Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs (45 page)

rang. Startled, I answered, and felt a
wave of anger flood me when I recognized the
voice of Gillian's original owner. Without question,
I blamed her for the largest part of the whole situation
(and blamed myself for even selling her the dog in the first
place), and now, on a morning when I wanted
only to be alone with my sad thoughts and apologies
to this dog's spirit, her voice in my ear infuriated
me.
Gritting my teeth, I answered her questions in
tersely worded replies, unwilling to grant her
anything but the most rudimentary courtesy. I listened
in angry silence as she spun out her explanation of
how and why it had all come down to this: a dog who would
be dead in a few hours, Gillian the only one
who would pay full price for promises made and
broken. It began to dawn on me as she talked that
she had called me because she was seeking forgiveness; I
could hear it clearly in her tearful admission that she
had failed this puppy. Hot righteous anger flared
up in me, and as I swung up on my high
horse, I felt a heavy weight on my knee.
Glancing down, I saw my old dog Banni's
head resting there, his dark eyes fixed on my face,
his gaze steady, unblinking, telling me
something. I shifted my focus to this old friend and
silently asked what he needed to tell me. He
answered with a quiet question: "What would she do?"
The question, so clearly posed in my head, confused me
at first. What would who do? The woman I was speaking
with? I struggled for an answer, the woman began
to cry, and Banni's eyes locked on mine. The
next image in my head was so startling that I nearly
dropped the phone: I could see Gillian reaching
up to lick away the woman's tears, eyes soft,
tail wagging gently, the essence of forgiveness given
physical form. Suddenly, I understood the
question-"what would she do?"-and knew that it was what
Gillian would do. She would forgive this woman, this
flawed human being who had loved her but still failed
her.
My challenge was this: Could I offer the same
simple acceptance and forgiveness? I did not think
I could, and I told myself that to forgive this would somehow
equal condoning what she had done. Again, the steady
gaze of Banni pushed me onward, and
inexplicably, I was hurtling back years in time
to Banni's youth and a gorgeous spring day when, as a
young dog enjoying the day, he had ignored my

repeated commands to come inside so I could
leave for an appointment. In a rush,
unreasonably angry, I had marched across the yard
and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him
unceremoniously to the back door, where I scolded
him far past any sane reprimand. He sat
frozen, his eyes wary, until at last, realizing
how stupid my own behavior was, I had sagged
into a chair nearby. Holding my hands out to him, I
apologized and asked for his forgiveness. And it had come
faster than the speed of light. His for-
cold noses, No wings

giveness did not equal in any way an acceptance
of what I had done; it simply acknowledged my
apology and opened a way for me to go on, for us to go
on and hopefully find another way next time.
So many years later, his graying muzzle laid on
my knee, it occurred to me that if I were a good
dog, I would be able to forgive this woman. It would not
undo what had been done, and it would not change the
sad reality that a dog she had loved would die that
day. Forgiveness would not shift the responsibility for
her failures onto anyone else, but it would be a
way of saying that just like me, she was a flawed human
being. I too had made terrible
mistakes, broken promises, failed the ones I
loved, and far past the biblical seven times seven,
I had been forgiven by the animals and the people who had
suffered at my hands. To deny her forgiveness was to act
arrogantly, as if I had never needed to be
forgiven, as if I would not need to be forgiven countless
times in the future. Surely, I told myself, I
could find a way to do what any good dog could do any
day and sometimes a dozen times before breakfast: forgive
a human being for being human. And so I did. It was
not easy. But it was important.
The dog still died a few hours later. I never
spoke to the woman again; what little we had between us had
died that day. There is still great sadness in me for
Gillian, a promising young dog who did not receive
what she had been promised, what she deserved and
needed. And there is deep gratitude in me for
Gillian's lesson, for it was the first major
crack in the wall between myself and other people.
treat me like a dog
The next lesson came only a few months
later, when a longtime friend unexpectedly began a
verbal attack on me, laying at my feet a
mountain of blame for her unhappiness with her life.

