Every once in a while you read something so tremendous that it defines its medium.
Via the reliable Shane Nickerson, I spent a small part of this morning reading the extraordinary multi-part saga of Magazine Man’s quest to find his family dog, Blaze. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so affected, so moved, by a blog post. As if proof was needed, here was proof positive of the peculiar and unique power of blogging.
I won’t spoil the story for you; instead, go read it from the horse’s mouth.
However, MM did ask others if they would share their thoughts regarding their own pets and experiences, in this post. Rather than leave a comment, I thought I’d share my experience here (god knows this damned blog needs some content). MM’s blog doesn’t seem to have a trackback feature, so, MM, if you’re out there, this one’s for you.
Two years ago, in the Springtime, when the Los Angeles Valleys are at their most pure, most golden, most mild, I stepped out into the backyard of my house/remodel project to discover this little person peeking out at me:
She was frightened, exhausted, confused, and had obviously sought my backyard of all places for shelter. Which was a little odd since, to comply with city codes regarding swimming pools, my backyard is completely enclosed behind fences of various description. The only way this little dog could have gotten into the yard was by burrowing through the tiny little gap beneath one of my always-locked gates (a fact I didn’t discover until later — I spent most of the day assuming she had dropped out of the sky). In other words, she had to really work at it to get entry; she could not have just casually waltzed in.
She was a bit dirty, a bit tired, and probably a bit hungry, but she was also obviously well cared for, with a nice little collar (though, unfortunately, lacking any kind of identification); obviously someone’s beloved pet. I assumed she had escaped from some neighbor’s house earlier that morning.
So I started knocking on doors. And knocked. And knocked and knocked. No-one had lost a dog. No-one had heard of someone who had lost a dog. I began to second-guess my original supposition: had she been abandoned? I still didn’t think it was likely; she just seemed too well-loved, too well-fed.
After conferring with some local animal shelters, and not wanting to hand her over to a shelter that might well end up putting her to sleep, I brought her inside (she had warmed to me very quickly) and made up a makeshift bed for her in my laundry room. She slept like a log.
The next day, it was back to knocking on doors. Spreading the word. I made up “Dog Found” posters, and put them on prominent telephone poles, on the bulletin board at the local Petsmart, called shelters and gave them her description, should her owners call. Everything, in fact, that I could think to do to reconnect her with her owners.
A week, more, passed with no response. In the meantime, she took to living with me in the house. I fed her and played with her, and gave her a name: Piglet. She seemed to be part Chihuahua, part Jack Russell Terrier, and likely no older than six months or so, though this was nothing more than guesswork.
By the time a week had stretched to near a fortnight, Piglet had really become a part of the family. I looked forward to being greeted by her when I returned home. I started to fall in love with her personality, and her quirks, and the way she would stand between my shins and the kitchen cabinet when I stood at the sink.
Guiltily, I realized that a part of me was hoping her owners would not come to claim her, that she could be a part of my family now. But another part of me screamed that giving up on finding her real owners was wrong, that there was undoubtedly a family out there, somewhere, who were worried and miserable and needed her. I couldn’t just give up on them.
Much as I tried to distance myself from Piglet, though, to keep myself from becoming too attached, I realized that every further day she lived with us was another step away from being able to lose her with any kind of equanimity should her owners materialize.
With my conscience lashing me on, I redoubled my efforts to find her owners. I placed even more posters in an even wider area beyond my house, focusing on some big intersections in the area which see a lot of commuter traffic. I took down some numbers from some lost dog signs I’d seen and got in touch with the owners, but nothing panned out.
Then, I got a hesitant, guarded call. The caller’s friend had seen my poster and passed it along. The woman was cautiously hopeful. When she said she lived in Monrovia, two towns distant, I thought she couldn’t possibly be the right owner — Piglet would have had to have walked miles to get to my house, crossing a number of very busy and dangerous city roads in the process. And the day was wrong: the woman had lost her dog a full twenty-four hours before I discovered Piglet in my backyard, and I was still operating under the assumption that Piglet had escaped the same morning I’d found her. It didn’t seem possible that the dog I had discovered next to my pool had just spent twenty four hours wandering residential streets, weaving through traffic, and undoubtedly fleeing the coyotes which wander the area. Could it?
I asked her to describe the dog to me. Amazingly, he description matched Piglet perfectly.
“Was she wearing a collar?” I asked.
“Yes. It was pink.”
I blinked. “The dog I found has a pink collar.”
“Oh my God. That’s my baby.” She was on the verge of tears.
“I think you’d better come over.”
But I was still cautious. I had to be absolutely certain. When the caller arrived I took her into the backyard, then went inside and brought Piglet out to her. At twenty paces Piglet paused and barked tentatively, not rescuing her. “She’s forgotten me,” the woman said fearfully.
Then recognition set in and Piglet dashed over and leapt into the woman’s arms. The way the woman held her upside-down, the obvious familiarity and relish with which Piglet kissed her face — it was dead-obvious to whose family she really belonged.
Damn. I was about to lose a dog.
I helped the woman get into her car, gave her the extra cans of food and the couple of toys I’d bought for Piglet during her stay, all the while deflecting the woman’s tearful and effusive thanks. While I was happy for her, I kind of wanted her to leave, quickly. Because I wasn’t feeling that happy. I was losing a dog. I knew I had done the right thing but, you know, I had gotten close to that crazy little Chihuahua Terrier.
She insisted on hugging me. Then, on her way to the car, the woman said, “You’ll be hearing from me. You’ll definitely hear from me.”
“Great,” I said. “I’d love to hear how Piglet’s doing.” Only that wasn’t the dog’s real name. It was something else, some French name. I think I continued to call her Piglet anyway.
The woman got in the car and drove away, and that was the last I saw of Piglet. The woman never did contact me. I suppose I never expected that she would.
Some stories have happy endings. Magazine Man got his ass kicked and he drove a thousand miles, but Blaze is back where he belongs with two overjoyed kids. Blaze is home. A family lost their beloved Chihuahua-Terrier who was kept safe for her until they could be reunited again. Not all stories of lost pets end happily. I wish they all did.
Magazine Man’s saga is damned amazing, told by someone who truly knows how to tap the unique power of blogging. He uses extraordinary words to describe an extraordinary sequence of events.
I’m simply chuffed to bits that he got his dog back again. I feel gratified to have been able to read his words. And I feel good that I kept at it until that family in Monrovia got their dog back again.
There’s an epilogue to my tale. Six months later, after much deliberation, I welcomed a new member to my family:
I named him Toby.
I’m not going to talk about the insane, sustained heat we’ve been enduring here in Los Angeles. Over at