JANUARY 8
Looking at what she leaves on the floor is like reading tealeaves. Did she digest the meat and rice, or are we getting it all back intact? 48 pounds. She actually dropped a pound since our first vet’s visit.
Bandit’s top lid is slightly swollen where he clashed with Lily. My poor dog who lives in this house comfortably until his space is invaded by a restless, starving German shepherd sniffing his tail, his footprints in the snow, his bed, his bowl.
Lily sits in my truck looking out the back window. Looking at me until we’re out of the car and on a scale and cowering while blood flows from our arm into a vial.
Tests: negative for parasites. The vet changes her antibiotics, changes her food, introduces pro-biotics for her intestines. Why so much diarrhea? Why no weight gain?
Why?
I write a check for $345 dollars and squeeze my eyes shut. I listen to advice about dog behaviorists and trainers. I need to erase the tension among the dogs and the people in my house.
We each deserve to lay our heads down in the dark, breath deeply, and remain undisturbed until we wake.
A baby gate! Jerry says, put up the gate. Keep them apart when they eat, that’s when there are problems…
He is right, and it’s so simple! They all eat at the same time just fine with supervision. I feed Lily over and over and over and often alone, praying she’ll soak up a little extra. That’s when somehow the eyes in the back of my head aren’t working. Bandit sneaks in. Fight. Brief and dangerous. Their snarling mixes with my yelling. They stop. Bandit pants. Blood is smudged beneath his eye and I feel I have forced him into an impossible and violent place, like ordering him into a minefield.
Another day and I sit at work and wish I could look toward home and somehow see that they are alright. Work ends and I call Jerry incessantly. Are you home? Are they OK? Was there a problem? How’s Lily how’s Lily. How is she?
I close the bar where I work Thursday nights and drive home with hope with fear with a pep talk in my head that fades with images of Bandit’s bloodied and uncomprehending face.
I look through the front door and see Bandit, Hershey, and Little Ozzy the pug wagging. Stepping to the sliding basement door Lily emerges. She seems OK. Baby gate, food, downstairs to read.
I find a scrap of paper where I wrote, sorry, I am stupid and tried to throw dogs together and do something that wouldn’t work. I had planned to give it to Jerry during a moment of self-hatred, but I never did.
From the corner of my eye I see that something isn’t right with the note. I look more closely and see the handwriting is funny. Jerry had added: You’re just an animal lover who is trying to do the right thing.
Thanks you Jerry. Lily comes down to curl up in a mesh of jutting bones and plunks her head on the floor. Good girl Lily.