The Dog with the Old Soul

“I’m thrilled and happy that Llama—” she indicated the golden retriever next to her “—has become a working guide. But I’m sad, too, because it is always hard to say goodbye to someone you love.” She picked up Llama’s leash and handed it to Gil, Llama’s new partner. “Goodbye, Llama. You are a special dog.”

The crowd murmured in appreciation, and some in the audience sniffled audibly and reached for their tissues. Then the graduation was over. Soon Llama and Gil were on their way to Vancouver, Canada, and Donna was on her way home to Newark, California, knowing there was a good chance she would never see Llama again.

Llama was the third puppy the Hahn family—Donna, John, and their daughters, Wendy and Laurel—had raised for Guide Dogs for the Blind, but he was the first to complete the program and become a working guide. He had come into their life fifteen months earlier, a red-tinged golden retriever with white hairs on his face and muzzle that gave him a washed-out, unfinished look. “An ugly dog,” Donna had said at the time. But soon his looks didn’t matter.

At first, Llama was as helpless as any new baby. “Neee, neee, neee,” he cried when he was left alone. He woke Donna in the night and left yellow abstract designs on the carpet when she didn’t get him out the door fast enough. Donna patiently cleaned up the accidents. Soon Llama learned “Do your business,” one of the early commands that every guide dog puppy learns, and the accidents rapidly decreased.

Like all guide pups, Llama was trained with love and kind words, rather than with food treats. Soon he would follow Donna through the house on his short puppy legs, collapsing at her feet when she said, “Sit,” happy to be rewarded with a pat and a “Good dog.”

Llama seemed to double in size overnight. By the time he was five months old, he was accompanying Donna everywhere. It wasn’t always easy. Llama had to learn to overcome his natural inclination to sniff the ground and greet every dog he met on the street. At the supermarket he learned not to chase the wheels on the grocery cart. At Macy’s he learned to wait while Donna tried on clothes. With a group of other puppies in training, Llama and Donna rode the ferry across San Francisco Bay and toured the noisy city.

In May Donna was summoned for jury duty in superior court in Oakland. Of course, she took Llama. Privately, she hoped that his presence would be enough to get her automatically excused, but the plan backfired. For a week, Llama lay patiently at Donna’s feet in the jury box while Donna attended the trial.

All too soon, a year was up, and the puppy that had wagged its way into Donna’s heart was a full-grown dog, ready to return to the Guide Dogs campus in San Rafael and start professional training. There was only a fifty-fifty chance he would complete the program. Working guides must be physically and temperamentally perfect before they are entrusted with the life of a blind person. Donna had given Llama all the love and training she could; now his future was out of her hands.

Llama passed his physical and sailed through the training program. When it came time to be matched with a human partner, the young golden retriever was paired with Gil, a curator at an aquarium in Canada. Matching dog and human is a serious and complicated ballet in which the dog’s strengths, weaknesses and personality are balanced against the human’s personality and lifestyle. When done well, an unbreakable bond of love and trust develops between human and dog.

Gil and Llama were a perfect match, and their bond grew strong and true. Gil had never had a guide dog before. Once home, he found that Llama gave him a new sense of confidence, independence and mobility. Every day they walked together along the seawall to Gil’s work at the aquarium. In time, everyone grew to know Llama, and Llama grew to know all the sights and sounds of Gil’s workplace. For ten years, Llama was at Gil’s side every day—at home, at work, on vacation, and on trains, planes and buses.

Meanwhile, at the Hahns’, Wendy and Laurel grew up and moved away from home. John and Donna continued to raise pups. Their fourth dog became a family pet. The fifth became a working guide in Massachusetts, and the sixth a service dog for a physically handicapped teen.

While they were raising their seventh pup, Donna’s husband, John, a fit and active air force veteran, began having stomach problems. An endoscopy revealed the bad news. John had advanced gastric cancer. Thus began a long series of treatments and operations to try to catch the cancer, which always seemed one step ahead of the surgeon’s knife. It was a grim, sad, stress-filled time. Soon John could no longer take any nourishment by mouth. With John’s strength waning daily, the family came to accept that he had only a few months to live.

