Love Is All Around

A little more than two years ago the rescue I volunteer with gave me a foster dog that had been rescued from a homeless situation.  A woman was living in her car with two dogs and was having a very hard time of it.  Izzy, the dog that came to me, had serious mange that was very expensive to treat and I believe her car mate did as well.  I'm not sure who convinced the woman to turn the dogs over to a rescue, but she did, they were treated for their health issues, and both found wonderful new homes where they're thriving.  When the woman was back on her feet again she inquired about getting her dogs back.  Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

Izzy

At the time I thought that giving up those two dogs was a great sacrifice but that the dogs would be better for it.  Or would they?  She certainly wouldn't.  I know what the loss of a dog feels like after they've lived a long and full life with you, and I can't imagine the heartbreak of giving them up while they're alive because you can't care for them.  Also, the attachment between dogs and their humans is two ways - we love them and they love us back.  Who hasn't seen the pictures of dogs dumped at a shelter, head bowed and staring in to the corner, crying and wondering what is happening and not knowing where their beloved human has gone?  Or the story of a dog chasing after a car that's just dumped it on a highway?  My own dog follows me around the house when we're home together and wants to be in the same room as me.  He can be off leash in safe spaces because he and I are a pack and he stays with me - I jokingly say we're a bonded pair.  He loves me and I love him.

When I'm near kids who are interacting with my dogs I always make sure to share with them that dogs love.  "Did you know that dogs feel love the same way that people do?" I'll ask the kids.  They start to ask questions as they pet the dog, "Do you think your dog loves me?" and my response is "Yes, I think he does.  Look at his tail wagging."  Especially when I have a foster and the kids want to know why I'm not keeping the newest resident of our neighborhood,  "Doesn't he love you?" and I say, "Well yes, I think he does, but he knows that we're working very hard to find him a family of his very own and he'll love them too."

Which brings me back to my original question, should homeless people give up their pets? There are plenty of people living on the streets alongside their pets and in a harsh world where there's little hope and little joy in every day existence, perhaps these pets make a real and positive difference.  At least that's what Glenn Greenwald and his husband David Miranda believe.  I listened to Glenn on DemocracyNow! talk about creating an animal shelter in Rio de Janeiro that will hire homeless people who love dogs to work there and I read his article about it in the online newspaper he founded, The Intercept.  The people they hire will live and work at the shelter with their own pets while working to find homes for the many homeless dogs living in that city.   They're hoping this shelter will become a model that can be replicated in cities around the world.  I hope they're right.  This morning I went to their GoFundMe page and made a $100 donation in support of this effort.

We're living in an incredibly chaotic world right now.  Within all this insanity here is an opportunity for something real that can make a difference in many lives, both human and animal.  I believe that like the song says, the love you take is equal to the love you make.  Click on the links I've embedded throughout this post to hear and read about all of this first hand.  We're one week away from remembering those who sacrificed their lives for war, and what better way to remember them but by building up the people and animals for whom they made that sacrifice.