Oh my God, I won!

Ok, background. My english 1A teacher encouraged me to enter an essay contest(I have returned to school after 20 years). I had written an essay assignment about the ratty collars I keep around the house to use on my foster dogs. He felt it was good enough to submit, so I did. The deadline for announcing the winners came and went without me hearing anything, so I figured oh well. It was the first essay I'd written in like 20 years and the only writing contest I'd ever entered so what did I expect anyway. Got a call last night, I am one of the top 4 honors winners. So, encouraged by my friend Julie (No Fancy Name) I am posting the essay in my blog.


Collars and Tags

This worn, dirty collar with its dull, scratched brass tag represents atonement. I’m not sure what I’m striving for is technically a past sin, but to my way of thinking it represents something I need to set right.

Four years ago I started volunteering for a local animal rescue. My work with rescue dogs (homeless dogs in search of a new family) is at least in part to make up for my work at animal shelters. In this time, I have fostered and found homes for nearly 60 dogs and 4 cats. Each one of these animals has stayed in my home until the rescue could find it the right home. If we were wrong, they would come back to our homes. I recycle my old collars and I recycle the unwanted puppies and dogs. Dogs that I foster wear the recycled collars and tags while they are waiting for their permanent homes, for a family to value them more than the last family did. They are the ones that have been cast off by their owners. I want to give these little guys a second chance. A chance that perhaps thousands of other animals didn’t get, because at the shelter I was doing my job. I did a very good job, even from their perspective. You could say, most importantly from their perspective. Each one got a hug and an apology because I truly felt sorry that they ended up with me instead of a cozy spot by the fire. I truly felt it was my responsibility to make it as quick and painless as possible, emotionally as well as physically. There was surely enough fear and confusion in their eyes without me adding to it.

This second chance is one the shelters had even said no to. These are the puppies and dogs that are too shy, too timid, too old, or not socialized well enough. They are the ones that approach slowly or not at all. They sit at the backs of their cages; too afraid to take a chance on those of us who walk by and stare in through the bars. They have been hurt before either by human actions or inaction, and they simply cannot muster the nerve to try again. By these very acts of self-preservation they show themselves to be unsuitable for adoption, and so they are marked for euthanasia. Euthanasia is supposed to provide a humane death. I suppose next to starving to death or bleeding to death, it is more humane. They will be put to sleep (that’s what euthanasia is called in the companion animal trade) if a rescue group doesn’t come along with a little space to give them a second chance.

When I worked for the Humane Society, everyone in the kennels was required to work one day per week in euthanasia. In that one day, you had to put to sleep about 200 cats, 50 to 75 dogs, and various rabbits, chickens and wildlife. There would be good days, when the numbers were lower, but for the most part you averaged 300 animals in a day. If you worked just one day per week in euthanasia like they required, that came out to 1200 animals a month, or over 14,000 animals a year for just one team of two people. Many weeks I worked 2 and 3 days in there because the supervisor thought that my partner and I were the best at what we did. We took it personally. We interacted with each animal. We were fast and efficient, and ultimately humane in our actions and deeds. We felt we owed it to those animals to be in there as long as we could stand it. In some cases we were the most peace that poor animal had known in its short, painful life. You knew that the most peace they felt was being put to sleep by someone that would hold them tight, give them a hug and speak gently to them as they fell asleep, as though each one was our beloved pet. Eventually you run out of tears, but you don’t run out of the feelings.
I did society's dirty work as long as I could. One day I walked away and never went back. Don’t misunderstand me. I regret that what I did before had to be done, but I do not regret that I had to do it. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. Although it was an unpleasant thing to have to do—to say the least—I still feel that I gave each one of them more of myself than someone else might have. I simply ran out of the part of me that could keep it in perspective, or that could argue the good side of what I was doing.

I know for sure it will never leave me. Twenty years later it sits on the horizon like a black cloud just waiting to roll in with its storm. This time, I make my trips back to the shelter for a different reason. I go in and find some poor little pup, huddled in the back of one of the cages just waiting for something to make its nightmare disappear, and I scoop it up and take it home. We work on the basics, which includes helping it feel OK being held, petted, brushed, fed and being inside the house. It takes such a small amount of positive interaction to start turning the little guys around, developing some security and confidence. Pretty soon you can’t get them to stop climbing on you, running after you, licking your face and “asking” for playtime. It’s amazing how forgiving their little hearts can be. I have helped make the nightmare go away for them, and they for me. Each time I can take one of these little guys and make it OK for them, find them a good home and promise to be there for them if they need me, I atone just a little bit for the darkness in the past. They go on to a new home, with a new collar and tag while I recycle the old one for the next recycled dog. In some way I have tipped the scales a bit closer to in balance.