The Dog With the Old Soul (10 page)

Sue Pearson

“Have you noticed that skinny horse
in the pasture along the road to your house?” My neighbor and I sometimes run into each other at the feed store, and today she was concerned about this sad-looking horse standing in the blazing sun with its head hung down, looking forlorn and neglected.

I know this horse. Our lives are intertwined. The story is very different than it appears. To be sure, there is suffering, but
along the way there is an invitation to trust in a higher power—a chance to experience the nearness of God. Shiloh and I both have been touched by grace, our paths connected by some divine guidance.

Spiritual growth is often difficult, and this chapter in my growth began when a health crisis sidelined me from a successful career as a journalist and pushed me into early retirement. Friends said, “Just stay at home and play with your horses.” And while that sounded appealing, it also sounded a bit self-centered. An organization called Wonder, Inc., offered a chance to make a difference, not in the world or even in my community, but in just one life…the life of a child in foster care.

And so I became a mentor to MJ, an eight-year-old with hair the color of wheat, eyes that sparkled, a personality that said, “I can and I will” again and again. It’s the quality the people in child protective services call resilience, and MJ has it. Her enthusiasm won my heart. “When can we start having adventures?” “Can you teach me anything?” “I love to learn!” I explained to MJ that, according to the rules, I had to have three home visits before we could start going out and doing things together. Each time I came over, I brought what I thought were interesting craft projects for us to do in her foster home, things like egg decorating, scrapbooking and beadwork. She dove into each project but didn’t have much to say. Where had the earlier excitement gone?

“Is there anything on your mind, MJ?” I asked.

“Yes, there is,” she said. “When can we get outta here and start having fun?”

“Okay. Next time, I promise, we can get out of here and start having fun.” I laughed. I told her a little bit about myself. “I have five children—one girl, four boys—and mostly they are grown and gone from home. In six months my youngest boy will graduate from high school and leave for college.”

MJ threw back her head and turned to me, her long ponytail flicking from side to side. “Well, aren’t you lucky to have me now!”

I laughed at her spunkiness. Looking back, this was the moment I fell in love with her, certain a lifetime bond was in the making.

We went to plays, concerts, the zoo, skipped rocks at the river, hiked in the mountains, played with my dog; and when a neighbor offered to loan me her child-safe pony, I gave MJ riding lessons. I knew from my long years of riding and caring for horses that these animals offered an extraordinary learning experience. In honing good equestrian skills, a lot of pretty amazing life skills get formed and sharpened. Things like leadership, patience, responsibility, self-confidence and more. MJ was a little scared when she first got on Diamond, but with slow and steady guidance from me, she was ready for her first horse show within eight months. We borrowed show clothes, and together we groomed Diamond until the pony gleamed.

In the show arena, I had to let go of MJ. No more helping. She was on her own now. I leaned against the arena fence, drumming my fingers nervously on the top rail. I must have held my breath the entire time, because when the judge announced the results, with MJ awarded first place, the air came rushing out
of my lungs in one huge whooping shout of joy. The smile on MJ’s face could have lit up the universe. I was helping her with what is all too often missing in the life of a foster child—the opportunity to thrive. The surprise was how much she gave back to me. I felt energized and needed.

Suddenly MJ was at a crossroads. From her social workers she learned she would either return to her biological mother, be put up for adoption or stay in foster care until she aged out of the system at eighteen. Every option seemed scary. While the unknown was looming, the thing MJ was most concerned about was me. I had indeed filled the role Wonder, Inc. had intended—to be a constant presence, the one who followed through on promises and offered a fount of unconditional love.

“I’m worried we won’t be able to be together.” The usually upbeat MJ was somber.

I did my best to reassure her. “Honey, as far as I’m concerned, I’m with you for life. Even if you get tired of me someday, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me.” I hoped she would smile but she didn’t. It’s hard to trust when trust has been broken. I knew I would hang in there no matter what, but MJ wasn’t so sure.

In a matter of weeks MJ’s mother lost her parental rights, and thus going home was no longer an option for MJ. Social workers sought to find a family who would adopt her, and three times she was moved. I saw MJ try her hardest to bond with the new parents, accept different rules, adjust to new schools, find new friends and just fit in. But every time she did these things, she was expected to do it all over again somewhere else.

The people who study the effects of the foster-care system on children say these kids experience more post-traumatic stress than war vets. Having now seen it up close, I understand.

Through each move I stayed connected, though the foster families lived many hours away. MJ told me she had high hopes for the second foster home. “The room they had fixed up for me was so pretty. I thought I could be happy there.” When I visited after the third move and took her out to lunch, she was desperately unhappy.

At the noisy café, she leaned in close and said, “I told myself to just hang on, because I knew when you got here, you would make everything all right. Get me back to the other family quick, okay?”

