Dog Loss

I just had to compose an e-mail to the woman who rescued Dicha, our squirrely desert dog, to see if she will adopt her from us so that she doesn't have to live in the cold, wet northeast. She is such a thoroughbred Desert dog that we know she'll be miserable living anywhere else. She gets cold here when it goes below 60˚F, and she HATES to get wet! When it snowed here this winter, I couldn't get her out the door to investigate it. She huddled in the doorway, shivering, ears down, looking like I was asking her to endure the privations of hell just to suffer a few flakes of snow on her back. So, although I'll miss her fiercely--she's such a character!--I can't put her through that just to keep me (and Casey, our other dog who's so old and accustomed to us he'd be unhappy living anywhere that wasn't with us, regardless of the climate) company. My husband, James, is happy to get rid of at least one of the "goddamn dogs," or he acts like he is. I like to think that underneath he shares at least a tad of the attachment I feel to those Goddamn Dogs. Life for me is half empty without a dog or two in the family. I need the Otherness of their being, the added dimension they bring to the daily experience of creation. They remind me that I'm not the be-all and end-all of God-given life on this planet. And they're so constantly engaged--they keep me from cutting loose from the Here and Now, sliding into an isolated inner universe that consists entirely of my tiny self. I can push people away, and they let me. They leave me alone. Dogs keep coming back, annoying the hell out of me, insisting that I stay connected to Today. Casey is 10 years old and arthritic. He acts like he's going deaf but I think he's just going indifferent--he only hears when he feels like it. He'll ignore us when we're right next to him, but then leap up and crash out the doggie door into the back yard to bark at something beyond our auditory capacity. So he's not deaf, just cranky. I know he'll die soon (anytime in the next decade feels soon to me), and it will crush me. I've been through so many dog deaths in my life, and every time I say, "Never again." But I need dogs in my life, and there always seems to be a dog or two that needs me. James will have to learn to live with that. Love me, love my dogs! They're a constant reminder that we are not in total control. They break through our self-absorption and force us to open up to the rest of creation. They keep us flexible, they keep our hearts soft and breakable, and they make us laugh. They remind us to play. I'll miss that most about Dicha. She would play 24 hours a day if she could find someone to play with her! I pray we find a playful home for her here in the desert.