Sammy
03/03/10 14:40 Filed in: stories
July Montana days are filled with a hard, bright light. The heat hits you broadside. Unlike our humid Virginia summer, which wraps softly around you like a clingy overbearing friend and then seeps into your pores, this is assaultive, combative summer. The wind strikes you with its hot dry breath, and slaps at you. In the 100° heat the dogs, held for nine months as evidence in an animal abuse case, only get short walks. In the sun, black coats burn to the touch.
After two trials and a conviction, adoptions finally begin. I’m here to help the ones with behavior problems and assist with matchmaking if called upon.
“Where’s Sammy?” I ask, having been informed that out of the nearly 180 dogs, he is one of the worst off. Sally takes me to the outdoor pen where a bony, dull coated, wide-eyed dog darts frantically corner to corner. It takes three of us to catch him. We bend forward, arms outstretched, and try to interrupt the panicked running. Needing a few moments to figure out how the heck I’m going to move him, I sit on the ground and hold his leash. He pulls wildly and chokes himself trying to get away from me. Too hot to continue letting Sammy stress out, I decide we should go around the outside of the building, rather than inside past all the barking dogs, and go in the back door-against the rules. The only leash volunteers use for him is a short nylon braided choke lead meant for kennel or veterinary use.
“We can’t walk him,” they explain, “he gets out of all the collars.”
This one tightens around Sammy’s neck so that it is nearly impossible for him to get air into his lungs. He lunges to the end of it and chokes himself. It’s the best we can do for now, I intend to find a better solution.
We go into the “cat room,” where all the kitties lived during their stay in Great Falls until their adoption. Gray panel walls and dark gray carpeting give it a cool, quiet feel. A table shoved against one wall is full of discarded kitty bowls, cat food and unused bags of cat litter. It’s a nice size room, empty except for Liberty, a recuperating Collie in the small portable pen in the corner. I pull out a folding chair and sit down. Sammy throttles himself at the end of the lead trying to get as far from me as possible.
We sit for a long time. I try some of Turid Rugas’ calming signals for dogs: lick my lips, yawn, look away, turn sideways. Nothing works. He not only doesn’t approach me, he leans as far from me against the lead as he can without strangling himself. His tongue hangs out the side of his mouth, long and dripping saliva. His tail is plastered underneath his body, hard against his belly. His eyes are wide and wild. He looks every bit the terrified, tortured, about to die dog he thinks he is. The demons are stirring madly in his head, screaming at him to escape before he dies.
He listens to his demons. He does not listen to me. I watch him from the corner of my eye, and try not to stare at him directly. Staring is threatening and brings the monsters to the surface, as does moving towards him in any way. If I see him take the slightest pressure off the lead, or show the slightest fragment of relaxation, I tell him “good boy, Sammy.” Eventually he sits, a coping mechanism when it’s finally too much for him, and I praise him for that. After 30 minutes, I stand up and walk around the room. We have to be able to move from place to place without the lunge—choke routine. “It makes us look bad, Sammy,” I joke to him. We begin to walk from one end of the room to the other on a fairly loose leash. Whenever he starts to pull, I stop, he looks at me, and I praise him. It must be a strange development because instead of terrified he looks puzzled. After awhile, he looks bored, exactly the look I want.
Slowly Sammy’s face begins to relax and soften. After an hour of this, it’s time to put him back, but I’m reluctant to return him to his pen after the progress we made. Before we go out to the main room with all the dogs, I pause to chat with some of the workers, and Sammy sits beside me. Whenever he forgets and tries to bolt, I work to calm him, and he stands quietly.
“This is Sammy,” I say. There is a tinge of pride in my voice.
“Sammy?” they ask incredulously.
“Yes,” I tell them, “there’s hope.”
It’s hopeless though once we leave that room; he drags me back to his pen past all the barking and lunging dogs. I have spent nearly two hours with him in calm and quiet, and already see progress, but it is depressing to have to return him to his pen. As soon as I release him, he spins, barks and lunges.
Sammy has a habit of darting past the volunteers whenever they try to catch him. He’s lightening fast and slippery, ping ponging from one end of the pen to the other. I sit on the floor and toss treats to him, hoping I can interrupt this habit. He stops and stares at me, but won’t come near me. Finally, I sniff a treat and pretend to eat it. Sammy looks down at all the treats I have tossed on the floor and eats every crumb. When he’s finished he looks up as if to say, “I didn’t know it was food you were throwing at me!”
A young worker rummages up blankets to cover his pen top to bottom. “This will help lower the stimulation and calm him,” I tell her. When Sammy hears me say his name he peeks out between the hanging sheets and stands quietly. Another bit of progress.
For our walks outside I’ve found a new collar he can’t pull out of and fit it so he can’t choke. At the mere hint of pulling, I stop and he looks back, remembers what we are working on, and we start walking again. The one thing he cannot tolerate, though, is human touch. Catching him is easier now, but the panic still sets in. Patience is my only ally. When I reach for his collar he cringes to the ground, shaking. His eyes bulge until the whites show. I have spent a lot of time with him, but I wonder if it is well spent. He gets better in such small increments, and we still don’t know who will adopt him.
The chores are done by 4:00 p.m. and exhausted volunteer workers go home. I’ve grown to love the evenings here and I linger well past the time to leave. I have no commitments but this, and I find a strange and comforting peace with the dogs. As the volunteers leave, they turn many of the lights off, and the darkened building puts the dogs in a quiet mood. They have been fed, walked, hugged, petted, cleaned and watered. Most are sleeping, stretched out on the cool concrete floor. A hot wind blows under the half closed garage door at the front of the building, but this place is relatively comfortable considering the temperature outside.
Sammy and I have our setbacks while he learns to walk without our lunge-bolt-lunge-bolt routine. He still looks at me wildly and fearfully, like I’m a monster, when I stop and try to get control of him. Our trips outside gradually improve; we can now walk the entire length of the building without him lunging once. But as soon as we near the back door, he panics and leaps uncontrollably. Poor Sammy, there is nothing I can do about his torment of going inside. In the cat room he settles down quickly, and to my amazement he actually lays down in front of the fan blowing warm air around the room. He still won’t let me get near him; if I try and reach my hand towards him, he leans away as though I’m poison. If I hold a treat he will take it, so I count my blessings. Not so long ago this would have been impossible. “Sammy,” I say, and he looks at me and breaks my heart. As much as I wish I could, I can’t take him home with me.
My days are filled with tiny moments of seemingly insignificant events, yet I savor the time I spend with these Collies. Dogs known mainly by their number, relatively few have garnered names in the course of this long arduous trial. Sammy is one of them. When I return to Virginia I learn that Sammy’s new home will be in California. Godspeed Sammy, I pray.
From an unpublished manuscript: The Significance of Naming
Read at Sunnybank, August 2007 at the Gathering’s The Heart of a Collie