Month: July 2022

She throws a little weight

on her smoking-gunshot paw,

stops to smell the flowers

of a better-fragranced world!

Kasa ~ she’s home.

Special thanks to Mo Daley at Open Write for introducing us to this form of poetry called gogyoshi this week.

Gogyoshi

Mo Daley is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com today for the Open Write. Gogyoshi poems have a short, simple structure with 2 rules – a title and five lines.
In 2009, my daughter begged me to bring home a puppy from a cardboard box at the post office. She believed they were German Shepherds. But they turned out to be something better. They were farm dogs. We named her Tia, but she took up with a family who had other dogs at the time and only comes to check on us rarely now, as she can barely walk and has trouble seeing and hearing. She found her way back yesterday and visited for awhile during the storm when no one was home anywhere else. Something tells me she came to say goodbye and to thank us for rescuing her from a box to a farm.

Tia the Traitor in a Thunderstorm

she chose another family on the farm
that puppy from a cardboard box who
came back home in the storm
so old and weak now that I had to
drive her back around the corner

Modern Haiku – Mo Daley explains this new form at http://www.ethicalela.com as our host today. Forget the syllable counts, just go for three to four lines with a juxtaposition of words or ideas.

Heart Sorting

I confess: I want 
the wrath of God
to befall them

***

these hearts I’ve 
sorted into piles
by severity of need

    ***

yet I need forgiveness
and mercy
and grace

Jennifer Jowett has rocked the prompts this week at http://www.ethicalela.com! Today’s prompt comes at the eleventh hour of my summer vacation, as I return on contract this morning. What a great way to relive a childhood summer before heading back. I love poems that bring pleasant memories. Oh, to go back to St. Simons in the 1970s…..

St. Simons (1970s)

summer festival
in Neptune Park
ferris wheel thrills
laughter, squeals
people at ease
a different era

1970s hippie leather
bracelet – I picked my
birth flowers
larkspur of happiness
water lily of innocence 
and my name, all caps
watched them imprint
(larkspur)    K   I   M  (waterlily)
fastened it, rode off flip-flopped
in shorts and halter top

to the rocks by the pier
for the fireworks
back when girls could
ride banana seat bikes

with flourescent wheel spikes together alone
long hair blowing in the island breeze
and no one worried

snow cones at the ballpark
after the game
I was a Pirate, left field
burgundy jersey, white letters

208 Martin Street
Slip and Slide
and trampoline
lush carpet of St. Augustine
barefoot cartwheels
climbing tree swings
  
vacation on Fernandina Beach
at the fish camp  (fish fries and hush puppies!)
echoes of a sulfury shower house
vented window slats rolled open
reading Pippi Longstocking by flashlight

oh, carefree summertime….
happy place in the heart of childhood
return and stay forever

Jennifer Jowett is our host at ethicalela.com today. She inspires us to rewrite previous poems using antonyms.

I love this new form. It’s a great new way to rethink and have hope for all of those half-thought-out unfinished but once started wordplays and poems I nearly discard every time I go in my Google Docs to do some cleaning and then get overwhelmed with all the junk in my closet. I found one this morning from when my grandson and I were playing with senses and colors and rhymes – quite a long time ago! Each of us would add a line and we came up with an AidaNana original – it held special memories, so I kept it. I’m using it to change the rhyming words today to a new verse. I’m loving the form – it could be called the CPR poem to try to save what was needing a breath and heart pump or two. And finally, perhaps, it may even help me play around with songs to make sense of all those lyrics I’ve always wondered about, and like McArthur Park is melting…..in the dark….all the sweet green icing flowing down….someone left the cake out in the rain….I don’t think that I can take it….’cause it took so long to bake it…..and I’ll never have that recipe again…..

Original:

I’m going to blue sky Montana

Wearing my red bandana

Sitting under a green cabana

Eating a yellow banana

Listening to Carlos Santana

Hasta Manana!