Stunned, I listened in growing disbelief,
the pain caused by her words a physical sensation as
distinct as if I had been punched in the solar
plexus. My initial response was one of anger,
and yet, even as my snarled response rose up in
my throat- "I'm not going to stand here and listen
to this-screw you!"-something bizarre happened. Her
words, shooting in painful trajectories from a
face screwed tight, floated away so that their
specific meaning was lost to me; all that was left was
the pure sound of her feelings, and I was struck by the
anger and fear that I heard in her voice. Without
words, it seemed as if she were pouring out snarls and
yelps and desperate, frantic barking.
If she were a dog, I asked myself, what would make
her act like this, attack like this, without warning?
Immediately, I corrected myself There
had
been warning, hints in telephone conversations prior
to this, and from the moment we had met on this day, I had
felt the connection between us taut with tension though I could
not determine why this was so. I was aware that I had
to choose my words and actions carefully to avoid
setting her off-in other words, I had warning.
Transforming her into a dog who was snarling and snapping
in fearful frenzy was a way of setting
aside my own hurt response. Seeing her as
hurting and terrified stilled my reflexive
reaction, and though still hurting myself, I found I was
able to listen compassionately and then walk away from that
encounter knowing that I had done nothing to pour fuel on
her fire.
The relief of finding a perspective that allowed me
to stay calm and not react out of my own fear and anger
was short-lived. Long after the incident had passed,
I was deeply shaken by the realization that once I
saw her-truly saw her-with the same clarity that I
usually can bring to my interactions with dogs, I was
obliged to respond to her with at least the same
compassion I would show any dog brought to me. This was not
a new concept for me. For years, I'd given it
lip service and even some genuine effort, and at
times, was even able to actually be kind and fair to many
people. But never before had I been struck so deeply with
how serious an obligation I had to live these
words-or how difficult this really was.
Long ago, I had read Leo Buscaglia's
wise words, "We must treat each other with dignity.
Not only because we merit it but because we grow best in
thoughtfulness." Living these words, I was discovering, was not

an easy matter. An examination of my
own behavior showed that while most people fared well in
their interactions with me, not all did. With every animal
that I came into contact with, I strove mightily
to be compassionate, to demonstrate respect and
kindness even in the face of their
anger or fear. It seemed quite sad to me that if my
friend had been a dog snapping fearfully at the end
of the leash, I would instantly have responded in a way
that I could manage only with effort on her behalf.
This was a terribly uneasy moment of awareness, one
that nagged at me for many months. Watching myself, I
could see that there was quite a difference at times between how I
treated animals and how I treated some people. I could
readily excuse my behavior with a recitation of my
homemade litany of how "he done me wrong" and
"she done me wrong" and "folks will do you wrong,"
but. . . the uncomfortable truth was that I wasn't
bothering to make the distinction between past wrongs of others
who had indeed hurt me, and the people in my life right now
and their current behavior. To tar all people with my
mistrust and fear was as silly as the prejudice I
encountered daily when walking German Shepherds
down the street. Despite my dogs'
calm demeanor, good manners and tail-wagging
greetings, they would often be viewed as aggressive,
dangerous or even deadly, depending on how another
German Shepherd at some other time had acted toward
the person who now viewed all prick-eared,
black-and-tan dogs with fear and loathing.
acting as if it mattered
On the last day of her life, Vali did what she
had done her entire life: She taught me. I
knew we were making our way through the last few ticks
of the clock, and each passing hour was treasured and
savored. Leaving her in the cool shade where she could
lie and watch the comings and goings on the farm, I
picked up the hose to refill her water bowl,
letting the water run for a while to be sure it was
cold and pure. Hearing a noise behind me, I first
thought it was Carson, Vali's sister, coming to play in
the water as both of them had done since they were
puppies. Instead, what I saw was Vali, her
dimming eyes grown bright and alert as she fixed her
attention on the hose. So weak she could barely stand,
she made her way across the lawn while I stood
dumbstruck. Reaching me, she stretched herself to bite
gleefully at the stream of water as she always had, and

then, as she steadied herself to try again, I
saw in her eyes the terrible moment that she knew this was
truly more than she could do.

