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Entry #3

To all the dogs I loved before

By Hilary DanePublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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Where to begin. I wrote my letter. It was messy and confusing. I feel like the words "messy" and "confusing" sum up every single area in my life at the moment. This process is neither linear or easy. I'm having flashbacks and intrusions of some of the saddest moments of my life. My dogs. I don't understand why they keep coming up or what I'm supposed to do to process them. Do they play a part in the person I am today? I guess it makes sense. I don't know.

The first, when I was five years old. Im at our family farm. A few hundred acres spread out. I was going to visit my grandma. I called the dog and headed up the dirt driveway. After that, up the gravel road, passed all of the yellow fields to the main driveway lined by caragana bushes. When I arrived at the farm, my uncle had caught a couple of the horses to go for a ride. I was in my Grandma's house when he started yelling.

"Someone come get this f*cking dog out of here before I put it out of it's misery!"

I ran out to grab him. He was a herding dog, so he had a habit of going behind the animals and nipping at their back feet. Being that he was a farm dog, he never had a collar. I grabbed some binder twine and tied him to the fence surrounding my grandmother's yard. I went inside to help her with lunch.

We could see out her kitchen window (well, she could, I was much too short) into the front yard and out to the old red barn where they had the horses tied up, waiting to be saddled up. He was still barking. As we were making soup and sandwiches, the dog went silent. I didn't think anything of it. As my grandma placed the knife in the sink, she glanced outside. I saw her eyes squint behind her glasses, and then she turned and ran. Out of the kitchen, down the steps, out the front door and across the yard. I came to run out as she screamed

"Bring me the knife!!"

I went as quickly as my short, five year old legs could take me. I grabbed the knife and brought it to her. When I got there, I could see his swollen purple tongue hanging from his open mouth while his lifeless eyes seemed to stare right through me. She cut the twine from around his neck and tried resuscitating him. He was gone. I had tied a knot, but it was not proper. As he pulled, it tightened until he breathed his final breath. It was awful. My brother screamed at me.

"I told you not to bring him up here! You killed our dog!"

"I didn't mean to!" I shouted back. tears pouring down my face. I don't think I ever forgave myself. As far as I was concerned, it was me that killed my dog.

Three years later. My dad brought a dog home. I cannot remember what we called him. He'd come trotting up the driveway when we would get off the bus. The details around this one are vague. I don't know if it was only me going out that weekend, or if my brother was there. As I was coming down the hill, no dog was trotting up. I went inside. He wasn't in there either. I asked my dad.

"We call him Lucky now!" he told me. "He's down in the dog house."

Lucky stuck. I never forgot that. I went outside and around the front of the house, underneath the deck. I called out. Nothing. I think it was June. It was hot and dry. I looked into the dog house. He was there. Panting. The flies were everywhere. I could see his ribs. He was scabs and blood and flies and dust. He couldn't stand. The bottoms of his feet were gone. I cried. It's all I could do. I didn't know what else to do. I was only a kid. I can't remember if anyone else was there. I don't know if I ever told anyone. I don't know what happened with him after that. I did however find out how he ended up there.

"He was tied in the back of my truck. That stupid dog jumped out and got dragged behind on the gravel road. How was I supposed to know? He’s lucky he’s alive at all"

But he wasn’t. There was nothing lucky about him lying there suffering.

Sometimes I feel like I'm making this story up. I keep seeing this dog. Before I fall asleep. When I go out for dinner on a first date. When I'm stopped at a red light on my way to work. I just see the open wounds. And the pain.

Flash forward another 20 years. I'm living alone, essentially in the middle of nowhere. I'm the new mother of an 8 month old baby. I have a chihuahua. He walks with me every day. He curls up with me every night. He is the one that has been by my side through all of this. He's coming with me on a road trip. I'm going to see my friend. He tells me that I should take a break from my life and come stay with him. He wants to meet the baby. He wants to know if there's anything between us. Being that I always trusted him and enjoyed his company, this feels like a good choice. We load our stuff up for a 9 hour drive. When we arrive, it's a warm summer day. His home is in the country side. There's a baby swing hung on the tree. We sit in the yard and hang out. He has a dog that he's assured me loves kids and animals. His phone rings. His dad is in town and needs help moving a couch. He asks if I mind. Of course not. He leaves, and I'm going to go put the baby down. I take him out of the swing and head to the house. As I open the door I call my dog. His dog is sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Mine goes to tiptoe around her. She doesn't growl. She doesn't do anything. And before I can even realize whats happened my dog is lying on the ground, blood pouring out of his mouth. He didn't even have time to make a sound. 4 puncture wounds in his neck. It was so quick. At least he didn’t suffer. What else is there to say.

I went home. I trusted someone, and now I had a dead dog. It was my job to protect him, and just like that, he was gone. I just pictured my baby. I’m a mother. To protect is my job. I couldn’t even keep my dog alive. I remember thinking that I did not deserve to date. That I clearly could not be trusted to make a decision like that. I honestly don’t even know how I feel about it all today.

So what does this all mean? Do worse things happen to people? Of course. I don't know what this means to me now. I don't know how this affects my present day life. I don't know how or if I've properly processed any of these events. Anyone can understand why when one comes up, they all do. I'm not positive that the average person watches even one dog die a violent or traumatic death. There has to be a reason these are swirling around in my mind. I guess this is all a part of my journey.

trauma
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About the Creator

Hilary Dane

This is where it starts. I have a drive to write my story. I will use this platform to practice my craft, to work through some things and then, eventually, to finally complete my final project.

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