A Dog Named Pixie

 

A Dog Named Pixie: a Survival Story

 

Way out on the far side of the Olympic Peninsula is a town named Forks, and in that town there is a dilapidated warehouse once called the Olympic Animal Sanctuary. In that warehouse dog crates were once stacked up row on row, dozens of them, pee-stained and filthy. In one of those crates lived a dog named Pixie.

 

She wasn’t the only dog to spend time crated in the reeking darkness of the warehouse. For many years the warehouse was packed with dogs, over a hundred of them, crouching in cramped misery, unable to stretch their legs, unable to escape their waste, unable to do anything all day long and all night long except endure.

 

A few of the dogs were confined to small kennels lined with straw. For three years, before she was crated, Pixie had lived in one of the kennels. The manager of the “sanctuary”, Steve Markwell, modified her kennel by barricading it with plywood walls, leaving only a crack for light. That was his response to her aggressiveness toward other dogs: isolation. Sensory deprivation. Confinement in black hole.

 

The warehouse was supposed to be a paradise for unadoptable dogs. The website for the “sanctuary” had promised exercise in compatible playgroups, homecooked meals, veterinary services, and rehabilitation for behavior problems. Some of the dogs confined there did have serious bite histories.  However, most were like Pixie: not perfect dogs, but adoptable to the right home.  Pixie’s problem was kennel-craziness.  She was over-active, demanding, puppyish. She was desperate for love and attention.

 

Pixie had experienced very little love in her life. She had been picked up as a stray and turned in to a Midwestern city shelter, just another pitbull, one of the millions of pitbulls turned in to shelters each year. And, like so many shelter pits, she came to the shelter young, untrained, undersocialized to dogs and pathetically, desperately needy.

 

 Pixie couldn’t handle life in a kennel. She lunged at the kennel door, barked too much, grabbed at people with her mouth. There was a young girl she loved who came to visit her, and some of the adult volunteers liked her, but no one adopted Pixie.  As the days passed she grew more stressed and anxious and needy.

 

Then time ran out for her. Her anxious neediness led to a bite incident and she was deemed unadoptable. That meant euthanasia unless an alternative placement could be found. And one was: the Olympic Animal Sanctuary.

 

Steve Markwell drove all the way out to the Midwest to pick Pixie up. He acted like he was doing everyone a giant favor, but Pixie was sent to him with a substantial donation. Her friends at the shelter threw Pixie a good-by party. They invested their faith in OAS to take care of their girl.

 

The shelter folks thought Pixie was going to heaven, but they sent her to hell. She, of course, had no idea why she was sentenced to a life of semi-starvation and close confinement in stink and noise of the warehouse. OAS became reality to her; the few good experiences given to her by the shelter workers receded in her mind, replaced by the daily experience of misery. Pixie endured for four years.

 

Four of the five years of her life were years of suffering.

 

 Then suddenly one night the manager and a few other men took the dogs out of the warehouse one by one. When it was Pixie’s turn, she got one quick lungful of fresh air outside the warehouse before finding herself once again confined to a small dark space: a wooden box. She, and all of the other dogs, were on a truck. The truck lurched into motion. The dogs barked their worries and questions as the truck rolled away.

 

Pixie didn’t know it, but once again people were concerned about her welfare. Not the driver of the truck; no, the dogs had never mattered to him except as props for his pose as a rescuer. The people who cared about Pixie were the thousands who had seen the photograph of her sad face in the darkness of her kennel. Her picture, and pictures taken by the Forks police of the warehouse interior, had been posted on Facebook, exposing OAS for what it really was: a hoarder’s hellhole. Thousands of people were writing, calling and emailing Forks authorities, trying to free the dogs so they could be placed in legitimate rescues. Protests had been held outside the warehouse. Lawsuits had been filed. Consumer fraud complaints had been lodged with the state Attorney General. Many of the rescues that had sent dogs to OAS desperately tried to get their dogs back. Among those were the volunteers who had sent Pixie to OAS.

 

The driver of the truck was running away from the protesters and rescuers. As is typical of hoarders, he was a control freak.  He knew he didn’t have the resources to feed the dogs.  He knew that sooner or later he was going to have a warehouse full of dead dogs. But he didn’t want to give the dogs to the people who were trying to rescue them. So he took the dogs and ran.

 

But he also knew that if he drove long enough, he would end up with a truck full of dead dogs. So six hours on the road, he finally called a rescue, one that had not been involved in the lawsuits or protests.

 

He called the Guardians of Rescue, a New York group. He agreed to turn the dogs over to the rescue provided the turnover site was away from any cities and not in Washington. The Guardians found a place: RUFF House, a rescue in Golden Valley, Arizona.

