Posted on by Mike Firesmith

The Night of Barking.

IMG_3153 2

 

For all the drama it creates, you’d think I have about a thousand acres in back of my house. The reality it that is a rather small plot, just over an acre, but it generates doggy drama like it’s the size of a small New England state. Early this morning, about five or so, the dogs were restless so I just opened the backdoor and released them into the wild. There’s a fence with two hot wires on it and none of the current dogs, no pun intended, seem inclined to test it.

I hear the doggie door swinging and Bud returns. Then Arco follows him, and then Wrex. I put Arco in the crate, and suddenly, I hear Lilith hammering away in the woods. Everyone heads for the door, and I go back to bed.

 

By now, the Coyotes have to realize that the Cousins are gone. Those two packed over one hundred pounds apiece and that’s a serious amount of dog. Size matters when it comes to dog fights. But Lilith is still a low slung powerful sixty-five pound Pibble with an even bigger heart. She’s backed by Tyger Linn, fifty more pounds of muscle. I doubt either of the boy mean a lot to the Coyotes; neither of them are pushing forty pounds, but there are two of them, which means at any given time you have to tangle with four dogs. Raiding over the hotwire means dodging it twice. The math is wrong for this to be Coyotes. The return isn’t worth the risk, unless they’re trying to make a statement to the naked ape who owns guns. Again, risk versus return tells me it isn’t Coyotes.

 

Arco isn’t interested at all. I tell him to lie down and he does, inside the crate, and he doesn’t lift his head or voice again. He’s about got this thing figured out, where he gets to sleep inside, and he gets petted, and there is breakfast as soon as I get up. Hunger is a terrible thing, but it lends me a great tool for training purposes, even if I am trying my very best to eliminate it. Arco would learn to deal Blackjack and light cigars if he thought he’s get fed for it. Being silent in the crate seems a very simple thing to him. Whatever is out there, it does not give him breakfast. He is not interested.

 

Lilith Anne and Tyger Linn, in point of fact, are interested. I hear them both hammering away and whatever it is has to be inside the fence and likely up in a tree. Budlore Amadeus returns and Wrex Wyatt eventually follows, but they can’t seem to stick. One again, they hurry back to the sound of Lilith’s barking.

 

I drift in and out of sleep, mostly out, listening to Lilith’s voice and wondering what she’s found. Armadillo, likely, in one of the abandoned Cousin Caverns, perhaps, or maybe there were deer just in the other side of the fence. Either way, Lilith is lending her voice to the early morning stillness and everyone who is listening, and there are many listening, know her. Sixty-five pounds in this part of the world means she’s carrying more mass than most things that hunt for a living, and they do realize that Lilith is hunting. This may have a lot to do with this display. I’m not sure.

 

Ever else can be said about him, Arco Fenney isn’t interested in leaving the house to go bark at the dark. The other dogs can come, go, bark, not bark, but he’s good, thanks, and he’s content to sit this one out, whatever this one turns out to be. He likes to stick close to me when we’re out walking, but not to the point of being a Velcro dog. He’s happy in the kennel in the corner of the room when I’m writing. Arco is all about let’s see how long this regular meals thing is going to last here before we start asserting ourselves.

 

The first few days Arco stayed in a constant state of motion, trying to sniff everything, trying to figure out where he was and what was happening to him. It was difficult to get a photo of him because he was never still. But now Arco is beginning to get his feet under him. He knows the other dogs are not going to attack him. He knows I am not going to hurt him. He knows there will be food every day, and this is a concept he enjoys. Arco will put his paws on my shoulders while I am sitting on the back steps and allow me to pet him. Allow me? He’s getting pushy about it, actually.

 

This is the second dog since March I have taken in because they were dumped at the Humane Society building. We’re teaching people bad habits by this. But Budlore Amadeus lies on my bed asleep next to Tyger Linn. Bud was strung up by the collar to the building and left to whatever fate might bring. Now Arco. Another lost soul. Another abandoned dog. Another set of eyes looking at me through the grates of the kennel, wondering if there will be more heartache and more loss.

