Fostering Oreo

People may wonder, possibly with irritation, why my FB page has been suddenly flooded with pictures of a silly black-and-white pit bull, usually doing nothing special at all.  I’ve wondered this myself, recognizing even as I do it that I’m way over-the-top, and yet I cannot stop myself from posting this or that little tidbit of something Oreo did, or a new trick she learned, or a “conversation” we’ve had that amused me.  Most of my friends have incredible restraint at not doing this with their kids – only posting the truly hilarious, and not the mundane as I’ve done.

And I realize that it has less to do with this dog and more to do with everything else I’ve lost.  The loss of love, beginning with the husband-abuser whose promise-breaking began on the wedding night; to the unborn child literally ripped from me, buried on a lonely Korean hillside, mourned yet mercifully spared a cursed existence as its mother’s shackle to a tyrant; my estranged family of origin; the hundreds of friends I lost along the way; the church that abandoned and condemned me; the missions team that betrayed me; and not least of all, a whole country of majestic mountains and deserts and singing rivers, of turbaned men and women swathed in cloth, of children laughing in the streets with kites streaming behind them, of a widowed family that called me the ninth of eight daughters, the sisters I never had – the sisters of songs and games and shared clothes and pajama parties.  A whole country I may never see again.  

And now I have this dog.

An entire way of life, nearly everyone and everything I loved, all that love lost and wasted…now contained in one small, sleek black–and-white wagging body, frolicking with her toy on the carpet, unaware of the vast burden she carries.  

Of the world, only this dog needs me the way family needs.  Only this dog looks for me daily, her highs peaking when I come home and her lows crashing when the garage door opens and, despite her whimpers, my car pulls away.  Yes, my friends care about me, but I’m not a part of their daily life.  My students “need” me, but I’m easily replaceable.  But Oreo – a few short days from her timeline at the shelter ending, unwanted and overlooked, she would literally be dead without me.  

It amazes me that God has created this species that, unlike wolves, can read human expressions, desires human company, and commonly possesses an interspecies loyalty considered rare and delightful for other creatures (we are enchanted by the tortoise and the hippo; the orangutan and the kitten; the tiger, the bear, and the lion).  And dogs are so like children – so much trouble but so much love.  In the 8 weeks that I’ve had her, I’ve seen my fair share of diarrhea, vomit, late-night panicky calls to the doctor, middle-of-the night crying, and behavior problems.  I’ve spent an unbelievable amount of time scrubbing blood spatter from my walls.  (Cut on tail + insanely vigorous wagger.) She’s cost me probably more than $500 in damages to my home, not to mention money for treats and toys.  But I have someone to come home to at night, someone that I need to keep it together for – it’s hard to have a nervous breakdown when someone needs to be fed and walked and entertained.  Most of all, it’s the fact of another being wanting physical contact with me.  Oreo loves to be petted and scratched and cuddled.  Sadly, one of the greatest deprivations for singles in our homophobic society is the limitation on physical contact.  It’s taboo to cuddle and hold hands and spoon in a platonic relationship.  Those luxuries are reserved for romance or family (though not guaranteed in those contexts) and I have neither.  

But now I have this dog.

There’s a fullness of life that people in good families take for granted.  Yes, I have less time and sleep, and my house is a total mess, now that I have Oreo.  But I find that I am actually more productive because the sharp edge of loneliness is gone.  People need hugs and cuddles for mental health.  More powerful for being unspoken, physical contact tells people they are loved and accepted and wanted.  Some cultures do this better than ours – platonically, men walk hand in hand, women link arms, people kiss cheeks in greeting and give true embraces.  Even in families, there’s more affection – I’ve been surprised to see Swedish siblings cuddling on the couch, an Italian man holding his mother's hand as they walk, Brazilian teenagers unembarrassed to kiss both mom and dad in public.  So when I go day after day without physical contact, there’s an emptiness that makes me run to the internet for endless videos of puppies.  I am very lucky that my addictions are relatively harmless – if I were even remotely inclined towards alcohol, drugs, or porn, I’m sure I’d do it on a spectacular level and ruin my life fairly quickly.   The only difference between me and an addict is genetic luck.  The commonality, of course, is unhappiness.  Britney was right after all.  Our loneliness is killing us.

But now I have this dog.  

Poor orphan Oreo.  When I first got her, she was a little doggie tornado, unsocialized and largely unaware of the pleasures of coexistence with human beings.  She had no idea what a walk was, or that performing circus tricks would garner her treats, or that this human creature would throw a toy over and over again for her chasing enjoyment.  I loved the look on her face when it dawned on her how wonderful this new thing was.  In the beginning it must have felt too good to be true – she would pull desperately at the leash, not to get away from me – when she broke free she always came back – but in a frantic effort to smell and enjoy everything as much as possible for this brief moment it was possible.  Now, a month later, she trots along casually and will slow down for me at even the slightest pressure on the leash.  No need to pull because she knows the walk will last, and repeat, day after glorious day.  Similarly, her separation anxiety is much better.  She doesn’t cry as much when I leave because over a month of routine has told her I will come back every time.   (I read an article to find out why she would destroy things in her grief at my absence, even for a few minutes while I was in the bathroom, and discovered that, for an insecure dog, especially a rescue, when you leave, she believes it is for the very last time and that she will be abandoned and all alone in the world again.  It’s not an unreasonable fear.  Oreo was obviously raised to love people, but whomever it was that she loved first neglected her and ditched her to wander the streets where she was found.  And so my anger at the shredded table leg, the clawed back door, and the ripped-up AC insulation subsided in pity because I realized that it was PTSD that made her do it.  And I can certainly relate to that.)  

So now I have this dog.

And I plaster my Facebook page with her pictures and antics.  Because she is the recipient of all my love right now.  All the goodness in me, the dedication, the patience, the affection, is focused on this animal.  And happily for me, she is so much safer than people in my life have been.  She loves me back.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s only that she needs me for food and safety, if there’s any real affection at all on her side.  But then, just now, I sniffled as I was writing this, and she looked up from her toy at me in alarm.  Just to see what she’d do, I began some loud mock-crying.  She immediately dropped her toy, leaped over to me, and launched herself into my arms, licking my face (with a tongue I personally witnessed tasting some other dog’s poop on our walk this morning) and comforting me.   I immediately regretted my little display because the minute I broke character and laughed at her, she began thrusting a saliva-covered toy at me in an invitation to play.   I do not like canine saliva all over my computer, so, ingrate that I am, I pushed away her little doggie face and told her to play on her own.  Now she has settled to chewing on the toy while lying on my foot.   Whenever she’s at rest, she likes to be touching some part of me, and for my part, I’m happy to have such a lovely footwarmer.  But she loves it best when I put a cushion down on the floor and snuggle with her, pulling a blanket over us.  The first time I did that, she reacted like it was crack for dogs.  She was so in wonder, like she couldn’t believe her luck.  She was almost giddy with happiness. And now it’s habit – so much so that she's
whiny and lonely when her human irrationally insists on sitting on the sofa (forbidden to her) rather than snuggling with her on ground level.

Lucky families have this, the happiness so habitual you don’t notice it.  

I hope Oreo gets a permanent family to love someday.  

Til then, she and I can keep each other warm.