Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself (22 page)

“Leave the bandage on his paw where we took out the catheter for a few days, but I don’t think he’ll chew it,” Krista said. “Give him soft food or dry food with a little water, but in a couple of weeks I think you can give him dry food.”

“I’m freaked out,” I told her.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re not going to break him. Everything is going to be fine.”

I closed the door. It was time to leave. I felt a very special connection to Krista in that instant, an overflowing mix of gratitude and respect. I reached out and gave her a huge hug to express my appreciation. She wished me luck.

As I drove away, I looked down at the puppy, who seemed to be sleeping. “Hope you like Salt Lake City,” I told him. The words themselves meant nothing to him, I knew, but I hoped that, at the very least, the sound of my voice was comforting to him. I knew that with Kohi, when Michelle and I were doing anything at all, eating or just watching television, he needed to be in the same room. He had the run of the house and could choose to rest anywhere he wanted, but what he wanted was to be in proximity to us. I had friends with dogs who followed them everywhere they went, from room to room to room and even whimpered when the bathroom door was temporarily closed to them. Kohi was never that clingy, but all the same, he manifested the innate drive dogs have to be part of a group.

It was the same innate compulsion I had as a kid, when I felt so isolated.

As I drove north, I thought of what a therapist had told me. He thought it was possible that I’d been clinically depressed for at least the last ten years, if not longer. I’d been having serious back pain that X-rays and MRIs couldn’t diagnose, and the orthopedists told me there’s a school of thought that believes a certain percentage of back pain is referred, meaning the pain begins somewhere else, but you feel it in your back, and that can include emotional pain. The orthopedist sent me to a psychologist, to whom I admitted that I’d worn, since I was young, a suit of emotional armor. He told me he thought that was true, and that armor had weight, and carrying all that weight had bent me over and was causing the pain I felt in my back. He was speaking metaphorically, but that was part of his job—to give me new ways to see or think about my life and the things that were keeping me from feeling happy.

He helped me put into words many of the things that were holding me back. I didn’t trust people. I was too pessimistic. My first impulse was to be cynical, until I was proven wrong. I kept people at a distance. I was overly critical of people who seemed to have it easy, people who glided through life without the same degree of effort it took me—people who had doors opened for them, when I had to knock the same doors down. I had a chip on my shoulder that went back to feeling unpopular and resenting the kids who were popular, the feeling I had that I was as good as them, so why were they accepted and included, while I was excluded and cast out?

I looked down at the dog, but now, when I thought about the man who put him in the hole, I realized something.

In all the years that I was bullied, what seemed more unfair than anything else was the idea that the kids who held dominance over me—the bullies who belittled and mocked me because they were popular or had the support of their friends—were above me, and I was below them.

But that wasn’t true. They were never above me. They were always below me, and for a lot of them and perhaps most of them, unless they saw the errors of their ways and changed, they would stay below me. I can’t say that I was no longer angry at the man who put the dog in the hole, and I can’t say that I felt sorry for him or that I pitied him, but now I saw the bully for who he was—someone who doesn’t know what it feels like to be loved, and more to the point, someone who doesn’t know how to love. The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy once said, “Hell is the inability to love.” That was exactly the hell the dog’s tormentor was in.

Someone hurt him, so he hurt back, and hurt was probably all he would ever know. Somewhere along the line, something went wrong for him. I felt fairly sure that putting the dog in the pothole wasn’t the first time he’d ever hurt an animal. He’d done it to get even, but he’d never know what “even” meant. I couldn’t forgive him yet, but I could imagine how he felt, because I had something he lacked: I had empathy.

I had lifted the dog from the hole and restored him to the community of men. Whoever put him there was in a much deeper hole, and there was no way out of it, and it seemed doubtful that anyone would come looking for him or want to help him if they did. He was forever disconnected.

I’d talked to my therapist about how I have a strong reaction whenever I feel like I’m being treated unjustly or unfairly, or when something unjust or unfair happens to someone else. I am not exactly a crusader, in any public or political sense, but I could not abide injustice. I’d get upset, unable to let it go.

