Saving Gunner

Rescue dogs give back a lifetime of gratitude and joy, for they have lived otherwise.

I have to die because someone needs my kennel?

I don’t know what it is about him. I already know that Georgia takes the lives of 34,000 felines and canines each year. They are fifth in the nation for “euthanasia,” wrongly-termed.

The tired platitude, You can’t save them all, does nothing for my aching heart this Easter Sunday morning.

Once a dog comes into my awareness, it’s impossible to ignore. And this one – Gunner – is a one-year-old black Pittie – who came across my screen through a Cobb County Animal Services volunteer running the Sharing Love YouTube channel. Routinely, she posts to share dogs in immediate need – or else.

Gunner is full of life, bounding off the walls of confinement with all the intense fervor of a vibrant athlete. Fetching that tennis ball as though it were life itself.

Not unlike our Teko, who was also in a kill shelter at twelve weeks into life – and on the dreaded list. Now Teko lives here, saved with his brother, who faced the same threat, fetching his own tennis ball as though he were Babe Ruth reborn.

I couldn’t not reach out. I have a thing for underdogs, and Gunner is the quintessential underdog.

My Saturday was consumed with reaching out to rescues, harassing friends in Georgia rescues with a full schedule of obligations of their own, reaching out to rescues with necessary pull privileges from the shelter to save his life, offering up donations, inquiring about adoption. Calling the shelter to no answer. Checking the comment feed on Sharing Love, only to find annoying thoughts and prayers for his rescue! in place of any real offer to save his life. Emailing the author of Sharing Love, only to read the reply:

Address not found.

As the winds continued to gust outside and our five-pack ran and chased each other in their one-acre mountain yard, I stared at the screen as though genies would appear with Gunner in their hands. The deeper engrossment set in, the greater emotions of helplessness fed by distance and disconnect seeped through. Powerlessness fueled by silence descended like a dark cloud. Frustration punched through flow, stealing away any peace of mind or centering to help ground and give perspective.

I was stuck in what Buddhists call Samsara, the cycle of suffering, from which it feels impossible to extricate one’s sanity. Or, get a good night’s sleep.

I already know I can obsess with the best of them. And when it comes to saving a young dog’s life with thirty-nine reasons to live, our full canine household becomes the place for him to land, if only if my mind.

I grasped for my personal sanity. Later in the day, along came an offer to re-subscribe to Calm. How could I not?

Perhaps this reach feels within my grasp. Since I cannot help influence democracy or keep it from suffering its harms and threats at the feet of fascism, saving a young dog in a high-kill shelter feels possible.

Is it wise or sensible? Only divine guidance can say. Our five-pack all came from harsh early beginnings. The two disabled dogs were as stricken by the hands of cruelty as they were ushered to safety under the care of divine feminine protection and safety. They landed here with a deep sigh of gratitude and relief.

Anyone who has ever rescued a dog in harm’s way will tell you, Rescue dogs give back a lifetime of gratitude and joy, for they have lived otherwise.

So today, I’m back to sitting in uncertainty with a heavy dose of self-doubt thrown in for good measure. I sit, too, in restrained patience and self-forgiveness for burdening the people in my life near and far. Daily overwhelm becomes their lives as they tend to feeding and picking up after dozens of rescued dogs. Or tending to newly-rescued victims of hoarding or dogs left behind by deported owners. Or walking the dogs and cleaning the kennels of dogs dumped for policy of greedy landlords or lack of economic stability. All of them are still willing, despite lacking a personal moment for that elusive me-time, to share of their time, experience and energy to help yet another dog in harm’s way.

To them I owe a debt of gratitude, for despite their depletion of life energy exhausted through helping canines here in Colorado, they remain at the ready to support just one more, through introductions to our raucous pack, or facilitating transport across the landscape of our troubled nation.

When people espouse, We’re all in this together, they really mean it, when it comes to saving adoptable, deserving dogs.

Think I’ll find Pema Chodron’s Living with Uncertainty and read a few pages this Easter Sunday.