Called by Breed: A Shiba Story

Called by Breed

The sign says, “If you didn’t call, you don’t belong here.  Turn around and leave.”  It makes me wonder if we should.  

The road had turned us upside down, from the exit off a rural highway, up a steep and hilly incline of a small mountain, around a wide corkscrew towards the top of a place where the breeder lives.  Hers is the last house on the left.  It is already dusk, so we can’t read the number.  We take a chance and get out.  It is chilly.

The woman who opens the door is stalky, short, with a brief shock of dirty blond hair.  She doesn’t smile, but opens the door and tells us to come in to the lighted living room hall.  There are shot guns hanging on the wall.

The dog we want to see is in the kennel out back.  “Let me get my flashlight,” she says.

We have no right to be looking at dogs.  I am pregnant.  We live in a cheap, one bedroom apartment, and that, only at the mercy of a kindly landlord.  My husband is unemployed.  The car is not ours.  It is a used Toyota Tercel leased for $100 a week from a place called Rent a Wreck.  Our car burned up in a fire on the side of the road.  It made the front page.

The ad said, “Free Shiba Inu.”  I didn’t know what that was, but on the phone, the lady had said the dogs look like little foxes.  Here’s the address if we wanted to come and look.  So we are looking.

She returns with the flashlight and leads us outside.  We walk on a gravel path towards a barn.  To the left, a group of five or six German shepherds strain against a chain link fence, their bark, I am sure, not worse than their bite.  I would move closer to the right, but there, behind another fence, is a five or sixsome of Rottweilers.  I don’t know much about Rottweilers, but the lady says they make excellent guards.

The barn has a padlock.  Inside smells like straw and dog.  There are no lights.  The lady points her flashlight up where a large kennel has been mounted.

The dogs look strange—short, with thick manes of red-gold fur, curly tails and sturdy feet.  They do this prancing thing, back and forth.  They aren’t particularly interested in us.  “These are the males.  They need to be socialized,” the lady says.  “Here’s the one in the paper.” She points.

The dog walks funny, trying to prance but can’t quite do it.  “What’s wrong with him?” I ask.

“He has hip dysplasia.  He’s okay, though.”

“Oh.”

I wander a little, looking at the other dogs.  I see a wooden box on the left. There is a light over the box, and when I look in, I see a small female, indeed, the size and semblance of a fox.  

She is beautiful.  Her hair is the same color as the others, but there is less scruff at the neck.  Her eyes are black as the inside of the barn but as wide open as the moon.

“Why is she in there?” I ask.

“She’s the runt.  She needs the heat lamp.  I’ll step outside and let you and your husband talk.”

We do.  I am serious.  We can’t take an injured dog.  It will need medical care and we can’t afford it.  It’s irresponsible for us even to be looking at dogs right now, never mind one with a birth defect.  My husband wants one, though.  Okay.  Then what about the little one?  She seems healthy.

We call the lady and ask about the runt.

“These are purebreds.  They all have their shots.  They are $700.”  She hadn’t planned on selling the little one yet.

We don’t have $700.  

I tell her why we don’t want the boy.  I tell her I am going to have a baby in a couple of months and we want a dog for the baby.  We are in a small apartment and we read that Shiba Inus don’t bark much and are good with kids.  The baby Shiba is adorable.

The lady says she can give us the runt for $150.

We go inside to sign papers.  I am afraid.  We might not be able to pay the rent on time.  We shouldn’t be doing this.  Our friends know we are broke.  They lent us money.  We will have to lie, tell them we got the dog for free.  

My husband says we should do it.  We’ll never again get an opportunity to buy a purebred at this price. 

“We’re not going to get rid of her once we get her,” I tell him.  “She’ll be part of the family.  We’ll need to take care of her.”

He writes the check and the lady goes back to the barn.  We wait outside.  

The lady carries the dog and hands her to me.  My body is shaking, and so is the dog’s.

We are in the car.  The dog lies on my belly.  She is warm and extremely shy.  “She just needs to be socialized,” says my husband.  

We call her Shiba because that’s what she is. I like it because, growing up, I had a dog by that name.  I know it’s silly to call a dog by its breed, but I don’t care.  

That was more than fifteen years ago.

As I write this, Shiba is curled up on the couch, her paws tucked in like a fawn’s.  She is grayed and she is blind.  She hesitates when walking downstairs, testing each step before she moves.  When we call her, she doesn’t know where the voice is coming from and wanders around until she figures it out.  She jumps when we pass by her because she can no longer see or sense when we are coming.  I’ve taken to warning her, but she is a little deaf.

She comes to my desk chair and gives a communicative whine when she wants to go out.  She likes the small backyard where she has spent most her life.  It is familiar to her and she can make her way around, even in the dark.