I choked back tears. “Oh, MJ, I don’t have these magical powers. I can’t make everything all right. The only thing I can do is be your friend and love you through all the good times and bad times. I will hug you when you are sad. I will listen when you need to talk. I will be your cheerleader for life. Someday you are going to have a life of your own design and it’s going to be wonderful.” Now we were two broken hearts. Hers because I wasn’t the hero she wanted me to be. Mine because I had to take away that illusion. I cried most of the way home.

Later I made plans with a stable near MJ to bring our borrowed pony for day trips so she could continue her riding lessons. I began to map out a routine and dream up new adventures. I knew there were some problems in the new family and that MJ was not doing well in school. I thought the foster-care
people would give this patched-together family time to work everything out. I was wrong. The director of Wonder called. “Sorry to have to tell you this, but MJ has been moved yet again, and I don’t have the new contact information. We’ll just have to be patient.”

What! Be patient? Are you kidding?
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Four moves in six months! I was angry. How could a system meant to protect these children bring so much additional trauma into their lives by shuffling them around? MJ was in a state of perpetual emotional whiplash. No one should have to endure this chaos, much less our vulnerable, powerless children. This time I wanted to shake things up…take some people down…bring the system to a reckoning. I vowed to call on my journalism skills to right this obvious wrong.

But the assault on the system would have to wait until Monday. Some weeks before, I had signed up to spend that weekend at a spiritual retreat, a monastery in the mountains, looking out over the sea. Within the first few hours I felt a tremendous calling. I kept sensing a message….
Be quiet. Lose the anger
.
Wait without judgment
. But what was happening to MJ and so many other foster children was just wrong. Something should be done. Then that message again.
Be still. Be open.
I listened. As hard as it was, I shed the anger and the judgment. I would hold a quiet vigil, because I had made a decision to trust this piercing message.

Monday afternoon the director of Wonder, Inc. called me. “MJ has a new foster home and guess where it is.” Well, it could have been anywhere in the state. I wasn’t in the mood for games.
So to be flippant, I spat out the name of the unlikeliest place—the tiny country hamlet where I lived.

“Yes!” the director said. “That’s where MJ’s new home is.”

“Don’t be kidding around with me,” I said.

“No, no kidding. In fact she lives just down the street from you,” he replied.

God winked. I am sure of it. I was deeply humbled.

Three years have passed since I heeded God’s message to lose the anger and wait. MJ is flourishing in a stable family with a foster mom and dad who have good values and great parenting skills. They, and I, are committed to helping MJ succeed in life. She is doing well in school and has joined the ranks of preteens everywhere, with girlfriends, sleepovers and a lot of giggling.

A few months ago she and I went to visit a friend of mine who operates a horse rescue center nearby—a place called the Grace Foundation. My friend, Beth, knew of my mentoring journey with MJ. She said, “If you are ready to adopt a horse, I have one I have been saving for just the perfect home. MJ, would you like to meet Shiloh?”

And that is how Shiloh came to live in the front pasture at MJ’s house. The horse had been badly neglected, starved and left in a barren field to die. MJ is taking excellent care of her horse, giving her plenty of good hay and clean water. The horse is groomed and stroked tenderly every day. MJ rides her on a nearby trail or bareback in the front field. Shiloh and MJ have a bond. They both know about betrayal and hardship.

The mare trots across the field in the morning as MJ walks from her house to the bus stop. It’s not far. In the corner where
the fencing meets, the horse can see her best friend being taken away in a big, noisy yellow box. She has no idea where. But she is willing to suffer the searing heat of the sun to wait there for MJ. Shiloh trusts her quiet vigil will end when her friend is returned in the afternoon. A passage from the Bible frames this scene: “In silence and in hope will be your strength.”

As MJ steps from the bus and walks along the fence line to the house, the horse trots from the corner to the other end of the pasture to follow her home. They both have learned that love is worth waiting for. So have I.

Hal Bernton

I married into the basset-hound breed.

One day in Twin Falls, Idaho, after running the Snake River Canyon from rim to rim, I met a slender, young woman at a post-race picnic. Her basset hound grabbed the sandwich in my hand, and the owner, Ann, soon claimed my heart.

That was more than twenty-five years ago. Since then, Ann and I have shared many memorable moments with the gentle, long-eared, keen-nosed and often stubborn hounds.

There were bassets at our wedding and one on our honeymoon.

When my newspaper career took us north to Alaska for eleven years, our bassets joined us as we hiked through grizzly country, fished for salmon and picked fall berries in alpine meadows. In one memorable experiment, we briefly hitched our bootee-clad basset, Homer, to an Iditarod racer’s sled for
a pull through the snow. But bassets as sled dogs never quite caught on.

When we moved to the Pacific Northwest, Ann decided she wanted to check out field trials, which give your hound a chance to match his scent and tracking skills against other bassets. We joined a small, eclectic band of basset-hound brethren who have kept field trialing alive in our region. Most come from Washington and Oregon, and a handful from as far away as Idaho and California.

