On Loss and Love | Chandra

This week PB Soc lost a dog, Emma, and there's been an outpouring of love for her on Facebook. Delyse wrote a wonderful post about the big hearted volunteers who walked her and loved her and fed her peanut butter and who finally held her while she was euthanized. Tony, a volunteer who trained with us just last month, posted thirty photos of Emma from their walks together...photos filled with pitty smiles and snuggles and love. Lysa posted about how the losses are difficult but that they are getting fewer and fewer as time goes by.

I didn't get the chance to meet Emma, but her death has touched me deeply. I'm not sure what Emma's background was, but I do know that it involved humans that treated her horribly and that she consequently had trust issues. I also know that not every dog can be brought back from abuse and that the people who made the decision to let her go agonized over it.

What touches me the most is how different this death is from ones I witnessed when I volunteered at the same shelter thirteen years ago. Each week I'd go in to help with adoptions and ask after certain dogs and far too often I'd be told something like, "Oh, she got aggressive with the other dogs." Which, of course meant that she was gone. The dogs were eight to ten to a loud, crowded kennel, and they were bound to get snippy with each other, but there just wasn't any alternative. The dogs kept coming in, every day more and more and more of them, and the space had to be utilized for the ones who had the best chance of being adopted. None of them lasted very long.

The people working at the shelter are such good people. They have to deal with the worst part of humanity day after day, with cruelty, with animals being surrendered by irresponsible owners, and with heartbreaking cases where people cannot keep their beloved pets because of outside forces. They have to clean up the tragedies that others create and they often are vilified for it. I still can hear the strong words from one of the shelter officers all those years ago when I tried to help someone with an adoption that he had started. He said "Don't take my adoptions away from me." Adoptions must have been the one bright spot in his very difficult job, and here was this clueless volunteer stealing that light. I didn't make that mistake again.

Much of that time is burned into my memory but one particular girl, Maxine, a red foxy looking dog who loved to chase tennis balls, stands out. I took her out one day to the big fenced in grassy area and we hung out. She wasn't a particularly affectionate dog, but she let me pet her and chased lots of balls and stretched out on the grass in the sun when she was tired. As we sat there together, I looked up and saw a shelter worker wheeling an industrial sized metal garbage pail on a hand truck toward the back of the property. It took me a second to realize that the pail was filled with dead animals. I could see some of the fur sticking up over the top of the container.

I knew that dogs were euthanized regularly. I saw the door with the sign on it where it took place. I read about the arguments over how it was done...at that time the animals were put in cages in a room and then gassed. But until I saw that garbage can, it hadn't really registered.

Eyes brimming, I hugged Maxine and promised her that I wouldn't let it happen to her. I made a note on her card to call me if she was up for euthanasia and put her back in the kennel.

You can probably see where this story is going. The next week I came back and Maxine was gone. She had gotten "mouthy" with another dog. That foxy red face still haunts me thirteen years later. Not because she was special somehow, because all the dogs are special, but because she crawled into my heart and I left her there anyway.

This week it was Emma.

With Emma though, it was different. There were people who cared. There were walks and scratches and Kongs and a brand new collar. There was peanut butter. There were gentle hands to hold her on her way out.

There were facebook posts and photographs and prayers for her spirit to fly free. There was love.

There is a whole community of people working to make sure that these dogs go home. To make sure that dogs are spayed and neutered and who work with families to help them keep their animals when times get difficult. There are social media posts looking for pit bull friendly housing and ones calling for donations for difficult medical cases. There are legions of fosters opening their homes to dogs who need a temporary place to rest or time to learn how to live with a family after never having the opportunity before. There are volunteers running playgroups and walking dogs every day so that when potential adopters come the dogs are calm and happy and show better. There is Shannon taking stunning photos and Chloe making videos and Jamie & Laura writing terrific descriptions and making beautiful webpages. There is Lysa training new volunteers with her sunny smile and big heart. There is Carolyn keeping track of which dogs are in which kennel and who needs walked each day. There is Delyse running the whole show.

And everywhere there are so many people just like them. Times are changing. My heart is warmed by Emma's story because of how incredibly different it is.

Godspeed Emma. Godspeed Maxine.

You both mattered.

Tony's memory of Emma. Soft paws, open mouth smile, gorgeous eyes.

If you'd like to join the team of volunteers at PB Soc, we'd love to have you!

Info HERE.

--Chandra