Learning How to Hope
One dog’s life changing experience.
He’s petrified — almost literally. When he sees people he can’t move. He just stands between the two doors of the kennel, as far away from them as he can get.
He doesn’t understand this place. At all.
He’s in a cage and he has water and blankets and food, but he’s so scared. In the past, people have not been generally kind to him and he really doesn’t expect it to be any different here.
There are other dogs around him and some of them seem happy, but he thinks they’re probably just fooling themselves. Maybe they haven’t experienced what he has. Maybe they haven’t had their hearts broken.
It’s foolish to leave yourself open for more pain and that seems to be exactly what these other canines are doing. He scoffs to himself at their naïvete.
He considers trying to dig his way out at night time, but the walls are pretty thick and secure and he’ll likely end up just messing up his paws if he tries too long. Plus, the music’s kind of nice. He’s not sure where it’s coming from, but he’s pretty sure there are speakers somewhere in the ceiling.
At night time when everything is quiet, the music relaxes him — and the blankets really are soft.
By the time the sun is up and he starts to hear sounds of the people again, he pulls his guard back up and makes sure to watch where each of them are going. Someone usually looks in at him and says hello or something ridiculous like that in a nice voice, but he remains wary.
He hears odd noises sometimes when the other dogs go out for walks. It sounds almost like kissing. But that can’t be right. These people wouldn’t kiss the dogs, would they? That’s not what people do with animals.
At least not in his experience.
Then one random day — he’s lost all track of time, so he can’t pinpoint exactly when — he actually sees it happen. A person is walking one of the other dogs by his kennel and for a split second, the dog jumps up onto the person’s hip and he braces for the hit. He really doesn’t want to see it, but he knows people use their fists — and sometimes other things — to hit dogs.
It’s more shocking to him that it doesn’t come, actually.
Instead he hears the person chuckle a little, mumble something affectionate like, “you’re a knucklehead” and place a quick kiss on the dog’s nose. This all happens right in front of his kennel before they head for what he thinks must be an outside run.
He’s frozen in his kennel by the strangest sensation. It’s a seismic shift in what he’s known all his life. He blinks a bit, wondering if perhaps he’s hallucinating. It’s possible. He’s been in the kennel for a while now.
But he starts to pay attention. To how the other dogs seem excited when the people show up each morning. To the tone of voice the people use with the other dogs — it genuinely sounds nice. To the fact that no one — not a single one of the people in this place — have forced him to do anything.
They give him food each day and clean each part of his kennel, but they never drag him anywhere or even try to touch him.
At first he thought it was because humans really don’t care, but now he’s starting to wonder…what if they’re just giving him time? Time to see that maybe life could be another way?
It takes a while. He doesn’t immediately jump into this human experience right away because he’s figuring the other shoe could always drop when he least expects it.
The day it happens, he blames it on exhaustion. Or maybe simple curiosity. He figures if it all goes sideways it’s not like he hasn’t experienced horrible things at the hands of people before. It won’t really be anything new.
But the moment he lets it happen — lets the human put a warm, gentle hand on his head and pat his fur almost lovingly, a sensation he’s never before known shivers all along his spine.
Joy. Pleasure. Hope.
Given freely to him by a person. His tail wags — just a little — almost involuntarily.
He truly didn’t think he had anything else to learn in this life. He figured he’d been taught everything he needed to know about people already. It surprises him to find this new lesson at this place.
At Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter.