These dogs were initially bred in France as low-slung hounds that could help hunters pursue small game. The field trials are a way to honor this hunting heritage. The trials are held along a stretch of land in southwest Washington that is piled with Mount St. Helens’s ash dredged from a nearby river. This land has been reclaimed by a motley mix of Scotch broom, Himalayan blackberries and grasses, all of which provide prime cover for rabbits.

These competitions typically begin soon after daybreak. Most participants form a line, known as “the Gallery,” and walk forward slowly, beating the bushes with sticks or poles in hopes of flushing out a bunny. Eventually, someone cries “Tallyho!” as a rabbit scurries out of the brush. Then two bassets are walked up to the point where the bunny was last seen. They are left on the bunny’s trail for several minutes. That’s enough time for two judges to decide which of the dogs does a better job of following the scent. (Hunting is forbidden at field trialing, and bassets are bred to flush out game, rather than track it down and pounce on it. And the dogs are caught and leashed long
before they would have the chance to catch and harm the rabbits they pursue.)

At first, field trialing didn’t hook me. I thought the people were too intense and the pace was awfully slow, and many of the dogs often were surprisingly uninterested in following the rabbit scents. My dog, Winston, was a complete bust and finished far back in the pack. But Ann was not ready to give up on Winston. She was convinced he eventually would figure things out. He had been born at a humble kennel in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, one that had not produced any renowned field-trial dogs. But on our walks and weekend outings, Winston always had his nose to the ground, so Ann was convinced his mythical “lightbulb,” which one of our field-trial friends had talked about, would turn on.

It did. After a few field trials, Ann took Winston up to the point where the rabbit was first spotted. He inhaled deeply and began to howl. A wild, exuberant howl that he repeated again and again as he sniffed his way through the field. Winston took a red ribbon that day. In the months and years that followed, he won enough ribbons to gain the title of a champion. In 2008 he finally had enough placements to reach the highest level of achievement—grand field champion.

All this was not accomplished without controversy. Judges assess the dogs on a number of traits, such as desire, determination, endurance and “proper use of voice.” Winston had plenty of critics who thought he was too quick to howl. Some called him a babbler who somehow fooled the judges by howling when he didn’t really, truly smell a rabbit. Over time, the criticism
eased, even if it did not fade entirely, as Winston aged and grew more refined in his approach. He would move more slowly, bark less often, and he once successfully followed a rabbit’s scent across a difficult stretch of sandy roadway.

There was plenty of competitive fervor at the field trials, sometimes too much, as a few nasty disputes flared up. There was also romance. Though most of the field trialers were well into their fifties, sixties or even seventies, one younger couple began their courtship while tramping through tall creek-side grass in search of rabbits. They ended up getting married. We all attended their wedding ceremony, held after a long day of field trialing. There were also sad moments. Some dogs died. Some field trialers died, and we tried to honor their passing by ensuring their dogs—brought down by surviving spouses—continued to compete.

In the spring of 2010 Winston was diagnosed with a blood cancer. Over the summer he gradually faded away. He would bleed internally, then regain strength and then bleed again. On our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary Ann and I went to stay at a hotel in the Columbia River Gorge. Winston was so weak that he had to be wheeled on the luggage cart to our room. He passed away the next day, and we buried him in our backyard.

Ann said she wouldn’t get another basset for at least a year. The illness had been so long and drawn out, and she wasn’t ready for another basset. She was upset that we had even tried to leave home on our anniversary. But it was awfully quiet at our house. Our two children had both left for college. At night it was just the two of us, and a lot of basset memories.

Last October I was driving down Interstate 5 near the basset-hound field-trial grounds. I realized there was a competition that weekend and stopped by to say hello. Everyone offered condolences about Winston’s passing. Then a friend suggested we consider adopting a two-year-old basset named Maverick. He had spent two months with a family in Oregon. Things hadn’t worked out, and he had just been returned to the kennel of his birth. Maverick had beautiful lines and those soulful basset eyes. He came right up to me at the field-trial grounds and put his paws on my lap. I gave him a hug and took a bunch of cell phone pictures of the dog to show Ann.

Today, Maverick is a much-loved member of our family, although we think he sometimes struggles with our suburban lifestyle. Maverick had lived most of his puppyhood at a wonderful place, Tailgate Ranch Kennels on Whidbey Island, where he spent his days playing in the fields with his siblings. He was a country boy, and he initially seemed a bit insecure. He frequently sought to jump in our laps or snuggle up against us as we sat on the couch. And he could be spooked by small things, such as the sound of rattling paper.

But he was passionate about hunting. That made walking a chore, as he strained on his leash and often refused to move past a promising scent of a squirrel or cat. So in the spring we brought Maverick to the field trials. In his first competition he was a dud, just like Winston had been. But the second time around, he came to the line and gave a howl. Then another and another as he raced off through the Scotch broom.