 

I make promises. I made promises to Bud, and I make promises to Arco. I make promises to myself, about how much I’ll invest in each dog’s heart. I make promises that I won’t take in another damaged dog, I won’t pick up a hard one, I won’t take in a dog that’s been wounded in some way. But that’s all there is. That’s all of them. That’s each of them. And in some way, that’s us, too. We’re all part of the society that shifts and bends things so dogs are left to die, or left without food, without water, without decent care, because we do that to our own, too.

 

 

I can hear the sound of Arco snoring gently from across the room. It’s the deep sleep of a dog who believes, despite all the evidence, that there is a human who will take care of him.

 

I promised him I would.

 

Take Care of them,

MikeIMG_3191

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 2 Comments

Not Dreams

82138326183cab65eede241421f42669--charcoal-drawings-figure-drawing

I don’t remember all of my dreams but I do remember a lot of them. Some of them are unformed, not really defined as events or people, but they’re just thoughts or ideas that were pulled out of the oven too soon. I’ve woken up feeling afraid, or sad, or elated, and the remnants of a dream be just out of memory’s reach, like a lover who gets out of the bed, and your hand misses hers by an inch. I dozed off and was jerked awake by something that was nearly a dream, somewhere in my mind, but it’s gone now, and asking me to describe it would be like asking me to tell you who was driving the car that just passed in front of the house, a third of a mile away. I can only tell you I think I heard a car go by, and nothing else.

Budlore was sick last night, into the early part of the morning, and I stayed up with him, cleaning puke up off the floor. I dozed a couple of times, and saw images, at least twice of charcoal drawings, of faces, contorted as if someone sketched out Pompeii’s last moments.  Where did this come from? I didn’t recognize the faces. They were just human forms yet not entirely finished, like the dreams that aren’t quite there yet.

 

Bud is usually energetic and exuberant. To see him down and out is disconcerting. This is the first time he’s been sick since he arrived and it’s disheartening. I can only sit with him and clean up the puke, and wait for this to pass.

 

I drift off to sleep and the dreams are fragmented and disconnected. It’s like trying to read the pages of a book as they are spewed out the end of a wood chipper. The scene and people change quickly, erratically, and there is no transition. The faces in the drawing are back, and I can tell gender, but that’s all. They seem to be colored in black, as if in shadow or night, and they all seem to be in some anguish.

 

I get up because Bud is hacking again, but he seems to be less sick. I sit on a blanket on the floor and hold Bud, and this might be the first time in his life someone had held him when he’s been sick. I lie down with him and he sleeps. I drift again, and the dreams do not come, but stay just out of reach, like someone speaking on the other side of a restaurant.

There’s a story here, where a person sees faces that have been drawn and that person doesn’t know why. Let’s start out with a female lead character, a very young woman, who isn’t an artist at all, and she’s trying to figure out what these visions she has means. They begin one night after she’s been drinking, and she wonders if she has a problem.

The woman’s name is Tory and she works for a lawyer. She has to serve an eviction notice one day and the man about to be dispossessed is an artist living in a terribly shabby and totally dark apartment; he’s blind. Sure enough, when she’s inside she see one of his drawings and it’s one of the faces she’s seen, she thinks, but she cannot be sure. The next day she tries to find him but he’s gone. The dreams become more vivid, the faces more clear, and Tory is convinced the man drew one of them, and perhaps more. She finds him by accident, near the river, about to jump. She looks at his drawings and realizes that they are the faces she’s seen.

She lets him stay at her place and he draws. The energy between them sharpens the dreams, and his drawings. At work, her employer is working on a missing person case, and setting up a substantial reward. The photo of the missing girl looks exactly like one of the faces in the dream, and one of the drawings.