* * *

After CPR (Antonymic translation): 

I’m drifting to blue water coves

lifevestless seams

basking in sunshine

drinking a tiny umbrella world

as waves crash all around

lifebestness dreams…..

Today’s host of the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Jennifer Jowett, whose poetry prompt is Reality and Possibility 😊

Jennifer’s prompt is found at http://www.ethicalela.com/realities-and-possibilities/, and today she challenges us to write a free verse poem beginning with the words ” I see…”

Of Here and Now

I see life ~

journeys of adventure

and paths ~

unforged frontiers touching horizon

my toes on the starting line

I step out

into all the day holds

pondering

possibilities yet unsung

the music of now

I embrace each moment

as I live,

breathe,

discover

the beauty of here

The Meeting

On my way down I-75 South with the Brittany I’d dubbed Oakley to meet my brother Ken at a picnic table in Little Ocmulgee State Park near McRae, Georgia, this sweet dog and I had one important stop to make before continuing our journey. Ken and I had chatted about all the necessities of welcoming a dog. He had parted with Feivel’s feeding bowls and dog bed and would definitely need some flea and tick shampoo. So I did what any dog’s favorite aunt would do with her new niece – – I took her shopping at PetSmart in Macon, where I put her in the buggy and took her on a girls’ shopping spree for some customized canine pampering. $an$insane$amount$ later, we resumed our trek down the interstate, fully stocked with a bag of food and toppers, feeding dishes, a slicker brush, some dental treats, a bag of calming bites with CBD oil, a bed, a harness, a leash and collar in University of Georgia Bulldog red, a bully stick, a bird dog toy, a ball, and a large bottle of flea and tick shampoo. If my dog-loving family had anything to do with it, her days of being hungry and uncomfortable were over.

When we arrived at the state park, I saw Ken’s burgundy Toyota pickup truck parked in front of one of the group picnic shelters. He was outside waving both arms high in the air, as if I”d been arriving in a small aircraft. I pulled up next to him, his neck straining to see into the back seat of my RAV4 to catch his first glimpse of this sweetheart of a girl.

When he opened the door, Oakley and Ken locked eyes and he sat next to her for several minutes before we got out and walked up under the sheltered picnic table area. There, they interacted for a while before we helped her make the transition to his car for the second leg of the journey home. She ate treats from his hand and sat next to him, lapping a full bottle of water from her new stainless steel dish.

“You got a name picked out?” I asked him.

“Yes, actually, I like the name Kasa. In the Hopi language, it means ‘dressed in fur,’ and in Spanish the word casa means ‘home.’ I like the dual meaning. And it fits her. She’s got a home now.”

How delightful, I thought to myself. What a beautiful, meaningful name for a dog coming home – – especially the dog of a real estate agent.

Ken’s friend Kathy, who volunteers at a local shelter, explained the 3-3-3 principle of canine rescue. It takes three days for them to acclimate to their new surroundings and warm up to the new person, three weeks to learn the routines and expectations, and three months to settle in and accept that they now have a place where they belong. As a Dog Whisperer, Ken knows the importance of taking things at Kasa’s pace, and began with a warm bath – which Kathy advised him to sit in with the dog. To his surprise, he found that she completely relaxed all her weight on him as if she were a princess enjoying a day spa treatment. He picked 30 ticks off of her, and she didn’t flinch at all.

As they awaited her vet appointment, he took pictures of her and shared them with me, describing the progress they were making together in their bonding journey. I cheered when he called with an optimistic vet report. It turns out that Ken’s regular vet was out of the office, and the vet that Kasa saw is a rescuer of Brittanys – – one of those signs along the way that God is at work in all that is happening with this pair finding each other. Kasa got her shots, a treatment for ticks, fleas, and (just in case) worms, and had a foot x-ray that showed that some of the smaller bones were fractured around the wound – but nothing that would not heal back to full mobility. She’s been confirmed as a two to three year old Brittany who knows some commands and is believed to have once belonged to someone as a pet. She was prescribed an antibiotic and some pain medicine with an anti-inflammatory, and given a plan for a dental cleaning and spaying. Most of all, she got a clean bill of health and a master who is over the moon excited – along with family and a community all pulling for the two of them to rediscover in each other the joy of love in a canine/human bond.

