Post by Ken_Nye on Mar 27, 2008 13:32:04 GMT -5
In my first year of retirement,
I have become a volunteeer walker of the dogs
at the local animal shelter.
I have learned that when I open the door
to the kennels in the back of the building
all hell is going to break loose.
The dog in the pen nearest the door
has been assigned the task by the rest of the inmates
to let them know
when someone other than staff comes in,
and he takes his job very seriously.
Even though I've been there a number of times already,
they don't consider me staff.
(Anybody who is not staff is considered "new.")
So I open the door
as quietly as I can.
He is dozing, but when he lifts an eyelid
to check the door, he sees me
trying to slip through ,
and in an instant
he's up and announcing my arrival.
"Visitor! He's new! He's new! New visitor!!!!"
House rules apparently call for unanimous
participation in the welcome,
so they all celebrate my arrival
at a decibel level that suggests that their goal
in this raucous welcome is to let the rest of the world
know that I have entered the kennel.
"Visitor!!"
"New visitor!""
"Hey, Visitor!"
"Hey! Visitor!"
"Yahoo! A new visitor!"
"Nnnneeeewwww visitorrrrrrrrr!"
"Which way is he going?"
"Is he coming down to this end?"
"Hey, visitor, let's get a look at you."
(Some of them overdo the welcome a bit.)
The place is bedlam
So I kneel down in front of one of the cages
and simply sit and try to talk quietly to the soul
on the other side of the chain-link fencing.
In just a few seconds
the rest quiet down, resigned to the fact that they
are not the one the visitor chose.
Which dog I will leash and take out the door
is strictly a matter of my whimsy.
Sometimes I rise to the challenge of the big loud pit bull
who has never been leash trained and drags me through the woods
like an ox twitching lumber to the wood yard.
And other times I feel an affinity for one of the little ones,
usually not as aggressive as the big dogs.
Today it's the beagle-pug
with the smushed-up nose and soulful gaze.
I enter the dog's pen with the leash in hand
and sit down,
extend my hand for the dog to sniff,
explaining that I have come to take her for a walk
on the woods trail.
At first she is a little aloof,
but when I sit down and extend my hand,
she warms up to me and comes over to be caressed.
These are all beautiful, loveable animals.
How did they end up here?
(I myself have two golden-labs that were abandoned
by a family that moved out of town.
How those people could have driven off leaving
that loveable pair
is beyond me.)
I put the leash on the little beagle-pug's collar,
and we head out the back door.
Most of the dogs have not been leash trained.
(I speculate that that could be one reason why
they ended up at the shelter.
It's no fun walking a dog that strains at the leash,
wheezing and gagging, and
forcing you to lean backwards as you walk as if you're trying to stop
a team of horses.
It can be exhausting work, especially if you're working
with a big dog.)
But the little beagle-pug doesn't have the weight
to give me a hard time with the leash,
so we have a nice gentle stroll on the woods path.
We pass other dogs on the trail who ignore her
as rudely as she ignores them.
Neither of them is going to waste time
checking out the other one when there are
more important things to do--
sniffing the urine messages left on the legs of the resting bench,
looking into chipmunk holes,
drinking from the stream that flows under
the walk bridge.
Eventually we are back at the shelter.
(Coming into the kennel through the back door
does not create the excitement that an announced
new visitor would generate.)
I lead the little dog back to her kennel,
take the leash off, bend down and she gives me a kiss.
I tell her I hope she is not there the next time I come.
I hang up the leash and tell the gang I'll see them Thursday.
But they'll forget who I am,
and I'll be a new visitor again.