 

They sit and wonder what the connection is between the two of them, and the people in the drawings. Is the girl alive or has she been murdered? Tory looks at the drawing and realizes the girl looks as if she is still alive, and she asks the artist, Archer, if he will try to draw the missing girl again.

 

Tory asks her employer about the girl, and he tells her that he was contacted by the girl’s mother, who believes her ex-husband has taken their daughter, but she doesn’t know where he is. Tory goes in search of the woman, but finds her dead. She returns to her home to find that Archer has drawn the woman’s face.

 

They both are at a loss as to how this is happening or why. They do not understand why he draws what she sees in her dreams. They make love on the floor, passionately, nearly accidentally, for they both fear the passion they’ve kept secret. Unleashed in this is a melding, where she can speak to him of her visions, and he understand now how to draw them. They sit on the floor, an invisible steam rising from their bodies from the heat, and they speak in whispers, seeking the girl, seeking her fate, looking for a connection, and finally there is a building, a home, where she might be held, and the woman had seen this house before. She asks Archer to draw a face, the face of a man, and she closes her eyes and allows her vision to take her, and she sees the girl chained to a bed, and she knows the man is near, he is coming down the steps, and he means to use her for his gain, for ransom, and his evil is plain and finally, Archer tells Tory to look up and he had drawn the face of her employer, and they realize what he is.

 

Take Care,

Mike

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 5 Comments

I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won.

Cm68yJxWEAAsaeR

In my defense, I did try to pull the old tree down a couple of times but it refused to yield. Chainsawing a derelict tree is iffy, even to professionals, because rotted trees fall in odd ways and in odd places. Yet, still, when it crashed into the front part of my shed I wished I had done more and even as I had the thought I should have done more, I went into full procrastination mode, and did nothing about the stuff in the shed. My reasoning was sound; the front end of the shed was wrecked, but the roof was still relatively intact, and the stuff inside was still dry. It was cold at the time, and I didn’t need the mower or the hand tools, or for that matter, the chainsaw at that point in time, so I just left it. Until I got another shed I would just leave it like it was.

 

Then I started night work, and that drained my energy down to nothing, and I knew I would have to mow, one day, and I knew the longer I let it go the worse it was going to get, but night work, exhaustion, and dread got the best of me. I decided to go into the shed today, and get the stuff out I could, put it on the porch if I had to, and mow the grass. It was time. I was looking to see where Lilith was earlier in the day and lost her in the backyard.

 

Yeah, I know, I know, don’t say anything, I know.

 

First, there was still part of the tree on the shed. I got the axe out and started chopping and Budlore Amadeus began barking at me. Every time I hit the tree with the axe, it made a deep resounding boom from inside the shed, like Grond was hammering away at it. This made for interesting tree removal, true, but it was a little funny. Once the tree was removed, I hard to unbend the shed as best I could, and say what you will about cheap metal sheds, but cheap metal is easy to bend. I got lucky; my metal rake was wrecked and the handle on the mower was a little misshaped, but all in all, most of the stuff was okay. Now, would the mower run? Yes, indeed, it would and it did. I was in business, except the grass was forest tall, and it was hot as hell. And I had been using an axe for the better part of an hour.

 

It was already one in the afternoon when I wrestled the mower into the front yard. I’m a push mower guy, yeah, really, because I don’t like the idea of being as out of shape as I am and paying five hundred bucks, or three times that much, or more, to sit and mow. Sure, this thing has gotten out of hand, certainly it’s going to be a bitch, but it’s going to be one hell of a workout. I decide to push, pull, and finesse this thing until I run out of gas, in the mower, and then take a thirty minute break. Usually, a tank of gas will nearly do the front and back yard, and I can get both done in two hours if I hurry, three if I do all the detail spots.

 

One hour later, I have an area mowed the size of my first apartment, minus the living room and kitchen. True enough, it’s the thickest and hardest part of the front yard, but I’m making zero progress at this point. Push, pull back, lift up, push, lift up quick as the mower nearly stalls, and the gnats are just about to carry me off like the Flying Monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. The tank runs dry shortly afterwards, and damn, this is going very slowly.

The first break I feel okay, but I can tell that my legs and back are getting a workout. I’ve got a good strategy in going slow, sectioning off the yard, cutting less than half the width of the mower, moving back and forth through the roughest part, and truly, I haven’t had to mower quit but once or twice. It’s slow, damnably slow, but I knew it would be.

Two hours later and I’ve got about half of the front yard done, with a patch that I’m going to have to attack with a weed eater to start it. There’s a pine tree there and there’s a billion cones, broken branches and a lot of debris. Fine. I expected that also. What I didn’t expect is to be two hours deep into this thing with just this to show for it. True, the thickest and hardest is done, but barely, and my body is beginning to protest. Still, after two hours, I still feel okay. During my break I take two aspirins and drink a lot of water. I may very well have two more hours to go just in the front yard. It’s not impossible, and I am running out of hours in the day.

 

Push, pull, lift, wait, and the grass is being cut and the hours are going by. My first real job was in the fields so there’s really nothing I will ever do that compares to that at all. This is bad, but it’s on my own terms. My back and legs are beginning to ache, however, and I can feel over half a decade of life hanging off of me. My making progress and can tell it down, driving deeply into the yard, narrowing the uncut area, and I wonder when we Americas lost the ability to appreciate hard work. There was a time everyone worked hard at something and now it seems nearly no one does. People don’t force their kids to take Summer job in the fields anymore, and you never see a kid pushing a mower. I’m sweating and it’s pouring off of my body, but it does feel good, this does. I can feel my body’s strength out here in the heat and the dust, and the tall grass, and it is a good thing. Do kids understand this feeling these days? Have they ever been pushed to the point where the work seemed endless, the days never-ending, and pay laughably low?

 

Three hours, and there’s a thin strip left. I have to refuel and take a break. It’s after five and I think I can knock this out before sunset. About ten minutes into the break the thunder kicks in and I go outside to make sure I can get the mower on the porch in case of rain. As I am pushing it the rain begins, hard, unrelenting, and incredibly cool. I’ve had more than my share of outside jobs where a rain like this was a benison. It feels good to be drenched to the bone, all the clothing wet, all the sweat swept away, and now, the day is done because of the rain. Put the tools away, go inside, and strip down in front of the washer, and then take a shower.

 

The day is done, even if there is still grass to mow. It doesn’t matter because I knew this would happen and it would be this way. I will likely sleep better much later on in the night, and feel good when I awake.

 

Take Care,

Mike

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 4 Comments

Late Night Drama of the Dogs

IMG_2028
Having totally deprived me of sleep, Budlore is at rest.  

After one beer I was trailing smoke and spiraling down. This is a sad state of affairs but working night shift will do that to a body. Eventually, I awoke to discover that it was still early, and I needed to get a few things done before tomorrow, and things went smoothly. No one was crying and no one was putting beans in their nose. I did some writing, no, not this writing, and then after midnight, I decided go to bed. After all, everything seemed very normal. Why would I expect for there to be anything different or surreal?

 

I turn the lights off and reality slips quietly out of the room.  She sobs softly, leaves a note  on the table about not being able to take this sort of abuse, and runs.

 

 

Budlore Amadeus, who clearly has never lived in the woods before, hears something in the dark. His plan of action is to bark loudly and charge towards the back door, where I assume he will stop, come to his senses, and return to sleep. I could not be more wrong. The entire pack lifts itself out of slumber to join Bud, and it sounds like they’re trying to tear the back door down.

