One of the disadvantages of living in the country is that stray animals show up on a regular basis. Most of them, I am sure, are put out by people who think this is a better solution than taking them to the Humane Society. Of course, it is not. The animals are forced to be in unfamiliar territory, suffer the cold or the heat without food or water, and are terrified. Those of us who live in the country and encounter these poor things, then have to take care of them by either deciding to keep them or a take a trip to the Humane Society ourselves.
An example of one of these creatures was a funny looking solid black dog with a funny shape and ears that laid down in a manner that made her look like Yoda. We came to call her “Ma.” The first time that I saw her was on a bright sunny summer morning when I looked out of my kitchen window and there she was at the edge of the woods with her head stuck in the wild blackberry bushes eating away. I figured a dog has to be pretty hungry to do that,
Of course, the first thing I did was grab a bowl of dog food and out I go. She took off into the woods. I put the bowl of food by the blackberries hoping she would return. She did. To make a long story short, she was without a doubt the most timid dog I have ever encountered and was very afraid of humans. It took months before I could even be in the yard at the same time. Each week I would move the food a little closer to the back deck and stay with it a little longer.
After a while I noticed that Ma had started coming from behind my storage building most days. I snuck back there one day and it looked like Fred Sanford’s front yard. She had collected everything from a big piece of foam rubber, which she was sleeping on, to an old soccer ball. Her collection, from parts unknown, started working its way into my back yard. It became part of my morning ritual to go out every morning, put food out for her, then pick up her latest treasures. As time went on, I had to pick up less and less. Whatever need that filled slowly went away.
It was almost two years after I first saw her in the blackberry bushes when I was sitting on the back step just looking at her laying at the edge of the woods in the sunshine. I called to her like I had done a thousand times before, and she got up and sauntered toward me. I held my breath. She stopped about three feet away. I didn’t move. I just stared at her. Her tail wagged a little. Then I did a dumb thing, I stuck out my hand. She was gone. I sat there wishing I had left well enough alone, but also smiling at this long coming milestone. I left her alone for a few days, but took up my position on the step again one morning while she was eating breakfast. Low and behold, when I called her she came toward me again, very slowly. This time I sat on my hands and just talked to her. She honored me with her presence for about 5 minutes then went back to her sunbathing. We played this game for about a month. To her the human hand was something to be wary of, so one morning I was on the step barefooted and when she came over to stand beside me, I slowly stuck out my foot and placed it on her hip. She didn’t run.