The Matchmaker never knows where the magic comes from in what she sees. She prays and asks God to bless her people, and she waits and makes herself ready for whatever is revealed, even when it’s far outside the realm of what she may have been thinking. I’m grateful that the couple who fed her for a week sought a loving home for her. It’s no small miracle that she survived as a stray where coyotes howl through the night (we’ve seen them in our yard in the daytime on several occasions, and they leave their trademark persimmon-laden calling cards in our driveway frequently).

I’m convinced now more than ever that the match has less to do with the dog breed and the mere human need, but far more to do with the hearts of willingness to live and to love in both the dog and the person – the commitment and the sacrifice in the face of a climb. They must each have needs that the other can meet, and they must both make investments of love, trust, and commitment to each other.

And just like that, a miracle happens. A new little family is born.

Cheers for many years of bliss to The Dog Whisperer and Kasa from their tribe of people who love them and can’t wait to be part of their new life together!

*According to PetSmart, July 11-17 is National Adoption Week for Pet Smart Charities and The Anti-Cruelty Society. From Tuesday through Friday, I have shared the story of my brother’s journey with his new companion. I hope his story inspires readers to make a difference in the life of a dog (or a cat) by rescuing pets who need a chance! For further inspiration, read Tom Ryan’s books Following Atticus and Will’s Red Coat and follow him on Twitter at @Tom_Sam_Emi

The Journey

What caught “The Matchmaker’s” (my) eye was a post shared by a friend who was pleading for someone to help a female bird dog who’d been shot in the left foreleg – probably while chasing someone’s chickens. When you’re a hungry bird dog and there is food on the ground, what else do you do? To her, a bunch of chickens must have looked like a free all-you-can-eat buffet.

In the photos, she’s sporting a (presumed) white coat with an orange-patterned face and ears and liver roan spots. She’s a beauty – a Brittany Spaniel (her breed name now shortened to Brittany by the AKC) who may have delivered a litter of pups at some point in the past, but who is now thin and weak, bitten and shot, needing a chance at life in a rural county overrun with strays and no animal control facility with a shelter. The couple who were trying to help the dog find a home said she’d been there a little over a week, hiding out under his truck. They’d sought an owner and searched for puppies but came up empty. They couldn’t keep her because she’d tried to chase their own chickens, and they presumed that this is how she’d ended up with a bullet wound here in this particular neck of the woods where most families have some kind of livestock. She’d messed with the wrong chickens in rural Georgia, which might get anybody shot in these parts.

I contacted Ken about her the evening of my birthday.

“I think I might have found your dog,” I told him, and shared her story. I put him in touch with the caretaking couple so that he could ask questions and get a feel for the dog’s demeanor and outlook. After talking with them, he agreed to meet the dog and see if they’d be a good match for each other – or help nurse her back to health at the very least.

The next morning, I would leave the campground and drive an hour east to pick her up at 7:00 a.m. from the place where she’d been staying, and take her for a walk-in vet visit when the doors opened to be sure the wound would heal and get a heartworm test before meeting my brother between Atlanta and St. Simon’s Island in Little Ocmulgee State Park. We had a game plan.

Once I’d picked her up, I stopped by our house on the way to the vet to unbandage the wound, flush it with hydrogen peroxide, and re-bandage it. I wanted to see for myself how deep the bullet had gone. As the couple had shared, it did appear to be only a shallow puncture wound, not likely to have broken a bone. Still, she wasn’t putting any weight on her left paw. She let me flush the wound without whimpering or trying to get away. Smart girl. Tough girl. Resilient girl. She knew I was trying to help her. Here on my tiled laundry room floor, I saw a dog with a will to live, to trust. To love. The eyes told everything.

