Broken, Part I

Never in my life had I cried so hard.  I couldn't think; I couldn't speak; I couldn't breathe.  A crushing pain filled my chest, but I was beyond caring.  I would never care again about anything.  Not after this.

The woman at the car window was handing in papers to sign.  Contract?  I hadn't been told anything about a contract.  Through a haze of tears, I barely made out big bold letters: IRREVOCABLE DECISION.  "Irr...irrevocable?" I choked, and the woman nodded yes.  Ignoring the screaming voice inside, I put pen to paper and with a hand that shook violently, scrawled something illegible across the page.

"Here, you can read this if you want to," she said, handing me another paper, and she chitchatted about...something.  Her words sounded dim and far away.  I tried to focus on the contract, but the words swam on the page; they blurred in and out.  Useless, I laid it aside.

"I'll have to take them one at a time," she said, as she held out her arms expectantly.  Emma sat obediently beside me, and I picked her up gently, holding her to my wet cheek for only a moment.  "Bye, bye, baby," I whispered, and she was gone.

Bode was next, and he backed away, flattening himself against the passenger side door.  I don't know if his eyes were fearful - all I could see through those tears was his ginger-colored shape against the door.  Pulling him away, I tried to say goodbye, but words failed me; all I could manage was a choked gasp for air.  My tears fell on his silky hair, and then he, too was gone.

I buried my face in my hands and that's when my heart broke.

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Oh God, what did I do?  I had been sure that giving them up to a better home was the right thing, but now I felt it was the biggest mistake I'd ever made.  How could I just hand over my babies to a perfect stranger, knowing they'd never see me again?  Me...the person who had rescued them the year before from a suspected puppy mill, the one person in the world they trusted, the one who had slept with them, taught them, played with them, comforted them.  Loved them.

The one who still loves them.

But they don't know that.  They don't know how long I had agonized over this decision; they don't know why I had been crying for weeks, and why the tears had flowed more freely when they licked them from my cheeks.  They don't know what they had done to make me abandon them.  All they know is that they are frightened and bewildered, and they just want to come home.

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After a year with us, Bode and Emma had made huge improvements in some areas - housebreaking was still an ongoing process, but their accidents were significantly less frequent than their first weeks at our house.  They had learned how to go up and down stairs, how to sit, stand, shake, lie down, stay, leave it alone.  They had learned trust, they had learned to play.  Bode had stopped chewing and eating his sister's hair; Emma had become stronger, more independent.

But they had never gotten past their fear of certain people...including Fred.

We still don't know why they were so frightened of him.  Initially, we felt they had previously been abused by a man.  But they didn't mind our son or my father.  And they were afraid of some women - Ariel, two of my sisters, and the instructor at obedience school.

Toward the end, Bode seemed to be losing some of his distrust of Fred, but Emma lived in sheer terror; even in my arms, she trembled in his presence.  If I held her very tightly, he could pat her head and speak softly to her, but as soon as he let go, she scratched her way out of my arms and ran for cover.

Even Jude, the shih-tzu we adopted from a shelter last October, could do nothing to convince either dog that Fred was trustworthy.  Jude loves Fred.   But his presence in our home brought about even greater problems - Jude eventually tired of the incessant barking at Fred and became a bully toward Bode and Emma, fighting them, sometimes viciously, and literally coming between Bode and me.  He would not allow Bode to jump into my lap, and would nip at his heels if I reached over him to lift Bode.  Bode watched him warily and became thin again before I realized Jude was preventing him from eating.

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I had no idea there were rescue groups in existence, especially breed specific groups.  But some months ago, in searching for a dog psychologist, I had come across a group headquartered very near my house.  It was with the president of this group I began conversing, and after a week of emails and phone calls, I had come to the sad conclusion that Bode and Emma needed to be rehomed.

It wasn't a decision made lightly.  In fact, if I had still been on day shift, I would never have considered giving them up.  But Fred and I work completely opposite shifts; the only time we see each other is on our days off.  And that meant that the dogs were alone at home with Fred half of every day, scurrying to the basement when he got home in the afternoon.  While Jude frolicked happily upstairs with Fred, Bode and Emma ignored the invitation of the open basement door, emerging only when my key turned in the lock at 2AM.

I couldn't stand the thought of my precious babies living half their lives in a cold dark basement in fear, always waiting for the sound of my key in the front door.  I wanted for them more than I could give.  I wanted for them a home where they could feel safe and happy.

John Lennon was wrong...sometimes you need more than love.