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soul dog
By audhill | August 26, 2007
This is JJ (not my favorite name). He’s a little, cream colored, 2 year old cockapoo. I met him in a shelter where I was volunteering. JJ’s been a bit of trouble, mainly because of a hard background. He’s spent the last six months in relative safety in a cage in the shelter. Before that he’d been found literally starving on the streets of Brooklyn. He has all sorts of behavior issues because of his years without people or safety: He’s been protecting himself from the big bad others all this life. A real street poodle. He was a little standoffish at first and he nipped. He was used to making all his own decisions there on the street; friendly enough if unchallenged, at first, he’d argue if you told him to do something he didn’t want to do. And, on top of that, he isn’t housebroken. At best, a dog to foster but not to keep. All in all, the wrong dog: too small (we wanted a big dog), too old (we wanted a puppy), too hard to train… nippy, dominant, streetwise, pee crazy.
But, turns out….JJ is also his own secret weapon. He’s a big people pleaser. Nearly everyone who meets him has a soft little place for him. He is a toughie, but he’s also very enthusiastic. He doesn’t bother with people he meets much, but he’s fiercely loyal to his own. He is very smart and willing. By the time we’d had him a week, he could fetch and drop a ball near us; he could sit. He never begs, and although he will grab a shoe; he never chews it, though, and he drops it when you tell him to. He has a heart tugging way at meal time of eating just a tiny bit and as soon as you leave, rushing from the room to where ever you are to make sure you’re still there. Once assured that he isn’t being tricked into abandonment, he goes back to his bowl.
For the last two weeks, my husband and I have been up at my mom’s house in PA enjoying her pool, playing with JJ… He’s a real water dog. At first he was afraid of the water, but after I threw him in the pool a few times , showing him the ladder so that if he fell in he would know how to save himself, he became a champion jumper. The pool is his favorite toy. The last few days have probably the best days of this dog’s life, so far… and our hearts are had. He’s now ours and we’re his.Only briefly have I thought about school or technology or the end of summer. Instead, I have been all about JayJay jumping into the pool like a happy little lamb, taking big old joyful flying leaps into the water.
And somehow, now back in my air conditioned apartment in the city, I’m thinking about school and what I’m going to accomplish this year… about the students that will have much in common with JJ (not so easy at first, but ready to risk)… about the well loved ones who have learned trust from the adults in their lives, who will come in cheery, willing and ready to learn… and about those few, but troubling others who have spent too much time metaphorically and literally on the street, been betrayed and abused too often, who no longer believe in themselves or us or in the future. I do not belong to any of these children more than another. I have a soft place for each, and it’s about to start again.
Topics: for fun, education, living |