In October, with John desperately ill, a call came from the Guide Dogs placement advisor. “Donna, we just got a call that Llama is being retired. He’s been working for ten years, and all that stair-climbing and leading tours at the aquarium have caught up with him. He has pretty bad arthritis. Gil is coming down to train with a new dog. I know John is terribly sick, and the last thing you might want to do right now is take care of an old dog, but Gil specifically requested that we ask you if you could give Llama a retirement home. He can’t keep Llama himself, but he wants him to be with someone who will love him.”

“Of course we’ll take him,” said Donna, never hesitating.

Several days later Donna drove up to the Guide Dogs campus to pick up Llama. She paced back and forth across the receiving area as she waited for a kennel helper to bring Llama to her.

“Do you think he’ll recognize me after ten years?” she anxiously asked an assistant in a white lab coat.

When Llama arrived, moving stiffly in the damp morning air, it was not the joyous reunion she had imagined. Llama seemed pleased to see her, but in a reserved, distant way. An hour and a half later, Llama was back at the house where he had spent the first year of his life.

Donna pushed open the front door. “John, we’re home.” Llama didn’t hesitate for a second. He walked in, turned and headed straight into John’s bedroom, as if he had been going there every day of his life. From that moment on, he rarely left John’s bedside. Although he was too old to guide, Llama had found a place where he was needed.

Llama was a careful and gentle companion for John. When John got out of bed, pushing the pole that held his intravenous feeding bottles, Llama was beside him, ready to protect him, but careful never to get in his way or get tangled in the medical apparatus.

“I don’t know how that dog always seems to know exactly what you need, but he surely does,” said Donna more than once.

“He was sent to take care of me,” John replied.

By the end of the month, John’s condition had worsened. The hospice nurse administered morphine. Donna was afraid the drug would make John disoriented and that he would try to get out of bed and would fall over Llama, so she ordered the dog to leave the room.

“Llama, out.”

Llama, who had never disobeyed a command, didn’t budge.

“Llama, out.”

Llama didn’t move a muscle and remained planted by John’s bed.

The next morning, however, Llama began to pace frantically back and forth through the house.

“What’s wrong with him, Mom?” asked Wendy, who had come home to help her mother.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s sick.”

The pacing continued all day and into the evening. At 9:30 that night, John passed away. Llama stopped pacing and lay quietly by the door.

“He must have known the end was near,” said Wendy.

Llama lay at the door, refusing to move, forcing people to step over him. For three days he grieved, along with the rest of the family. On the fourth day he got up, went to Donna and placed his grizzled head in her lap. He had found someone else who needed him.

Today Llama and Donna are rarely separated. They visit neighborhood friends, both dog and human, daily. They go to Guide Dogs meetings, take walks around the lake and occasionally go to the beach. A neighbor has made Llama a ramp so that he can avoid stairs and get in and out of cars. The dog Donna had given a home and her heart to, and then had sent out into the world to help another, had brought that love back to Donna when her need was greatest.

I cried the first time I heard the story of Llama. The second time I heard it, I knew it was a story that needed to be shared. Give yourself to a dog, and you will get love and loyalty in return. Dogs know when you need them most.

Too Many Cats in the Kitchen

Maryellen Burns

Knock! Knock! Knock!!

Six-thirty in the morning! My husband, Leo, and I wake up. Someone’s incessantly knocking on the door downstairs. I panic. Who is it? A loved one had an accident? A neighbor found one of our cats dead in the street? I try to shake off my anxiety and the five cats that had rooted themselves to my lap and legs all night.

We stumble to the door. My friend Angela is there. “I’m sorry to come over so early,” she says, “but I’m supposed to shoot a commercial for Safeway grocers at seven-thirty and my scheduled location is kaput. You have such a wonderful kitchen. Could I possibly bring a film crew here in an hour?” Her British accent adds an extra note to this early morning request.

My first thoughts are, Leo has to teach and the kitchen is a mess. We haven’t cleaned up from dinner last night. Piles of dishes are in the sink and on the stove. We’d need to hide cat bowls and kitty litter, and vacuum up mucho cat hair.