I found my cell phone and called Michelle.

“How’d it go?” she asked me. “How is he?”

“He’s pretty tired still,” I told her. “They think he’s going to be okay. There might be complications.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m on the road,” I said. “I should be home by dinner time.”

“Where’s the puppy?”

“He’s asleep on the floor beside me,” I said.

It had occurred to me that I probably should have called her before deciding to bring the dog home, but knowing Michelle, I knew she wouldn’t question the decision I’d made, and that she would have done the same thing. This puppy needed help, and we were capable of giving it to him. Plus, it could be said I risked my life for this little guy. That meant he was not only valuable to me, but to her, as well.

“From the sound of it, if I left him there, nobody would have adopted him anyway. After all we’ve been through, there’s no way I was going to allow him to be euthanized.”

“No,” she said. “I can see that. So you’re bringing him home?”

“At least until we can figure something else out,” I said. “Do we know anybody who wants a dog?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll be sure to have Kohi’s crate ready with some towels, food, and water.”

Deep down, I may have known that there was a new member of the family, but I wasn’t willing to admit it yet.

The first hour of the drive home was uneventful. The dog kept looking up at me and I kept looking down at him. He was curled up in the passenger foot well, facing toward the back. Instead of tucking his head and snout toward his tail like you’d expect, he kept arching his head toward me, which looked incredibly uncomfortable, his head wedged between the cushion and the center console. Every time I put his head back where I thought it belonged, he’d wait for me to let go of his head and then return to the same position. It was like a game we played for the first hour to Kanab. I stopped to get my usual chocolate milk at a gas station, and then we proceeded north on 89. Thirty minutes later, we had our first problem. He’d been pretty still and quiet so far, but he suddenly began to squirm and started making whimpering, pleading sounds. I could see him trying to move, but he didn’t have the strength to do what he wanted. I pulled off onto the gravel shoulder, walked around, and opened the door. I guessed he needed to relieve himself. I picked him up, which was shocking because he was still literally skin and bones. I was sure I was going to break him.

I carried him to where the shoulder ended, figuring he might feel more comfortable in the weeds. I placed him in a standing position on the ground. He looked like those nature videos you see on National Geographic or the Discovery Channel showing some newborn calf or elk taking their first steps, wobbly and hunched over. Possessing no motherly instincts, I just sort of hovered with my hands on either side of him to provide support. He took a very awkward half step forward with his front paws to extend his body and urinated. I thought,
How ’bout that? I got it right
.

After he was done, he arched his back and extended his tail parallel to the ground, a position I recognized from my dog. For some reason, it seemed like peeing was one thing, but if he had to poop, a bit of privacy was in order, so I pulled back. I waited for something to happen, but things seemed stuck, the dog hovering uncomfortably in position. As I approached, he stumbled. I quickly grabbed him, and we avoided a fall. I managed to get him back where he needed to be, and again we waited. I felt ill prepared for dealing with something like this.

Just when I thought I could see some . . . progress . . . everything stopped again, and it was clear to both of us that something was amiss. He tried to walk, still in a hunched over position, precarious and unsteady.

I once again hovered above him, keeping my hands on either side of his ribs to catch him if he fell again, and I followed him around as he tried in vain to get things moving. I was on the verge of panic, thinking I might have to directly intervene, though how would I do that? I placed my fingers on either side of his rump and used a pinching motion to try to get the last of things moving. I was never one who could handle things like this gracefully, and I was literally gagging at being so close to the action. My heart also broke to watch this puppy struggle like this. Thankfully, after about twenty seconds, our combined efforts paid off. The proceedings came to conclusion and the pup finished what needed to be done. I was relieved, and so was the puppy, albeit in a different way.