After calling five veterinary hospitals starting with the one we use for our three dogs and learning they were all closed on Saturdays, I contacted a 24-hour emergency vet and took her to Woodland Animal Hospital in Locust Grove. They were legally bound to follow the stray dog protocol, so I was only able to get her vitals checked, get her a single pain pill for the gunshot wound, and get a microchip scan – even though I’d been prepared to pay for more thorough care and call her mine temporarily. They refused to do a well-dog check or a heartworm test or administer any shots because of Georgia State Laws, so in exchange for one oral pain pill they placed in her mouth, I signed the Good Samaritan statement and loaded her back into the car to begin our journey to her new home. The best news: the wound was not life-threatening, she had no microchip to link her to a former owner, and the pain pill helped her drift off to sleep on the back seat while we drove south on I-75.

I couldn’t wait for Oakley (my name for her, named for Annie Oakley) to meet my baby brother.

But we had one more important stop to make before continuing along our journey southward.

*According to PetSmart, July 11-17 is National Adoption Week for Pet Smart Charities and The Anti-Cruelty Society. From Tuesday through Friday, I will be sharing the story of my brother’s journey to a new companion.

Eye-Catching

We call my brother “The Dog Whisperer” for his unique way of communicating with animals, but the truth is that Doggie DNA is alive and well in our genes on the Haynes side of the family and only gets stronger through the branches and the leaves. Among my mother’s last coherent words to my father were, “You take care of our dogs.” Dad is called The Treat Man for his never-ending supply of dog treats he keeps stuffed in every drawer and pocket and car console. I’m somehow seen as The Matchmaker. Friends and family call me when they want me to help them find “just the right dog,” and I keep my eyes peeled, pray, and wait. I was hoping to help my brother, Ken, find a new canine companion five months after his buddy crossed the rainbow bridge, even as he awaited an adoption decision on Cooper, a young male Labradoodle in Missouri.

On Valentine’s Day a couple of years ago, I was recovering from being sick and couldn’t sleep. I went to try to sleep in the guest room so I wouldn’t keep my husband awake with my restlessness, but I was so miserable I couldn’t find any rest, so I did what we all do when we can’t sleep – I took to Facebook scrolling. My eyes landed on a picture on one of my favorite dog rescue pages. The perfect dog for my dad stared back at me: an adorable 8-month old Schnoodle, black except for a lock of white under her chin and on her chest. Eyes that screamed, “I can have your dad wrapped around my little paw in no time!” My brother and I knew that after the last of the dogs he and my mother had shared died, Dad would need a new dog soon (despite his insistence otherwise), and a new dog would need him. And here she was.

I’d been awake at 2 a.m. when a man from had Florida posted her picture with a desperate plea for just the right owner to step forward and take her. He had fallen on hard times and was having to move out of his house, unable to keep the precious eight month old Schnoodle in the midst of his divorce. I felt such sympathy for this dog owner, who was doing the right thing despite the fear of backlash from those who would have assumed to have known more about his own situation than he did and would have inevitably tried to convince him that there was a way to keep her. I stepped forward, and he somehow knew that his baby would be in the arms of love with her new home, whether with Dad or with me.

My husband and I met him in Valdosta in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and after a few moments he emerged from his truck, eyes full of tears, looking away without words as he handed her to me with complete trust and a heart full of sacrificial love. He was wearing a burgundy Florida State University t-shirt (my mother’s alma mater), clearly a sign that somehow, she’d been instrumental in this God wink of a dog for Dad when Kona’s owner decided to surrender her. I fell so hard in love with her so fast that Dad almost didn’t get his opportunity to have her, but my brother was already on his way to meet us for the next leg of the rescue journey.

