Living so long in Los Angeles, I believed shelters were all bars and cages, with over-worked staff and no volunteers. I thought community-centered shelters with feline enrichment and dog parks where volunteers outnumber the staff was just a dream.
(Yes, THAT is an animal shelter: NoCal style.)
Being on the northern end of this lifeline and making a sole roundtrip in November for some meetings in LA, I wanted to make sure my passenger seat was full. And full it became: not with one dog, but with two getting to the promised land.
A pair of American Eskimo dogs had been abandoned at a foreclosed house in Reseda,. The realtor was going to send them to the shelter in only a few days’ time unless someone rescued them. Julie, a rescuer in Antioch (east of San Francisco), was willing to take them, if a ride could be found.
The realtor had been kind enough to put down food for them, but no one had actually assessed them. It was a blind plea: save a life--a life is a life. Julie said yes to taking them. I said yes to driving them 300 miles. And one more person said yes to picking them up at the house. These two hadn’t left the backyard they had been abandoned in over a month prior—they had had no shelter in all that time.
The male was bit dingy, but in decent shape considering he'd be on his own for a month. He got out of the crate the transporter had him in in her SUV, walked around a bit, and then was ready to get into my truck and be on his way.
He wasn’t fully okay with this all; he was panting, a little freaked, but he was going to go with it. It seemed okay with him. His female companion was not so good at going along with the adventure.
In the back of the second crate, a dog that looked like the "Before" picture of the dog I had just put in my truck was huddled in a matted, muddy mess. Her coat was dry and brittle; shit and mud were clumped into her fur. She shook so hard, I was afraid her heart might explode. She had just been taken from the only home she had known, the one her family left her at, packed up and now was amongst strangers. She was clearly ill or injured—I couldn’t be sure. “She had a hard time walking,” the transporter said.
I didn’t think she’d be able walk regardless of possible physical ailments; she was trembling so hard and so fast, there’s no way her muscles could do anything else. Realizing that although I had the thumbs, I might not be superior in this particular situation, so I enlisted the help of my other charge.
“Hey, can you help your friend, please?” I asked him when I opened the passenger door. “She’s really scared. Can you tell her it’s okay, please?”
He got out of the truck but didn’t feel like heeding my words. After ten minutes of waiting patiently while he sniffed in the opposite direction and his quaking canine companion remained in the back of the crate, the transporter and I unlatched the top of the crate, took her out, and placed her on the floor of the passenger side of my truck.
She didn’t move, not even to adjust where her legs were. She continued her frenzied shaking. I put her friend back onto the seat and said goodbye to the transporter.
I hopped into the pilot’s seat and the three of us started our northern journey to the promised land.
I felt the need to give them names. I couldn’t keep saying, “Hey,” which I had to do a lot as the younger one kept ramming his head under my hand.
“Jasper, stop. I’ll pet you, but I’m busy driving you out of Los Angeles.”
And so, Jasper it was. Not sure where the syllables came from, but I saw it reflected in his eyes, and with that, I christened him Jasper.
Given the age difference, I suspected I was chauffeuring a mother and son. Jasper's mother’s trembling eventually ceased, which brought on a whole new worry: whether or not she was still alive. Every now and again I reached over and placed my hand on her body, just to be sure she was still breathing. Jasper immediately attacked my hand with his paw: “No, ME! Pet ME!”
"Hey! Have a little respect for your mother! She deserves love too."
Her life force was draining; she wasn’t emitting a name, or even that much of a will to live. When I had brought her to the truck I noticed that her back nails were so overgrown, she probably couldn’t have stood without pain anyway. Her neglect had began long before the family left the house.
I met Julie at a McDonalds she chose half way between Antioch and San Francisco. I handed over Jasper and wished him well as he walked around the back of Julie’s enormous SUV with all the back seats down.
I went back to get the girl. She was still in the same position.
“Hi. You’re almost there. Julie will take care of you. She has Jasper. He’s going to be okay, too. Come on, you can do it.”
I picked her up as gently as I could, but it wasn’t gentle enough. She gave a warning and I placed her down on the pavement to see if she could walk on her own. She lay there and the trembling began again.
“Okay, honey, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more gentle. You’re almost there.”
I swiftly moved her to the back of the SUV and told Julie the situation. “She’s in a lot of pain. I don’t know if she’s going to make it. She can’t walk. And she’s terrified out of her mind.”
Julie assured me she’d get them to the vets for their medical needs; I knew Julie would take care of their emotional needs.
I carried on toward my outpost in the promised land, at peace knowing that the fifteen gallons of fossil fuel I burned saved the lives of two innocent creatures. And overjoyed that I had been given the opportunity to help them—afterall, it’s what I do, it’s who I am, and I hadn’t done it in so long, that despite the redwood forest being the outward home I’ve been searching for, my heart wasn’t truly at home without a canine to take care of.
Tuesday morning at work, I checked my email, hoping for another transport, another run in the promised land. Instead, I received an update email that brought me to tears:
“It is with a broken heart that I must tell you that we lost Jenny last night... At approximately midnight last night I received a call from Julie. She was crying so hard that I could barely understand her. She was rushing Jenny to the emergency vet hospital (half hour away). It seems that Jenny had a massive seizure. By the time Julie got her there it was to late to save Jenny. The vet felt that Jenny had cancer or some underlying disease and she was just to old, frail and ill to survive what she had been through. Needless to say Julie it totally devastated. I want to thank each one who helped to save Jenny and Jasper. Jasper is doing well, though I'm sure will miss his mom.”
Tears welled up in my eyes for Julie who had loved this dog for only forty-eight hours and had to watch her die; I shed tears for Jasper who now had to adjust to life after abandonment without his companion by his side; but mostly I wept for the beauty Jenny—the name I never found for her—had given us all.
Most of us aren’t lucky enough to pick our time to clock out. Dying is more inconvenient than jury duty. But like jury duty with its one chance to reschedule, maybe some folks get that. I think Jenny did: she flashed her love for her son and asked, “Please, please let me stay—just till I know he’s safe.”
And something out there in the ether--or maybe something deep within her own ticker--granted her request.
Jenny didn’t die on the ride to Antioch. She didn’t pass away from fear in the transporter’s car. And she didn’t perish from neglect living in the backyard of an abandoned house. She waited. She waited until her son was out of peril; until he was rescued, transported, and brought to the loving home of a woman in Northern California. Jenny got to experience love and warmth and joy one last time too. With that love Julie gave her and Jasper, she could finally release herself from the pain of her existence, knowing that her son was finally, forever, safe and loved.
I think of him interrupting me from petting his mother, and I wonder if he knew his mom was dying; perhaps he knew that it was best to just let her go in peace... but he knew she was too stubborn to just go without knowing he was okay. Maybe every pet he demanded was to show his momma that, see, he’s in good hands—she can go now.
When Julie gets to the Rainbow Bridge, I have no doubt that Jenny will run up to her, looking nothing like the matted, mangled dog that Julie took in, but more like the vibrant, bright white pup she once was. She will thank Julie for those final moments of love, and thank her for loving her son. Julie’s love healed Jenny; something no medical treatment could have done. Julie brought Jenny Home.
Jasper is still with Julie. Jenny was right; she handed over her charge to someone who would love him just as much as she did. But Jasper still needs his own person, his own family to call his own. His momma would want nothing less for her smiling boy:
