Flying Dogs to Safety By Peter Rork Photos by Rene Kaiser Riley The call came from Dee Dee Bowring, Shelter Manager for Idaho Humane Society (IHS) in Boise. Humane Society International (HSI) was on the ground in Korea,
But Worth the Trouble By Toinette Dickey In the spring of 1983, on a promising day for crops to come, my husband Alton Browne disked the field just west of the house beyond the irrigation ditch at our
Good Dog, Happy Boy Story and Photos by Desiré Aguirre When my son Nik was around ten years old, he began begging me to let him have a dog. His media campaign included a list of the advantages
I was five years old when I walked into my grandma’s house with a baby bird I’d found on the sidewalk. With tear-filled eyes, I announced in a determined voice, “It needs my help.” And so it began. Continue reading
We all dream about changing the world. For me, those dreams started early, at an age when the only actual change I could bring about was eating a different cereal for breakfast or watching a different cartoon on Saturday morning—but despite that powerlessness, I dreamed big. Continue reading
The austere concrete block building sheltered a crush of inhabitants, all desperately longing for love. The Kootenai Humane Society in Hayden was more than happy to hook us up with the companion of our dreams, and at a very reasonable price. Continue reading
This is the country, and there will be insects and mice around,” the home inspector explained to my real estate agent from the city. “But the rooster will take care of the bugs and the cats will take care of the mice.” Continue reading
At a freeway exit west of Caldwell, the landscape dips as it stretches west to Sand Hollow, a valley of rolling fields feeding a trickle of a stream lined with cattails, poplar, and purple loosestrife.
Farm homes dot the landscape, many of them surrounded by planted forests. A friend who goes by “Speedy” lives in one of these little forests. He loves the owls and quail and rabbits and hummingbirds and the occasional cougar that all make his abode part of their regular rounds.
Hoping to attract a croaking toad to his garden a few years ago, Speedy decided to dig a little pond between his small yard and the dense trees. The water did attract a more abundant population of critters away from the irrigation ditches, but he soon found himself with a problem—algae loved the pond. To control the algae, he purchased a dozen “feeder fish,” what I’d always known as “inexpensive goldfish,” but what keepers of larger fish call “feeders” for a reason. Continue reading
But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over to the man-animals.
There were days when White Fang crept to the edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling him far and away.
—Jack London’s White Fang
Puerto Vallarta had entered the sultry pre-storm season a little early in the first week of June. I was visiting expat friends, and would fly back to Idaho the next day. A movement in the restaurant caught my attention.
My eyes met the gaze of a medium-sized dog who walked indoors three paces, turned, and disappeared. I burst into tears.
A couple of weeks earlier, I had been in Victoria, British Columbia, with my mother and sister. On the last day of that trip, I got a call from my daughter, Margot, who said our white dog, Sky, had hurt herself playing with a friend’s puppy in our back yard.
“She was running and then she yelped a couple times and had trouble coming up the steps into the house. Maybe it’s her back again. She seems to be in excruciating pain, and is lying under the table panting. Her eyes are rolled back.”
When I got home to Moscow from Canada, Sky was moving easier but she listed and occasionally stumbled. In five days, I was to leave for the Mexico trip. Her right eye looked glazed, which wasn’t hard to notice in a dog with eyes so light they were nearly white, rimmed in black; knockout eyes that everyone admired. Then the eye became bloodshot until it was alarmingly red. Our friend and veterinarian, Janet, checked her.
“Sometimes they can snap out of it,” she said. “I don’t think it was a stroke, because her eyes don’t waver as would be expected.”
The eye cleared, but then her right nostril began to bleed, and for a while that day her nose seemed to be saturated in red. If it didn’t stop, I’d have to make choices. It was all happening so suddenly. The nose bleeding subsided, but she wasn’t eating. Another dog lover, Dave, suggested it might hurt her to chew dry food so I gave her some canned food, which she seemed to relish for a day or so.
I discussed options with Janet, Margot, and Dave, the three people who would care for Sky while I was gone.
“If she has to go, do it. I don’t want her to suffer.” Continue reading
The disheveled little dog shrank back from the kennel door and cowered under a yellow lab, seeking the big animal’s protection and refusing to meet our eager eyes.
He seemed to be about twenty-two pounds, not too tiny, with dirty white fur that stood out from his body, curly and wired, as if his tongue had explored an electrical outlet. His black nose, dark eyes, and gray- tipped ears were the only landmarks in the vast, off-white field of matted fur. It appeared that grooming had not been a top priority in his previous home.
We often talked about getting a dog, though I resisted. Our annoying cat had only recently stopped peeing on my bed. What if the next animal possessed such tiresome and difficult behaviors? But a boy needs pets and friends. Perhaps this matted mess could be both. Continue reading
