White Stripes, Moonstruck Eyes, Red Fire

Three a.m. the other night, I come out of the bedroom and into the hallway - the baby's up, again - and my nostrils are met with the most pungent, stinging smell. My eyes begin watering, my nose, burning. It has an unfamiliar odor, chemical almost, like nothing I have in my memory with which to compare it. I bolt down the stairs to the living room, where J. has fallen asleep, again and wake him, demanding to know: What the hell is that smell??

I learn that an hour ago while taking Pepper the Collie outside before bed, she dashed off into the yard after something. Not unusual at all; Pepper has a very high prey drive, and will take off after Every. Single. Moving. Thing if we let her. She came back when J. called, sneezing and snuffling and coughing. J says that he thought she might have met up with a skunk, but after smelling her closely, didn't smell anything and let her back into the house, closing her in the office.

Turns out that I guess there's a delayed reaction in skunk oil. It also doesn't get that characteristic *skunk* scent until much, much later. Now, as the smell has permeated the entire house to the point of making us all gag, it's clear that yes, Pepper got into a fight with a skunk. And lost. Miserably. She got sprayed directly in the face and chest, at close range. And we've spent all of yesterday giving her half a dozen baths - forget the old myth of tomato juice, vinegar/baking soda/peroxide is supposedly where it's at - and will probably give her many more before this is all over. She is smelling much better, but, unfortunately, I cannot say the same for our house. Frankly, given that this place has such a huge skunk population, I can't believe this hasn't happened sooner!

POSTSCRIPT:
Unbelievably, it took about three full weeks before our house even began to smell not entirely like a skunk. Three weeks before Z. didn't walk through the office and declare daily, "It STINKS in here!" And Pepper, well, let's just say that one doesn't want to go burying one's nose in her mane, still. Yuck. I am amazed at what a clever, and powerful defense mechanism this is. Amazed that such a small, seemingly insignificant creature could yield such overpowering results, results that linger on and on.

I read that dogs who tussle with skunks are usually of two types:

1. The clever dog who gets sprayed once, learns a valuable lesson, and never goes near a skunk again;
2. The not-so-clever dog who, for whatever reason, just never learns and keeps going after them, again and again.

Pepper is a very clever dog, indeed. But I suspect she's of a third type: The dog who KNOWS better, but who just can't help herself and will gladly take on the opponent, should the opportunity arise. Needless to say, she will NOT be going in the yard in the dark unleashed ever, ever again.

Though I've Dreamed Them, In Sleep's Spaces

Friday necessitated my going to Ohio for the day. I offered, on the way home, to help transport two wolfdogs from a temporary home in OH, to their new foster home in PA. The story of the journey itself, while mildly interesting (How it Took M. 7 Hours to Drive a Mere 150 Miles), is unimportant at the moment. Suffice to say that if I ever consider such a journey in the future, it will definitely be on very different terms, MY terms.

I knew/know very little about wolfdogs. Intuitively, I've always had this sense that such breeding between species may not necessarily be the best idea. Now that I've done a bit of retrospective research, I am very conflicted about having participated in this rescue endeavor, conflicted for a few reasons:

• At the OH home, the wolfdogs lived in an outdoor kennel (talk about filthy dogs! my car is still stinky!). At the PA foster home, they are going to a person who has little if any experience with this type of animal, who has 2 small-ish children and a puppy; the dogs will most likely live in a basement room and the new caretaker will not have the time or the resources to handle/socialize them as they will need in order to be adopted. Have I unknowingly helped to trade one *bad* home for another? Has this actually been the best thing for these two dogs? I am not sure I would have done this if I'd known what I do now.

• Is there any real reason, any real benefit, to breeding wolfdogs in the first place? By "benefit" I mean, does this practice make things better for the individual or collective animals themselves? They are, essentially, neither wolf nor dog, stuck somewhere in the middle, uncomfortably and unwillingly straddling those two worlds. It seems that any reason one could offer up for doing this would just reinforce my developing belief that this is done only for selfish, purely human reasons. The kind of home environment all the resources indicate wolfdogs need, does not seem like it would give any of them the quality of life they deserve. Then again, this same issue could be raised for any number of *exotic pets*. This seems to get back to the issue L. and i were discussing a while back, about when and to what extent can/should humans intervene/meddle with Nature?

• What does it mean that I am bothered by say, keeping a bengal tiger as a "pet," but conversely, I am not bothered by say, keeping an "exotic" reptile (provided it's captive bred) as a "pet"? Hypocritical? Am I assigning some hierarchy of importance/meaning to particular animals' existences based on some overtly subjective, personal criteria?

I am seriously grappling with the ethics of this whole thing.

It did occur to me on Friday that spending the little time I did with those animals, is perhaps the closest I will ever come to being truly near the wild wolf.

Tessa, A Million Apologies

I struggle to find the right words.

I am sorry that you were not given a chance, a real chance, to find the loving, attentive home that you desired, that you deserved.

I am sorry that your greatest fault was loving people too much.

I am sorry that this world failed you.

I am sorry that you will never be able to be the Tessa you could have been.

I am sorry that i was not able to save you. I tried sweet girl, I really did. I should have tried harder. Should have been more insistent.

Most of all, I am sorry that others were not willing to do every damn thing in their human power to help you.

And, I am sorry I did not get to say goodbye.

I will miss your beautiful toothy grin, your boundless energy, the way you sat immediately at my feet for attention, even though you really just wanted to leap onto me and smother me with sloppy doggle kisses, your astonishing ability to love.

I grieve for you as if you were one of my own.

Of Dogs, and Me

I can't decide if I find it curious or alarming that I seem to be able to conjure up a lot more empathy for animals than I can for most people (apart from the ones who make up the matter in my personal universe). Is this a flaw? Does it mean I'm insensitive? Not entirely human? After I watched The Ring the other night, the single image that continued to haunt me was the horse jumping off the moving ship – I very nearly cried when it happens. I can't be bothered with a road trip across the state to see my friend John play near Philly this weekend (a friend I haven't seen since Sequoia, circa 1996), yet I will gladly drive to rural West Virginia saturday to try to save one, possibly two, dogs from a kill shelter there, just because the NE Ohio Collie Rescue has asked me to. Oh, and then on Sunday I will drive the dog(s) to Youngstown, to drop them off again.

I wish there was a Real Way (i.e. a non-financially stupid one) to take this passion and make it my vocation, my mission in life. I would be a lot happier.