 

It took Markwell four days to drive to Arizona. He stopped for food, water and potty breaks for himself, but not for the dogs. By the time they arrived at the rescue site, Pixie, like all of the dogs, had been laying her own waste for days, hungry, thirsty and terrified. Two of the dogs were nearly dead from dehydration and starvation.

 

Pixie did not know what was going to happen to her next. Since her life so far had been a progression from bad worse, her expectations were not good. A photo taken just after she was unloaded from the truck shows her bellycrawling on the ground.  But, within minutes, she found herself in a spacious clean outdoor kennel. She had a dog house. She had a bucket of fresh water. She had food. People gave her treats and spoke to her. She could see other dogs, see birds flying overhead, could smell the sagebrush and the grasses and the wind…

 

The explosion of sensory input was too much for her. As days went by, Pixie began to bark and growl at people. She fence-fought with the neighboring dogs. She twirled in circles, hysterical, unable to process the confusing world around her.

 

But time heals and routine is comforting. Pixie learned that people would give her attention and be kind to her. She got food and water on a schedule. She grew familiar with the smells and sounds. She recognized her caretakers and grew to enjoy their visits. She was able to relax in the sun, just stretch out, breath deeply, feel the warmth, close her eyes and dream. For the first time in many years Pixie was able to feel a little happiness.

 

Meanwhile those volunteers who had worked to free Pixie from OAS searched for a sanctuary for her, a place for her to live for the rest of her life. This time they did not trust to a website. When they found a possibility, they visited to see for themselves.

 

A farm sanctuary is planning to accept Pixie in as soon as housing can be built for her. Her story will have happy ending.

 

However, of the 124 dogs turned over to the Guardians by Steve Markwell, one hundred and two have been placed and twenty-two remain in Arizona. Rescues and sanctuaries are needed for those dogs so they can have the happy endings they deserve. Contact information and information about individual dogs is available through the link below. Please, if you are associated with a rescue, checkout the dogs. Offer to take one! All of them suffered for years and are now looking for someone, maybe you, to help them find a home for the rest of their lives.

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.663220317065122.1073741955.107867909267035&type=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Burden of Memory

I heard an odd scraping noise behnd me. I was out for a walk with Paul and the dogs, Paul and Jody bounding ahead, Blackie and I dragging our asses along. It was cold. I was examing the pattern of white ice in the cracks of black asphalt-- lace--when I heard the scraping sound.

I turned to look. It was my neighbor, a gentleman of seventy or so, old enough to have that transparent look people get when they are preparing for fade out. He was pulling a sled.

My first thought was "Oh, no. He'll put himself in the hospital."  But he looked so happy, pulling his sled up the hill.

Turns out the sled is old, a Fearless Flyer, circa back in the day. He had bought it for his kids and as he pulled it along it bore all the memories of playing in the snow years ago. More than that: my neighbor went to school with the offspring of the man who first designed and marketed American Flyers, so the sled carried those memories as well.

He was going to pull that sled up the hill and slide back down and make another memory.

I thought about his sled as we walked away. If I was one of his kids I would treasure that sled. I would hang it on the wall like an icon.

Would throwing the sled away be throwing the memories away? Is it grasping to hang on to objects that hold memories? If so, then I am a very grapsing person because I keep all kinds of stuff for the memories: scrapbooks, albums, over twenty diaries, my display case of sacred objects...When I die my heirs will have a hell of a mess to clean up. What will Emily and Kate do with all my memories?

I hope they don't feel burdened by them. It will be OK if it all goes in the trash.

There's a quote to the effect that an unexamined life is not worth living. Ann Landers says that an unlived life is not worth examinng. My diaries are remarkably vacous but the other stuff is all related to living my life and I keep all that stuff as part of examing it. I want to hang on to memories until I have no need of them. I am fortunate in that the memories I need are of people I loved, animals I loved, or times when I was happy. I need those memories because they are who I am.

Is that grasping?

Probably but it is a happy burden.

The Other Side of the Island

I went out to drop off a box for a lady who lives just a mile and a whole reality away.

She lives in a plywood shack that she built herself forty years ago. There is no running water, no bathroom, no power. She catches rainwater and and uses a battery to run the TV.

She had three tied up dogs, two loose adult dogs, and three half starved puppies on her property. All of them were dirty.

She's pretty skinny and dirty herself.

On the way to AAP there is a McMansion with a small fenced area in the backyard. There two lonely dogs sleep their lives away, cold and wet most of the time, lonely always, while their family is safe and warm and comfortable inside their house. That family that got those dogs as pups and lost interest in them long ago. Fuck those kind of people!

This old lady doesn't live much better than her dogs do and she spends time outside giving them pats on the head. And the dogs all flock around her. They clearly love her as much as she loves them.

