of age. That was Hammer.
The Dog with the Old Soul Page 9