Second thought? Yes! We spent two years restoring our kitchen and are proud of its 1910 Craftsman features: a six-burner, double-oven Magic Chef range, lush redwood-veneer cabinets, a black-and-white soda-fountain floor and old-fashioned comfiness.

We look at each other. A lot needs to get done. Leo rushes to the kitchen to feed cats, clean and make coffee before dressing and going to work, while I attempt to de-cat the living room.

An hour or so later a crew of eight gathers on the front porch—producer Angela; three men with camera gear; Rosa Nosa, our fluffy tortoiseshell, who has rushed out to greet them; and three outdoor cats, who scramble to hide.

Opening the front door is a struggle because Nishan, our little disabled, back-legs-all-tangled-in-on-themselves cat, is parked in front of it.

I finally get the door open, and a sullen-voiced man, the director, asks, “How many damn cats do you have?”

“Nine,” I tell him. “Or possibly more. You never know who they brought home last night.”

“There aren’t going to be any cats in the kitchen, right?” he asks.

I assure him that the kitchen can be shut off from the rest of the house and it won’t be a problem.

Brushing cats away from his legs, he hurries through the living room and into the kitchen, as if he knows the way.

“We need to set up. No time for niceties,” he says.

I follow him, and there is Rosa, sitting on the butcher-block island, looking every bit the superb hostess she is.

He picks her up and plops her roughly to the floor. “I said no cats in the kitchen!”

I pick her up, reassure her and take her outside.

“What have you done? Angela said your kitchen had a slightly messy, warm, lived-in look. You’ve cleaned it. Now we’ll have to dirty it again!”

Angela and I look at each other. I can tell that this guy is a major pain in the neck, and I hope I can get through a whole day with him in my house. He gives the room a cursory look.

“I like the stove. I want a pot of water, steam rising from it. Mess up the counters. I want fresh vegetables, canned tomatoes, a flour sack spilling out. Move the butcher block to the center of the room. It should be the focal point. What’s that cat doing here? I thought I told you to remove all the cats!”

Angela picks up the cat. It’s Rosa Nosa again. She starts to purr, presses her red nose against Angela’s face. Meanwhile, Hephzibah and Honky, the two oldest cats in the household, wander in, looking for food and water. They jump up on the kitchen table, demanding attention.

For the first time, the director spots Nishan hiding under the kitchen table. She scurries out, dragging her useless hind legs. The director looks disgusted. “What is it with these cats? Get. Them. Out. Of. The. Kitchen. Now!”

“Oh, Terry,” pleads Angela. “The talent won’t be here for an hour. Let the cats be. We’ll clear them out before we start filming.”

He looks as if he might relent, but something in the tone of his voice spooks the cats. This is not a cat person. They scatter. Except for Rosa, who insists on taking up residence beneath the butcher block with Nishan, her shadow.

To understand Rosa and Nishan’s relationship, you need to know a little about how we came to keep them. Rosa was born about three months after my mother died, one of six kittens from Little Guy, Mom’s faithful companion throughout her illness. Of all the kittens she was the prettiest, the liveliest, a furry lump of playfulness with an air of responsibility, a dignified poise and a beautiful red patch across her cute little nose. Everything about her reminded us of my mother, Rose. We wanted to keep her but couldn’t justify it, because she had so many offers of a home and we had so many kittens to place. We gave her to Monica, a little girl who lived down the street.

Within twenty-four hours, Monica was on our doorstep, a squirming kitten in hand, face and cheeks swollen and red. She was allergic. Would we keep her until she could give her to a new home on Monday? My mother had always said she’d return one day as a madam of a cathouse or as one of Leo’s cats. There was a reason this cat had come back to us. We were meant to keep her.

A year later Rosa and Giselle, a loveable stray we had taken in, bore kittens within a few days of each other. A couple of weeks later Giselle moved her kittens atop a bed in Mom’s old room, except for the runt, a tortoiseshell that looked a little like Rosa. Leo picked her up. For the first time we realized she had twisted, deformed hind legs. “I don’t know if this one is going to survive,” he said, carrying her to Giselle and placing her at a teat. But Giselle rejected her and moved the other kittens again. This happened two or three more times.