And, unlike the McMansion assholes, the lady recognizes tht she needs help to give her dogs the lives they deserve.

 I asked if she needed help getting homes for the pups and she said yes. I listened as she proudly showed me her property, her garden, her house. I tried not to be appalled by the filthy water the dogs had to drink or the inadequate jerryrigged dog houses. In the end she offered me two of the adult dogs and will let me get the remaining female spayed.  I am going to approach her about getting dog houses for the dogs she is keeping as the winter is expected to be rough this year.

I drove away with two of the puppies and a few days later I got the third puppy and a pregnant mom. She cried while I drove away.

She did the right thing for her dogs because she loves them, unlike those well off people who think they have done enough by putting up a fence and buying dog food regularly.

I am honored that she entrusting her dogs to me.

Thinking Like Dog

Paul and I went up to the Methow Valley for a vacation. That's how spoiled we are: we take vacations from living in the forest on an island near a beach. I take vacation from an easy twentyfive hour a week job and he takes vacation from being retired.

It's so easy to take everything for granted. I have a real problem with spending way too much brain time bitching about stuff I want to change . I spent the whole of our vacation trying to stop thinking about local politics, boring, boring, annnoying, but stuck in my head like an earworm.

Jody, on the other hand, loved the hell out of our vacation.

Jody has the gift for enjoying herself. She is very much into sensual experiences. For her the chance to bound through fields of dry grass was an intense pleasure. The chance to smell something new, jump in an unfamiliar body of water, hike up a new trail...she doesn't have to work at being in the moment!

I do. I have to work at paying attention to what is outside my head. I was most successful on the hike around the big hill down near town.

We set out in the early evening when the overcast sky was paling into a light lavender. The trail was steep enough to make me pant, sort of like climbing endless stairs, and as I trudged along I watched the slow change in the immediate scenery. It was a festival of fall color; the dried grasses in every shade of dun, tan, gold, pale yellow, the shrubs turning to rust and orange, the  cheerful groves of aspen still fluttering silver and lime green leaves. I particlulary like aspen since I read somewhere that they propigate by root and that most of the plants are the females, thus making each aspen grove a coterie of sisters. Probably a lot of crap but don't correct me: I like to think of them that way!

Anyway I huffed and puffed up the mountain past the aspen sisters, through a grove of dark stately pines, to the dull gold flanks of the peak. Lots of birds but none that I could identify. Finally arrived panting at the top.

Lovely view, magical in the evening light. The Methow Valley is gentle and almost homely, an accessible, quiet beauty: little farms tucked into comfortably rounded hills, a glimpse of the river.

The sort of landscape that could be made into a quilt.

The trip down was just as much of a sensory experience--visually sensual, since I don't have Jody's nose or ears--and I was tired and happy when I got back to the car.

I remember that trip in detail because I paid attention. I wonder if Jody can remember her happy bounces through the long grass?

The Cure for a Shitty Mood

Been in a shitty mood all day.

No particular reason.

No, that's a lie.  I'm mad about something someone said and I have had no opportuinty to express my feelings to the individual so I have been spending a  lot of time muttering to myself instead. Hence, shitty mood. Kept it up most of the day.

This was my day: went to work, just two hours today, went to the dog rescue and walked three dogs, went to the grocery, went home and fell into a hole of depression. I couldn't settle my mind, couldn't focus on anyting constructive.

Part of the problem was the the presence of a stray dog on our deck.

She followed Paul and Jody home. Just your basic black lab, a friendly, sweet natured middle aged female dog who looks like she's had too many litters. She appears well fed but has an extensive skin rash of some sort.  She curled up aagsint the door and lay there for hours.

We called our security person, Jan. Jan knows all the dogs in the neighborhood and thought she knew the lab from our description. She said she'd come by and take the lab home.  It took her about four hours to show up and I had pissy thoughts about that which were unfair to Jan because she was busy. Apparently the Trench War that the PUD is waging against us homeowners has caused some people to have pink water from their taps.  Anyway she finally got over to check on the pooch and, as it turns out, did not recognize her.

Dilemna.  Serious problem. Paul and I are leaving on vacation tomorrow. Jan is off duty for the next two days. The kennel master from the dog rescue is about to leave on a vacation for two weeks. What were we going to do about this dog who lay curled up at our feet on our deck, hopefully wagging her tail? Poor baby, I told her, your timing is bad. I was afraid we'd have to just drive off tomorrow and leave her to fend for herself.

But I went in and got my dog rescue phone list and started phoning people. It turned out that our kennelmaster had  not left yet. She gave permission for me to bring the dog into the rescue that evening. I was so releaved I almost started crying.

