Many Whammies and a Lesson

Who knew what I was in for when I went to the shelter to walk dogs today? I left straight from church, drove to Chicago, and immediately got down to business. I walked some dogs, was walked by some other dogs, and then saw a sight I wished I hadn't - I found the former e.d. of the Girl Scout council I worked for standing in the adoption room looking at the Chihuahuas. I said, "Name?" and when she didn't respond, I said, "Name? Name Last Name?" She looked up blankly and I said, "Alisa! Alisa Wrobel! I used to work at the Girl Scout council." Well, it doesn't happen very often that I find myself in a position to really make someone squirm just by virtue of my mere presence, but when she realized what part of her past she was facing, I could see that internally, she was flipping out, albeit in the teeniest, tiniest way. See, she left the council, not exactly voluntarily. In fact, we all did, because she figured that fund raising was not that important, in fact, so unimportant that she didn't do it at all, and the council, which had been around for 90 years, went flat broke and closed. She escaped unscathed, but I have a feeling that, unless she had the emotions and conscious of a sociopath, she felt kinda bad about the whole thing.

The second thing that happened at the shelter was that as I walked a dog out in the large yard, I looked down to see a pretty long black snake slithering its way through the grass. It scared the beejeebees out of me. I am not generally afraid of snakes (I used to be co-owner of a seven-foot boa, after all), but only when they are one of two things: 1. behind glass 2. mine. I'm sure it was harmless, but all the same, I think I may wear waders next time I go.

The third thing that happened was that when I went to take a cute little beagle out of her cage, the heavy latch fell back down and all but crushed my thumb. I have a little cut and a lot of black and blue on my nail. I hope I don't lose it because that is incredibly gross. It hurts. Ouch.

I had a meeting with my "Animals" professor yesterday. It was a wonderful meeting and I learned a lot. She told me the story of a guy who took this class and halfway through his volunteer hours came to her and said, "I can't go back to the shelter anymore." She asked why. "Because the animals are not grateful," he said.

We laughed about that one. Grateful animals? But do you know what? Two of the dogs I took out today, a Pit Bull named Peaches and a Rott named Speckles, had both looked at me from their cages so meaningfully that I melted. I told them both that they were going to go for a walk with me; they were so excited! But, and this happened with both of them, as soon as I got them out, they both went bonkers and dragged me down the hall, outside, and across the yard, gallivanting like maniacs all the way. If I weighed any less, I would have surely been flying behind them like a flag in the wind. In the back of my mind, I was thinking that they were tricky, those little canines, they had me fooled into thinking that we were going to be friends, then when they got what they wanted, they acted, well, ungrateful. I didn't connect with either one of those girls and I was disappointed.

What, am I crazy? THEY'RE DOGS! They do their thing. They're not wired to be grateful and polite and courteous. They do their thing because that's how they're programmed. If they could think about how we feel and act accordingly, then they wouldn't be in a shelter, they'd be living in apartment building and going to work everyday. They wouldn't be eating by-products out of bowls on the floor, they'd be sitting in Rosebud or driving through McDonald's. They're doing the best they can.

Just like me.