Ken Facetimed me at the end of his leg of the rescue as Dad met Kona for the first time that Valentine’s Day evening. “You have 72 hours to decide,” I told him. “If you decide you don’t want to keep her, the agreement is that she comes back to me. I’ll get in the car, drive down, and pick her up.” I crossed my fingers on one hand that he’d keep her, and fingers on the other that he’d give her back.

But the day of love worked its magic the way it mysteriously does, and their bonding was quick.

And so when Ken’s dog died, he would go to visit Dad and Kona to soothe his grieving heart. He’d sit and play and hold her, take her for a walk. But as every dog owner knows, another person’s dog is not the same. It’s the bond with a forever commitment to a pet that meets the needs of love in our hearts, and Ken realized in those times of visiting that he was ready to make this commitment – to feel this bond of love with a canine companion again.

He was ready for a buddy who needed him as much as he needed her.

And The Matchmaker wanted more than anything to find the perfect gift for her brother on her 56th birthday on July 8, where she sat at F. D. Roosevelt State Park Campground in Warm Sorings, Georgia under the camper awning overlooking Lake Delanor in a pair of denim cutoff shorts and a sweaty t-shirt, Birkenstocks tossed to the side, bare feet propped on a second chair, hair in a messy bun, drinking a Redd’s Apple Ale.

Something caught her eye…..

*According to PetSmart, July 11-17 is National Adoption Week for Pet Smart Charities and The Anti-Cruelty Society. From Tuesday through Friday, I will be sharing the story of my brother’s journey to a new companion.

The Call

My brother’s call came right when I expected it.  Five months after losing his beloved Feivel to a mass in his throat, he was ready for the companionship and love of a dog again.  I’d known this call was coming – – and I knew he would be eager to re-establish the strong human/canine bond he has always formed with his pets once he had properly grieved his loss – which is why we all call him the dog whisperer in our family. 

Feivel had been the best “accident” ever born.  Someone hadn’t watched the bitch in heat well enough, and Trudy gave birth to a litter of Schweimerauzeryorkiepoos whose timing and oopsness was never better than right there on the screened-in front porch of Ken’s 18-acre farm in the rural Georgia countryside on the backside of nowhere in Concord, Georgia.  Like most dads, Ken had watched Feivel being born.  I suppose that’s why he had a strong desire to keep one of the pups as his own and raise it.  

Those are the kinds of end-of-life goodbyes that are so gut-wrenching they rip your heart out, torch it, and burn it to ashes.  When you’ve been there for all their moments and they’ve taken you through some hard times of your own with their sympathetic, non-judgmental loving eyes looking you full in the face from your lap where you sit on the sofa scratching them behind the ears, you truly realize the grace and mercy God sends you in a dog.

But in time, the ashes cool and the warmth returns.

“I’m ready.  But where do I even start?” he asked me.

“Decide on the breed you want, and look for a rescue of that type with a Google search for dogs in your area.  Put in an application for a couple of dogs whose descriptions appeal to you,”  I suggested. “Then see if you can meet the dogs and decide if one is a good fit for you.”

I sent him some dog rescue links.

He found Cooper in Missouri – a little outside our area, but he completed an application for this young male Labradoodle who was cute and friendly and clutched a stuffed toy in his mouth. His application response came: 

We’ll determine our best candidate for owning this dog and let you know in two to three weeks if we feel you would be a suitable match for Cooper.  

He called me, clearly discouraged.  “I think the rescue process is one that takes time,” he told me he’d learned.  “Will you be up for a road trip in two to three weeks if I make the cut?” he asked, his voice revealing that he knew deep inside that this dog would take the equivalent of a hole in one at The Masters in Augusta to become his.

“Absolutely,” I assured him.  

And so the wait began. 

*According to PetSmart, July 11-17 is National Adoption Week for Pet Smart Charities and The Anti-Cruelty Society. From Tuesday through Friday, I will be sharing the story of my brother’s journey to a new companion.