 

 

There is a couple of issues here. One, I’ve been drinking, albeit a while ago, and only one beer, but I have an aversion to picking up a shotgun when I’ve been drinking. My senses tells me that this is Bud gone wild, and the others have joined him in this misadventure, but there is a chance, a small chance, that Bud might be onto something. I reach over for the shotgun and ease into the living room where there is total darkness and chaos to match it. I get to the backdoor and open it, and the pack pours out into the night, loudly, and I listen. Bud is the loudest dog, Wrex has a distinctive voice, Lilith Anne is pounding away at the night, and…where is the Person of the Striped Persuasion? I listen and wonder; has Tyger charged out deep into the woods on her own?

 

I go back to the bedroom and can still hear the bedlam outside. I sit down on the bed to put jeans on and almost sit on Tyger Linn, who has sat this whole thing out. She has not moved. Tyger has decided all this excitement is made entirely of the nope and she isn’t having anything to do with going outside in the wet and making barking at nothing. If Tyger Linn heard nothing and is doing nothing, perhaps it is time that I reeled the pack back in. I get everyone inside but Bud is still keyed. I hold onto his collar and make him lie down. Bud slips into sleep and I’m drifting off.

 

Suddenly, and without warning, Bud is off and running again, barking like hell, with Wrex and Lilith in tow, again. In the darkness I reach over to discover that Tyger Linn is of the nope. She has not heard anything that would convince her that wet feet and a raised pulse is worth anything that she hears going on.

 

I get Wrex in, and Budlore follows, still agitated and barking. Lilith is wound up at the fence barking at the night. She refuses to come in for a very long time and finally I go out and yell at her, and Bud barks at this, too.

 

Bud is totally shocked when he gets put in the crate. The door is locked behind him, and he’s sleeping in there, or not sleeping in there, I shall not care, but we’re done with this barking thing. I get the squirt bottle out and Bud lies down and remains silent. Wrex doesn’t understand why Bud is crated, but he does understand the squirt bottle.

 

Silence descends upon Hickory Head.

 

 

Wrex gets up, once and charges towards the door, but not barking. The backdoor is closed and Wrex is stymied. I remind Wrex the crate sleeps two, perhaps not comfortably, but two dogs will fit into it, yes, Wrex.

 

Silence descends upon Hickory Head.

 

 

By this time, about an hour or so has passed. I’m tired, sleepy, and peevish at the dogs for being stupid. I open the bedroom window and I don’t hear the multitude of frogs that were going last night. Did the dogs silence the frogs? Or was whatever the dogs barking at the reason the frogs are not singing? But whatever is out there, it is not human, and therefore not nearly the threat Bud might think it is. He does not know how to judge threats or how to temper his reaction. From inside the crate Bud whines softly but he does not bark for fear of water.

 

 

When Bert was alive this never happened. Bert knew what to bark at, when to sound the alarm, when to sleep through it, and we never had this sort of late night drama for no good reason at all. Sam and Lucas had good judgment as well, and even the Cousins didn’t do stupid things late at night. But Bert was the best when it came to being a guard dog. He hammered the hell out of humans with his voice and he had a big booming bark. He would bark at deer or other dogs, but when Bert laid it down it was always important.

 

I miss Bert in times like these. I miss having a Great Dog. I miss his stability and the way he was part of management and knew it. I miss the security that he provided and I miss his leadership with younger dogs. There really was never a reason to fear people with Bert asleep on the end of the bed, and there was never a time he got fooled by some odd sound in the darkness.

 

 

The sun comes up and the dogs want to be fed. I need to sleep but I’ll put it off for a while, again. I’m supposed to write today, and this won’t be all of it, but I also have to go into town.

 

Take Care,

Mike

 

 

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 3 Comments

Tyger Linn and Prison

IMG_0561

Tyger Linn is not an overly needy dog so I was surprised when she got up on the bed and tucked herself quite neatly against my body with her head under by chin. This is Tyger’s way of letting me know she wants to be held, like a puppy, and even though I want to nap, and it’s going to be hard to get to sleep with Tyger nestled against me like this. There’s some reason inside of this little girl that caused her to come to me wanting comfort. So the nap can wait, and Tyger gets petted on her ears as she dozes in and out of sleep, pushing me with her nose when I stop.