Sometimes I am on the couch and she goes to my chair.  She stares at it and whines.  “I am over here, Shiba,” I say.  She doesn’t hear, so I get up.

Shiba has lived through two moves cross country, two children, now teens, a divorce and remarriage, several cats and, for the last four years, one other dog.  She has always been the Alpha.  She loves cheese and short walks in daylight.  She still prances.  And I recall how she came to live with us, within our hearts, those many years ago, when our family was young and poor and struggling as an injured dog.  How we all have grown healthy since then.

Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt

August 19, 2011

     

"All Set With That"

The other day at church, a young woman with three children between the ages of four and seven (I'm guessing), was trying to keep them from running amok through the fellowship hall which has all kinds of neat things that basements offer--like those support poles that we all swung around and tried to climb when we were that age.  (Well, I know I did, anyway.)  I just smiled that "I understand" smile I offer harried parents, to which she responded, "Free to good home!"

"No thanks, I'm all set with that," I laughed.  And boy is it true.

As much fun as it is to hold a baby, look at my children's toddler pictures and read through their old schoolwork, I am glad they aren't kiddies any more.  I have nil desire to give birth again, to wake up to cries for food, diaper changes and/or attention, to chase creatures that by right should not have the ability to run so fast at such a young age or to terrify myself trying to take a pre-schooler to a mall around Christmas.  Accuse me of being heartless, if you will, but I speak the truth.  I am happy to be where I am, which happens to be a place that allows me to be super-sentimental whenever I wish without being interrupted by the crash and burn of normal household items.

This doesn't mean I don't have to get up in the middle of the night, deal with puke, fret over those who require my care or assume the Christmas tree is safe.  I do have two cats, two dogs and two fish, after all (though the two fish probably can't do anything worse than dying).  When my students, who seem to require a lot of mothering that I am more than willing to provide, ask if I have kids, I say, "I've got you and my pets.  Isn't that enough?" I am not sure how they feel about being equated with the animals, but to me, it's all the same since my animals are my kids, too.  No one has ever burst into tears over my response, so I guess they understand, think I am kidding or am once again proving I've lost my mind.

All this demonstrates that mothering isn't just hormonal, which our society already acknowledges.  The drive and ability to mother come from other sources than the ovaries--they come from living in a mother-rich, nurturing environment. 

My mother is the archetypal "mother of the world."  She has spent years working with children, her own, those in the public school system and those in her religious education classes.  She has worked with every level and age of child, but she has also mothered hundreds of adults.  This is the woman who, in her second job as a Sam's Club greeter, hugs strangers no matter how much she loathes the way Sam's operates and treats its employees.  My mother gives food to the hungry and necessities to anyone who needs them, even when she can't afford to do so--which is always.  She is the consummate care-giver, and she talks about the people she meets.

When you are raised with someone like this, you might end up despising working with people or loathing people in general.  But when you're me, you end up being drawn to work that requires caring for others.  When my kids were young, I couldn't work much outside the home in that capacity.  My kids had to come first, and that has its own kind of rewards, especially when I see how (usually) loving they themselves are now.  And it's not that you ever stop caring for your kids.  It's just that their needs change as they age.  I fully expect I will be parenting for the rest of my life.  I might even be grand-parenting at some point, but I'm not in a hurry for that in the least. 

I have more time to give now, though, and I am thriving on it, loving others in a way that allows me to serve.  My mother taught me the importance of serving and how dedicating a life to it makes living meaningful.  She never had to come out and say that making the world a better place is important.  I saw it in her actions.  And while she is very Christian (Catholic, specifically) and believes in an afterlife that rewards or punishes, I know she would serve no matter what religion she was or was not because she grew up watching her father struggle to take care of five kids on his own when he was extremely poor.  "He always provided for us," she says proudly. 

My mother tells us the story of her father moving the family "by gig," which meant using a cart to carry all their belongings to the next tenement.  He didn't have a car even though car ownership was common by then.  She tells us how she picked up where her absent mother left off, caring for her four brothers, two of which have died now. 

My mother doesn't live in the kind of poverty she did as a child, though she still lives far below the poverty line.  She works two jobs just to make it, and as she nears the ability to retire, she worries about having to live on a fixed income. And she needs to slow down and better care for herself.  I wish I could help her more.

I'm kind of rambling this morning, not paying too much attention to organization, but I will leave off with some semblance of having had a thesis.  I believe we come back to the Earth we have created.  I believe we literally reap what we sow.  I believe we can love the world enough to heal it. 

Mothering is in my blood, and while I'm all set with having little ones, I'm not all set with mothering. That's a good thing, because as it stands, there are not enough mothers to keep the world functioning.  That's how needy we all are.