An hour later, we repeated the previous episode, but the fact that his alimentary canal was again functioning was all good. The second time, he lost his balance and fell right over, smack into the ground without any attempt to brace or right himself. I felt immediately sad, and then livid about the situation—couldn’t the poor dog catch a break? I ran over and helped him back up and then, once again resorting to my training as a Marine, I improvised and adapted, using a modified massage technique to get him started, but my nerves were beyond frazzled.

For someone who has been shot at and been lost in the Los Angeles mountains for more than twenty-four hours in a snow storm, you’d think I’d be tougher than this, but I was ready to crack. The emotional weight I had been carrying since Sunday was starting to take its toll. I was absolutely drained. I was on Highway 20, crossing west to I-15. When I reached I-15, I headed north. I had cell reception and called Michelle to give her an update on our progress. My voice told the story of my situation. She shared some encouraging words and let me know she would help out as soon as I got back. That moment could not come soon enough.

When I finally reached my driveway, I got out of the truck and had to lie flat on my back on the concrete, aching and exhausted.When Michelle picked up the dog and felt how emaciated and fragile he was, she was reduced to tears.

I wasn’t reduced to tears, but the drive home had left me feeling beaten down and depressed. What bothered me so much was knowing that I was once again in the undeniable presence of the kind of abuse and cruelty I was so familiar with, but this wasn’t a memory or an image—this was tangible and palpable, the dog a living survivor and victim of human cruelty and abuse, morbidly malnourished and damaged. He looked and smelled and felt like death. The truck had actually taken on a smell that was making me sick. I wasn’t just physically tired. I was spiritually tired, exposed to a kind of soul-crushing poison that radiated from the poor animal and left me feeling down. I kept thinking, “You poor thing,” and it’s not hard to go from there to wondering about the kind of world we live in.

We kept Kohi and the puppy apart at first. Dr. Roundtree had suggested that before we put them together, we needed to have the puppy vaccinated and tested for infectious diseases. We brought the puppy to our vet in Salt Lake City, who gave him the standard protocol of shots and even gave the dog a full body X-ray, and after he had the film developed, he put it up on the light box for us to read. He pointed out something he found interesting: a half dozen distinct dots, smaller than BBs. When I asked him what they were, he said it was his opinion that somebody had shot the dog with a shotgun, and mostly, but not entirely, missed. If I ever had any doubts that we were doing the right thing, this moment erased them all.

When we finally introduced the two dogs, outdoors in the driveway where they wouldn’t feel cramped, the puppy nipped at the older dog, even though I knew Kohi was only trying to be friendly, but it was heartening, all the same, to see the puppy still had a bit of fighting spirit in him. We separated them, and when we introduced them again, the same thing happened, but this time I let the puppy know, with a gentle but firm whap under the chin and a simple no, who was in charge. It was the last time we ever had a problem.

Within a week, the puppy was strong enough to walk and even run a little, and he’d gained weight. We kept close watch over him for convulsions or seizures, but he seemed fine, and as far as we could tell, his vision was 20/20, or whatever it was in dog terms. I could detect no signs of mental impairment or emotional damage, no head shyness, no lethargy. He did have an obsessive attachment to Michelle, which further solidified my belief that he had had bad experiences with men. I had the sense that after that single correction in the driveway, the new puppy was perfectly fine assuming the role of subordinate dog. It confirmed what I’d been thinking about the roles of dominance and subordination in Nature: that if animals had a drive to dominate and be the top wolf in the pack or the alpha stallion in the herd, they had a mutual or parallel need and drive to collaborate and cooperate and contribute to the cohesion and success of the group. He didn’t care that he wasn’t number one. He was just glad he had a number. His life had an order to it.

Oddly, mine seemed to have less. The euphoria and satisfaction of having rescued a dog that was nearly dead gave way to a sense of confusion and displacement. The night I got home from Page with the new addition, Michelle and I stayed up late into the night, as I filled her in on all the details I hadn’t been able to give her. I’d been holding in a lot of emotions, and now that I was home with Michelle at my side, I could let them out.