Several months ago, I ran across an on-line exchange between a friend in the rescue world and her ardent supporters.
The friend lamented that new, wet noses and sagging tails were arriving faster than peppier paws could be adopted out or fostered. Her breaking point came upon learning that one elder pup whom she’d fought furiously to get out of a shelter froze to death in her cage - because donated blankets are prohibited by that shelter.
She doesn’t know why she keeps fighting this losing battle, she said. It all feels so hopeless. To which her supporters reminded her of the hundreds of pets thriving in forever homes thanks to her efforts. Persuaded by her legion of followers, my rescue friend’s tearful emojis lifted into modest grins, then halos of hearts. Hundreds of lives saved is better than dozens.
One is better than zero.
On the first day of spring in 2013, I could not be persuaded that I’d saved a life. I was certain that I’d given up on one. It was on that day when my wife and I surrendered our beloved but troubled Boston terrier-Boxer mix, Louie, back to the agency from which we adopted him. No amount of love or behavioral intervention could tamp down his fear-based aggression toward strangers. Our condo complex - with its maze of blind corners - invited startled growls, lunges and bites. My wife feared walking our boy. The house of expansive love we’d imagined before adopting a pet had shrunk to a tight cubicle of fear.
It was only after Louie had been adopted by horse ranchers in the next county that I began to understand that we had saved him. Perhaps it was not in the forever way that we’d intended, but we did give Louie 10 months of foster love he may not otherwise have received. That knowledge in no way diminished the loss of my roughhousing playmate and constant, hiking and snuggling companion. But it did loosen the screws on the rack upon which I was breaking myself.
Thus, grief became a purifying force, a cleansing agent rather than a corrosive one. I could wipe away the baked-on grease and grime of a mournful situation without stripping away the precious metal of my spiritual container. It was only through the transmutation of guilt that my wife and I were able to love again and that I continue to co-pilot this educational mission of responsible pet parenting.
This weekend, the parallel tracks of Judaism and Christianity run especially close. One track follows an exodus from literal and metaphoric bondage toward an inner and outer place of joyous redemption. The other track powers through an inevitable betrayal and unimaginable excoriation toward resurrection and renewal.
Neither of these tracks, journeys and destinations would exist without some form of radical change, loss or death. In life, we can choose to be consumed by our situations or remolded and galvanized by them. We can choose to see “death” as both an ending and a beginning.
In the grand rescue scheme, weighing success by sheer numbers of companion animals saved against those lost is an invitation to defeat. I’ve met several rescuers who occasionally fall through trap doors of guilt or turn themselves on the spit of regret over what more could be done. Hearty rescuers persist in their work because they grieve without guilt. They channel their pain into action that moves the rescue needle toward the positive - one life at a time.
Rescue work itself is the promised land, the perennial resurrection.
Dedicated to all who serve and save our animal companions.