 

In an alternative universe, Tyger Linn is an only dog with an older person as an owner and I think she would be happier that way. But then again, there is no way of telling what is reality except that one we’re sensing right now, clouded by prejudices and desires, perceived poorly by soft machines that are tragically flawed. One beer more and I might not have cared about the person of a striped persuasion, or perhaps, one less and I would have been more reasonable and not tried to rescue the violent little street dog.

 

 

Very few of the dogs I have rescued have been abuse cases, and Tyger arrived in good health, physically, but clearly she was accustomed to fighting for food, space, attention, and for her life. Every disagreement was a fight and every fight was to the end. The reality Tyger Linn lived in there was very little love or affection and no comfort. Sleeping on the bed was something that Tyger delighted in the first time I allowed her. She had to learn not to sleep in the middle, so there would be room for others, and for me, and her was taught not to growl at me, or the other dogs once she was on the bed. But there is something to be said for a bed. It beats the hell out of sleeping on the ground, in the open, or in a cage.

 

While in reasonably good health, Tyger did arrive with a great deal of food aggression. She ate very quickly, scarfing down mouthfuls of food as quickly as she could, growling at me if I got near, and then she was off to do battle for the food of other dogs. Tyger learned very quickly that no one is allowed to steal here, and no one will ever starve under my roof. It took some doing, but in the end, Tyger learned to sit and wait for her bowl to be filled, and she learned to stay away from other dogs while they eat. Comfort and food go a very long way in getting a dog to settle into a pack. Love helps a lot, too.

 

When we see this, and if you rescue dogs you do see it, we assume it’s a natural thing. We assume that if we do the right things the right way, no matter how damaged the dog might be, we can pull it back from the edge, and wind up with a mild mannered lap dog. It’s true, it’s possible, and while Tyger is not exactly perfect right now, the little girl has come a very long way. The clashes are less frequent and far less violent now. Tyger isn’t interested in prolonged conflict with anyone for any reason now. She has her bowl and she has her place. And when need arises, Tyger gets to get up on the bed and curl up beside me, and be comforted.

 

 

It’s odd. As many people who might applaud this rescue of a street dog destined for the needle, there seems to be a blindness when we speak of rescuing human beings. If you can agree that love and comfort will heal the violent street dog and guide her into being a trusted member of a pack, why is it we jam human beings into cages and expect them to be released in a better form? We cringe at the idea of high kill shelters churning out dead pets as quickly as they can be brought in and put down, yet we have become so accustomed to prisons being the only answer to crime and criminals, that we do not wonder any more that they do more harm than good. If prisons work then why do we keep having so many criminals?

 

 

 

It’s difficult to rehab a dog, especially one who is violent. It’s got to be even harder to rehab a human being. Yet with all the millions we spend, are we actually making things worse? I can point to Tyger Linn and tell you that she is a success story, that people can pet her and hug her, and she’s okay with other dogs, but can you take someone out of prison and feel comfortable letting your kids live next to that person? The perception is there, even if it isn’t true. We do not trust our system of punishment to produce favorable results. We use a system to damage human beings and then we blame them for that damage.

 

 

No, I have no answers. I cannot tell you that allowing criminals to sleep on beds and be petted will solve the world’s problems and we’ll all sleep with our doors unlocked. If there was an easy answer here then the world would beat a path to my door and we would all live happily ever after. There is no cure here.

 

 

What this is, in the end, is a question. Why can we do no better? Why is it that we have the wherewithal to seek the retraining of dogs in need yet there are over one million of our citizens in prison right now without any hope of doing more than sitting and waiting for their time to be up?

 

Tyger Linn stirs in her sleep, sighs, and then returns to slumber. This is a damaged being, mistreated by humans, and mistrustful still, at times of their intentions. But it has been worth all that I have done, and it will be worth all I will do.