I opened the car door and she jumped right in.  She settled down with her head in my lap. While I drove I thought about names for her. I had been calling her Sweetie Pie because she is, but that name seemed unnecesarily sacharine. I thought of pretty names: Elizabeth, Antonia, Veronica, names that would compensate for her rather boring basic black dog appearance.  Then I thought of Lady Jane, a name that is pretty and relfects her gentle, polite demeanor. So that's it. "Your name is Lady Jane" I told her. "Janey, for short".

She's down at the rescue now, hopefully curled up in bed, sleeping. Tomorrow she will go to the vet and be spayed and start treatment for her skin condition.  Hopefully she will go home with a loving family soon.

And I haven't had a shitty thought all evening. The Dalai Lama says that the antidote for anger is compassion. He meant compassion toward the source of anger but compassion for some other living being seems to work as well.

Thank you Lady Jane for coming to us for help.

What would Buddha Do?

I promised Lassie's memory that I would meditate every day, but I really suck at meditating. Last night all I managed to do was change from thinking angry thoughts to thinking boring ones. That's an improvement, of course, since Buddhist practice is about ninety percent a matter of taking responsiblity for and controlling one's thoughts and boring thoughts are better than angry ones. But it isn't meditating.

I spend far too much time being angry.

I worry about that. When Momma got demented the dementia pared her mind down to the essence and the essence was her love for me and Daddy. When she couldn't say anything else she could still say "I am so proud of you". There was little memory, very few words, little  control over her body, very little cognition, but she could still feel love.

If I get demented will I be bitchy and argumentative?

So I do need to cut back on the incessant anger. It's a crappy habit. I don't really know why I do it.  Control? Trying to make the world outside my head conform to my expectations?  Egotism, just the love of ths sound of my own voice scoring points and making arguments?  Drama?

The thing is I never express anger in real life. Or very very rarely. The day I yelled at Bill for not giving his dog water was a rare exception. And I was not abusive toward him. I didn't really yell either. I did tell him off . I told him that it was his job to care for his dog and that no matter how much he read the Bible he wasn't a Christian if he didn't care for his dog with a willing heart. He tried to yell at me but I would not back down like his wife and mother do so he just slammed out of the room and went somewhere to sulk. Buddha says that Joe has something honorable and holy in him, but I think he needs a couple reincarnation cycles as a cockroach first. As the British say, he might be good at bottom, but its a long way down.

But back to me and my angry dialogs.  I really need a replacement activity. I have "monkey brain". I am an active thinker, an incessant producer of narratives. I used to tell myself stories and that kept my brain occupied. Now that I am actually almost done with an actual novel I don't tell myself stories any more. So I have a lot of brain energy that wants to be organized into thoughts about something. Otherwise I get bored.

I wonder why just an awareness of real life isn't interesting enough?  I used to love long distance driving because I was so facinated by the passing landscape. Now I hardly look at  it even though I live in a lovely area.

Life is passing by and I spend it thinking stupid angry boring thoughts and I don't know why.

A Puppy’s Bill of Rights




1. I have a right to be adopted by someone who wants a dog. I will only be a puppy for a few months. Will you still love me when I am no longer a cute little baby?



2. I have a right to be adopted by you, not your children. Your children will not walk me, feed me, or groom me. They are quite likely to lose interest in me as soon as the novelty of my presence in your house wears off. They will grow up and move away and I will be left behind with you. If you don’t want me for yourself, please don’t adopt me.



3. I have a right to your patience and understanding. I will poop and pee in your house, terrorize the cat, chew on the children, the furniture, and you, jump on everyone and everything, raid the trash, and destroy your favorite pair of shoes. If you are not prepared for this, please adopt a grownup dog that already knows how to behave.



4. I have a right to successful training.



5. I have a right not to be the victim of your inability to train me. You have no right to condemn me to life in the back yard or crate me for hours on end because I misbehave. I am a baby dog; you are a human, supposedly an intelligent creature created in the image of God. If I don’t learn, it’s because you didn’t teach me right.



6. I have the right to be spayed or neutered. I am homeless now as a result of irresponsible breeding. Don’t make me make more homeless puppies.



7. I have a right to exercise. I need to be walked every day or have playtime in the yard. I should not spend more time in a crate than out of it. See right number three.



8. I have a right to your love and attention every day whether you are in the mood or not, regardless of how tired or stressed or busy you are. I never said that caring for me would be easy. Besides, no matter how tired, busy or stressed I am, I will always have time to show my love for you.



9. I have a right to be in the house with you when you are home. I am a member of your family. You don’t keep the children on a chain in the backyard or locked up in a crate or kennel, do you?



10. I have a right to be kept clean and healthy. Before you adopt me, please look at my coat and think about how much time you want to spend grooming me. Please think seriously about the cost of my food and vet care.



11. I have the right to die peacefully of old age in the arms of people who love me.