Jill Rants and Raves: Maisy - a short and beautiful life

On May 31st a couple of years ago I wrote a blog about what it was like inside the heart of an animal rescuer - that it isn't quite the same as 'loving animals'. There is an intensity of feeling, and at the same time an ability to disconnect from those we have 'rescued' so that we can move on to the next. Often the animals that are designated 'rescue only' at animal shelters show some small behaviour issue or have a minor medical condition and face euthanasia because cities prefer to spend their animal shelter dollars on enforcement of city leash laws rather than any preventive measures which might staunch this flow of innocent fur into the death houses.

In California shelters the little cage cards tell you what the 'disposition' of this beating heart will be - 'R24' means that the animal has a 24 hour window to get out alive. Maisy was one of those. A gorgeous red cattle dog sitting in her own urine and feces in a dark kennel building. I had seen her photo on Pet Harbour, the website which beams the images of thousands of unwanted and soon to die animals into the homes of animal lovers and rescuers everywhere.

I was driving to Stockton to collect other dogs for an agency who needed some transport for them - these lucky dogs were to come to San Francisco to find forever homes. While I was there, I asked a volunteer if she knew where this particular cattle dog was - all animals are given an 'A' number, which is their control number - but in the busy shelters animals get moved around from kennel to kennel as more arrive, while they are waiting for their dose of pink juice (that's animal control language for the euthanasia drug).

I finally found her - 9 months old, timid in the back of the kennel, snapping at my hands while I slowly approached her in the gloom, the barking in the building echoing off the walls, there were no windows and no way for her to see real light. As I slipped a leash around her neck, she starting spinning and I had to pull her from the kennel. As we emerged from the kennels into the bright hot May gleam of a Central Valley day, she shut her eyes in reaction.

And then as I coaxed, she began to let her tail swing gently from side to side and I started to run slowly with her by my side, just to see if she would resist or come along. Within an hour, Maisy, as she would later be called, was jumping into my car. The other dogs I was picking up were all in crates for the ride, but Maisy sat atop the crates, her head pointed in my direction, her eyes never leaving the back of my head.

But Maisy was not for me. Neither was she an incidental 'rescue'. I had recently found a red cattle dog dead on the freeway and I had stopped to pick her up just in case someone was looking for her at a shelter. And Aida had been talking for so long about finding a red ACD (Australian Cattle Dog) to keep her blue cattle dog Zelda company. So, when I had called her from the shelter, with Maisy, staring at me, she had said 'Bring her'. 6 hours after I got Maisy from Stockton, Maisy was on her way to a beautiful life with Aida and Zelda.

What I wrote in May 2006 was:

"Yesterday, as if in honour of the little red cattle dog dead on the 205, I 'rescued' another little red cattle dog from an animal shelter in the Valley whose date with death was imminent. The building in which this dog was housed - with up to 100 other dogs waiting for what is euphemistically known as the 'due out day' - has no windows and no air, the lights are dim and oftentimes the animals are barely visible in the concrete bunkers. Urine swims in the kennels, and feces grips the pads of the dogs' feet as they run backwards and forwards. There are no descriptions, no names just numbers.

I'm proud to feel this deep, primal sense of responsibility and love. And I love those who feel the same way. What piece are we missing? Or is that we in this subculture, are the ones who have been endowed with an extra gift - a gift of unconditional love."

Maisy became a wonderful and incredible dog. A few months ago, circumstances changed, and Aida found another wonderful home for Maisy. With a family who adored her. But life has a way of bringing us to our knees, and when Aida called me yesterday wailing and in agony to tell me that Maisy had been hit by a car and killed, I found comfort only in the knowledge that unlike the dead dog on the freeway, Maisy was with those who loved her. My wounded heart will recover. Probably sooner than I think.