She stood for a moment, her muzzle dripping, her
frail body held unsteadily by pure effort, and
then, with resignation, used the last of her strength
to stagger back to the shade where her sister Carson
lay.
"Why would you do that?" I asked Vali as I
stretched out beside her and stroked her head. I knew
she had loved any water game, always had, but from my
perspective, it hardly seemed worth using what
precious little energy remained in a life to snap one
more time against that which could never be caught no matter how
powerful the jaws brought to bear. Her answer came
quietly: "If something matters to you, you give it
all you have to give." I did not know that only hours
later, when the stars hung bright but silent in the sky,
her heart would finally beat its last beneath my hand and she
would be gone. I never suspected that just hours after her
death, her final lesson to me would need to be put
to the test.
A short time after the sun rose as it does on both
the grief and joy awaiting in each day, I went
to tell a friend that Vali was dead. This was the
same friend who had lashed out at me a few months
earlier. Foolishly, hurting, needing to talk
to someone who had known Vali all her life, I
hoped for a little tea and sympathy. And for a few
minutes, that's what I got before the sympathy
evaporated and the conversation turned to my friend and her
troubles. The tea in my cup had not yet cooled when
what had begun as a sharing of loss became an
intense exploration of my friend's problems and fears.
With a huge wave of fatigue, I thought to myself that
I did not have any energy for this, that right at this moment
I was much too emotionally exhausted to be able
to respond to or even care much about someone else's
woes. More than anything, I wanted to curl up in
sad silence and grieve for a good dog.
As I tried to shape the sentences that might let me
escape this moment and my friend's needs, I suddenly
saw Vali moving unsteadily in the sunshine to bite
the water. It mattered to her, and she gave it all
she had, even when all was very little indeed. My friend
continued to cry and talk and accuse, and watching her from
a calm, quiet distance, I asked myself, Does this
friend matter to you? The answer was that of course she
did. The next question was that if I knew this was her

last day or mine, would I still be willing
to walk away, holding my weariness and sadness as a
shield against hearing her and offering what I had to offer?
I did love this woman, and this relationship was critically
important to me. Though my sorrow was real and my
grief deserved time to be honored, this was a need of the
living. And so, reaching deep inside me for that same
determination that moved a dying dog to one last round of a
favorite game, I opened myself to listening to the
hurting, lonely woman who needed to be heard.
I do not know what would have happened if, having finished
my tea, I had chosen the easier route and
extricated myself from that situation. I do know that what
I did that morning made a difference in that friend's
life. Yet even if it had not, the difference this
made in my life was important in and of itself.
Vali's lesson for me was an extension of
McKinley's: If we choose with awareness, there
need not be regrets. Make no mistake.
Vali's lesson has not mutated into an
unrealistic martyrdom where no matter how I'm
feeling, I can always find time for someone else's
needs. That was not the lesson. It was about
making aware investments of my life's energy.
the most difficult of all
There was once a time when I would have said that the greatest
lesson our dogs could help us learn was how to be
humane as well as human. Foolishly, as all
beginners do, I thought that this was my destination, this
beautiful white space between me and an animal, this
place where an invitation to dance is sent and accepted.
Here, I am now learning, is simply the place
to which I had to come so that I could begin the real work of
life: learning to love other human beings. In his
Letters on Love,
German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote,
"For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the
most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate,
the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is
but preparation."
It is ironic that in all the times I've both said
and heard "I prefer animals to people," never once
had I stopped and wondered, What if animals said
the same to us? What if our dogs looked at us and
decided, as we ourselves may have long ago decided,
that people really are rather cruel and terrible and, frankly,
not worth being with. "Wait," we would wail, "it's