 

Take Care,

 

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 2 Comments

Wendy

What-to-Do-About-Stray-Dogs

She’s a thin woman, unnaturally so, and it’s the kind of skinny that isn’t healthy or wears well on a woman, or a dog, or anyone else for that matter. It’s a neglectful kind of thinness, the same manner of rib showing that someone who suddenly remembers they haven’t fed the dog, for a while, sees one day in a suddenly epiphany. Her hair is a cropped mane that looks like it got caught in a car door and she cut it off with a piece of glass rather than opening the door again, and you can see this in this woman; she’s made some decisions that really make no sense to the rest of us, who are not her. Why not just open the door rather than cut your hair with a broken bottle? There is a story there, and she will tell it, if you ask.

 

 

The smell, more than anything else, the smell. You wonder why dogs take such an interest in scent? Dogs not only have a much better sense of smell than we do they are also more attuned in what the smells mean. You bring home a strange dog from the road and your resident dogs know this mutt is a stray. They know this dog hasn’t been petted or fed or loved. They can smell the lack of home. And sometimes they are hostile to these dogs, because they really do not know what else to feel about something like this.

 

She starts out overpolite, over the top polite, and it’s “Please sir, if you could just give me a ride to the next exit, my mother dying of lung cancer and my children starving to death, and I just got fired from my job and I got kicked out of my house because my husband was cheating with my twin sister and a dingo took my baby.”  She doesn’t say any of this, of course, but it’s a sad story, and she needs so little from the rest of the world, and she ends it with, “I’m hoping that I will find someone with a heart.”

 

 

The smell is the odor of a human body left out in the sun too long. Not the healthy smell of a hard working woman who got out in the yard and planted tulips and mowed grass and maybe took a crate out and picked squash because her son didn’t show up to do it and she’ll show him, dammit. I went to a friend’s house once and then we went to a field where they would let you pick all the black eyed peas you wanted for five dollars a hamper, and all I wanted was a couple of handfuls, but I was willing to help out. They had a freezer and wanted to put some away, so sure. There was a woman there who had been out in the sun for a couple of hours, the middle of the day sun, too, and I started talking to her. She was there helping someone fill a freezer, and I asked her out. She laughed at me, took off her bandana and wiped her face and asked me, “Are you nuts?” But think about it. You know you’ve seen her at her very worst and very best all in one place in one time. You know what she smells like, really smells like, when she hasn’t taken a shower and she’s covered with honest hard work dirt. Sitting across a table in a restaurant would be easy at this point, and I said so.

 

 

But the woman at Exit 29, off I-75, has a different smell. This is not the smell of garlic, like I carry with me in my body, and those of my tribe carry, too. We garlic eaters know what people say, and we care not at all about it. But this woman has been eating chemicals, not food. She’s been drinking chemicals, not food. She’s been walking down the road trying to get a ride, not working. She’s been doing this for a while now, and any dog could tell you that she is a stray, and she hasn’t been fed, or petted.

 

She tells me her name is Wendy, and that she works for the store in Quitman and I don’t tell her that I live just South of that town, and I know a few people there. I don’t tell her I shop there once a week, at least, because she isn’t really lying to me; she’s spinning fiction. What you and I see in people, as resident dogs, is a lot different than what we see in strays, is it not? We don’t see Wendy as a resident dog. Wendy is a stray. Hackles up! Horripilate! Ears back and voices raised.

 

 

 

Wendy tells me she’s recently divorced, and this too is a creation of fiction, not a lie. In the world of the stray, fiction is the currency of the world, whereas you and I might deal with money to get what we need, Wendy spins fiction, and she hopes to make a living, in a manner of speaking, doing it. We’re getting close now, to her destination, and she tells me she living too close to the bad section of town, and she doesn’t like black men or brown men, but she does like white men. She smiles at me when she says this, teeth not showing because some are missing, and she’s learned to not show her teeth. She has rolled over on her back, belly up, and waits…

 

 

She sits still when we pull up to gas station where she is supposed to meet someone. I hate to ask you for money but I haven’t eaten in a couple of days and… This may be the first close truth Wendy has spoken to me, but it doesn’t matter; I never carry cash.

