I was talking with a longtime elder-mentor-friend yesterday, reconnecting about holy things so important to each/both of us. A portion, therefore, was about our dogs. I was delighted to hear that in her advancing post-retirement age, this friend still walked her dogs 7-10 miles per day. “They don’t like to walk together,” she explained, "so 7-10 miles/day it is!" I shared some of my story with our Nala, including the anticipatory dream I had about her two weeks before she arrived. Such mysteries make sense in the Holy, after all.
But I find myself today wanting to share with her what I love about Nala, with pictures to boot. Well over 500 words...
Nala came into my life when we needed her much more than I knew. Our heart-dog Marley had died September 6th, 2017. Nala (who was named Lana, at the Animal Control shelter) came to us on November 1st. Neither Brian nor I had been actively looking for a dog, but events conspired on the evening of October 31st. Brian looked online, saw a picture of Nala/Lana as ‘available,’ and he said when I got home from circle, “I just can’t let it go…” So we went to the shelter and home with us she came!
I DO remember seeing her with another family, when I got there after a day’s worth of meetings. I sat down on the floor to get close, and she ran up to me, leaning into me immediately, landing between my legs and falling into my lap. She looked up and kissed me on the face. It was both surprising and immediately familiar somehow. I said to the family, “My husband was here earlier; we are adopting her today.” Technically an aggressive, pushy move, but they thankfully acquiesced, and home came Nala. We had to stop by PetSmart to get her kennel, food, another leash. Marley’s stuff was feasible for the short-run, but Nala was a bit smaller, especially at the start. Brian had a meeting that night, so he left the two of us on the couch. She climbed into my lap, laying lengthwise on my lap and chest, and promptly went to sleep. She was exhausted.
And adorably cute. I just looked at her most the evening, until Brian returned. I was so stunned to have a dog again, I wasn’t quite processing it all.
The next months, Nala led us on a merry chase of normalcy. Hysterical stories of her, communicating her need to be with people at all times. Her refusal to be contained. (It was a foolish human willfulness to get a second kennel, when she had clearly already obliterated the first one, for example.) She had been abandoned by her first human family–so we suppose–and lived on the streets of Fairborn Ohio for a period of weeks (animal control guessed). She could not be left alone without utter distress. What to do, with two busy working adults, trying to keep her into a lifestyle she could enjoy?
We eventually looked into The Doggie Retreat for doggie-daycare. That actually worked well for a over a year. She had a friend, Scipio, who was always with her in the pictures the staff would take, posting up on Facebook. But then I got the pet-owner’s call of shame. Nala had taken a bite out of a boxer, and wouldn’t let go. I was informed she was no longer welcome at the daycare center, so I needed to come to pick her up. And I did feel ashamed, out of habit! By the time I got her home, though, I was all up in my legal-defense-fierceness. Where was the inquiry?! What truly happened?! How did that dog attack her first?! She was framed!! We laugh about it now, of course, but I truly was angry. She is a social dog who only nips to defend her own boundaries. I’ve seen her do it with our nieces and nephew, for instance, and been envious that she is so clear. I’m certainly not clear when I need space from small kids or family! Just kidding…or not…you can decide.
Now into year five, Nala has settled into her forever home, and blessed assurance that her forever home really IS forever, as long as we have any say in the matter. (I could imagine her chasing a squirrel, for instance, or rabbit, and getting lost…she’s a bit obsessively focused in such ways…). We have our routines, the three of us, and she is a willful member of our household. Honorary human. She gets a celebratory beef-consumme cocktail in a coup glass on November 1st, toasting her arrival anniversary. She curls under my right arm at bedtime, snuggling in for the night. Lately, she’s taken to stretching out lengthwise, leaning against my leg, but it’s clear she’s in pack mode with us. Which suits both Brian and me just fine.
For myself, I recognize her arrival into my life was sacredly timed, and auspicious for both her and me. She has now become an extra little energy field that I’m accustomed to having around me, nearly all the time. When I felt broken or empty somehow, her energy helped that. Her consistent presence has taught me much about staying present, about being-with…her…but also others in my life. She feels so energetically a part of me, or me a part of her, that I do really miss her when we travel. She has been a consistent presence amidst a fair amount of change–from pandemic isolation to transitions out of WWfaC and now into new things, with new sisters of collaboration.
When I had the dream two weeks before she arrived, the coloring of the dog was just like Marley’s coloring. I had understood it in the receiving as a grief dream. I had not been remotely prepared for what losing Marley would be like. I was a hot mess, overwhelmed with grief I didn’t know how to name aloud. I kept feeling it shouldn’t be as bad as it was…”Just a dog,” said my Reason, so clearly WRONG. Marley had never been “just a dog…” So the dream was my heart aching for Marley, gone.
Except when Nala arrived, I knew instantly that the energy in the dream was not remotely Marley’s quietude, but Lana/Nala’s abandonment energies. I was in an inner tube, trying to paddle out into a harbor, out into a large lake or sea. I had lost my paddle, and someone was bringing one to me from up ahead. Then there was this little red dog, dog-paddling like mad to catch up with me. Everything about the little red dog was saying, “Don’t leave me behind. Don’t leave me behind!!!” So in the dream, I scooped her up in my right arm/torso, and pulled her close to me. I assured her, welcoming her onto my lap as she leaned into me, my chest. Just like I now do every night when it’s time for bed. She leans into my right armpit, chest-torso, and snuggles in for the night.
And I love it when she jumps onto my or Brian's lap on the front porch, leaning in, looking out. She can see the birdfeeder better, after all, and she wants to be close. I can literally feel my heart expand and the energy deepen, enveloping her, or she enveloping me.
I never knew I’d get to know another heart-dog, after Marley. Nala’s coloring is Marley-esque, and if you believe in these kinds of things, one could argue Marley sent us Nala, knowing we would need her.
For as long as we get to celebrate and enjoy her, then, we will. We are daily blessed with her affection, play, side-eye glances, stretches, bed-hog self. She communicates well, and knows she’s loved, safe. Good karma, all around.
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