 

 

As I pull away Wendy goes inside, and I wonder if she’ll be alive tomorrow. Strays are often killed on the road, and those of us who rescue strays cannot rescue them all, we know this, so we choose the ones we think can better survive than the others. We do this with humans, too, even if we won’t admit it. We will let Wendy die, let her stay out in the sun, and we won’t look back because she has missing teeth, she smells bad, she’s bad terrible choices, spins fiction, and there are people we know we can help, and they will survive on their own, and there is no risk in this sort of salvation because we have money and good judgement and haircuts.

 

Take Care,

Mike

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 4 Comments

Budlore Amadeus Firesmith

Wrex came back at a time I wasn’t looking to move another dog in with me. I already had two of my own and two of my sister’s dogs, and Wrex would make five, which is a lot of dog. But Wrex was my first foster dog, and I allowed him to be adopted because I wanted to prove a could foster a dog, a great dog, and let him go. And it was a mistake. For four years I wished Wrex was here and even though I put a lot of faith in the young couple who adopted him, I thought this was his home.

Apparently, Wrex agreed. After nearly four years, Wrex was returned to the Humane Society, and, of course, I agreed to foster Wrex.

With a pack of five dogs, it wasn’t a sure thing that Wrex would stay. No how much Wrex and I thought he belonged here, there were four other dogs, and one of them, Tyger Linn, has a history of anti-social behavior. I waited a full month before I legally adopted Wrex. But he slipped right into the five position with ease and grace. The little boy gets along with everyone. Wrex Wyatt, was finally home.

On March the 9th, 2018, someone tied a dog to the Humane Society building in Valdosta. I didn’t hear about it until a week later, but there was no one to foster the dog, and he was scheduled for death. I saw the photo and heard the story of how Sara, one of the hardest working people in the Humane Society had to cut him down from and take him to the shelter. Sara has been with the Humane Society for years. She has seen some shit. I though Sara deserved better than to be the person who had to do this.

IMG_1331-1

I went to see the dog at the shelter. I had to find out of there was any way at all he could be saved. He stood in his cage and barked furiously at me. But I didn’t see aggression. I didn’t see violence. I saw a terrified dog with a broken heart.

The shelter agreed to keep the dog for one more day for me. I posted on FB that if no one stepped forward, I would foster this dog, The Dog Left Hanging, and that would bring me up to having a six pack, and I started calling the dog Bud. When I picked him up they offered to get an animal control officer to help me. I refused. Bud was not violent or aggressive, I told them. He was terrified and his heart was broken.

IMG_1344

You can see in the photo Bud is less than thrilled to be with me. But he never offered to bite me, and he never growled. When I got him home I let him have some time alone, then took him out in the yard to meet Wrex. It was like they were old friends. They chased one another in the yard, and Wrex showed Bud where the water was outside, and where the best places to pee were.

I let Lilith and Tyger Linn meet him next and it was a nonevent. Lilith Anne acted indifferent to him, and Tyger wasn’t aggressive towards him. I let all six dogs out into the yard at one time, and everyone was happy with everyone else. I had the six pack!

Of course, fate conspired against me. It was a couple of weeks before I could get Bud fixed and during that time, something very strange occurred; Lilith Anne, the Queen of all the Hickory Head Packs, started trying to play with Bud. There were other things: Bud was house trained, and he knew how to sit. He was not accustomed to being a sofa dog, but he started learning which places belonged to Lilith and Tyger. My sister took her two dogs back and that got me down to three resident dogs and Bud.

The sight of Lilith playing with another dog, something she had not done since Lucas died, did it. Bud would become Budlore Amadeus Firesmith.

In a couple of hours the adoption will be legal, and Bud will, finally, come home.

IMG_1499

Take Care,

Mike