Leo is softhearted. He hates to see any little critter suffer. Obviously, Giselle didn’t want her. Something had to be done. The next day we took her to our vet.

“If her mother refuses to nurse her, she could die in a couple of days on her own, but she looks like a survivor to me. It’s a big responsibility, but why don’t you try again? You could feed her by hand, and in a week or two we could put a cast on her legs and try to straighten them.”

Home she went. Giselle wouldn’t nurse her. That night she moved the others yet again. Next morning we’re lying in bed. Rosa is nursing her kittens under our desk. We see a little face peeking in at the foot of the doorway and then watch the disabled kitten scurry across the floor to Rosa and push all the other kittens out of the way, looking for sustenance. Rosa begins licking Nishan all over and looks up at us as if to say, “What’s one more?”

When almost all the kittens had new homes, my niece Penny showed up with six more, barely three weeks old. Someone had abandoned them. Would Rosa nurse them? Rosa didn’t hesitate. All kittens were welcome, but Nishan was her favorite. She never grew beyond the size of an eight-week-old kitten. Rosa continued to nurse Nishan for almost two years. Wherever Rosa went, Nishan followed.

They are together now, watching the crew ready the kitchen for filming. The actors arrive. Rosa runs to the door to greet them and lead them into the kitchen.

Everything is ready for the first take. Spaghetti pot boiling on the stove, lettuce washed and dried by hand, husband and wife intimately touching shoulders as they laugh and make dinner together.

“Cut! Where did that damn cat come from?”

There is Rosa, perched majestically on the lower deck of the butcher block, taking a keen interest in the proceedings. I pick her up and put her on the back porch.

The director sets up the shot again. “Camera’s rolling,” he says.

The salad is being tossed; noodles are placed in boiling water. I see Nishan, who had remained hidden, peer out from behind a butcher-block leg. Within minutes Rosa is back in place, following every move of the camera. The director doesn’t seem to notice at first. When he does, he silently picks her up by the scruff of her neck and tosses her out.

Minutes later she is back, arching her back against the director’s legs, as if trying to seduce him. Again, he picks her up and tosses her out the French doors.

Before you know it, she’s back again, under the stairs. Neither the director nor the crew has noticed there is a cat door. As I wonder if I should block it so Rosa can’t get back in, she suddenly leaps from the floor to the kitchen table and then takes another flight to the butcher block.

“There are too many cats in the kitchen!” the director barks and stomps out of the room.

Angela follows him. I hear muffled voices, his strident and nasty, Angela’s soft and lilting as she tries to calm him. One actor has picked Rosa up and is tickling her under her chin. She responds with a rumbling purr and a gracious movement of her head.

The director comes back, temper under control, but barely. Angela follows, a catlike smile on her face. “A few more takes and we’re done,” he says. “I give up.”

Rosa remained in place for the rest of the morning, looking like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard demanding her close-up.

“That’s a wrap,” the director called.

He never broke a smile or thanked us for giving up our house and our time. He just watched silently as the rest of the crew packed up the camera gear, the lights, the food, petted Rosa one more time and left.

A week or so later Angela called to say that the commercial was going to air at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday and would be rebroadcast for a month or two.

We set up the television recorder, gathered all the cats on the bed and waited to see Rosa’s debut. The commercial ended. The editor had left all Rosa’s scenes on the cutting room floor! The ad was okay but we thought it lacked the emotional punch Rosa might have given it.

Rosa, in one of her rare acts of petulance, jumped off the bed. In solidarity the other cats followed her. Only Nishan remained to ease our disappointment. A strong union household, we boycotted Safeway for a while but realized it wasn’t their call; it was the call of a director who didn’t realize that the biggest joy of all is too many cats in the kitchen.

Transforming U

Suzanne Tomlinson

As a longtime journalist, I never imagined a writing assignment from a popular horse magazine would lead me to personal transformation. But that was exactly what happened when I met a horse with a giant letter U branded on his well-muscled neck.

I’d been asked to write a piece about how to have a successful match when adopting a horse from a rescue center. A lifelong horse-crazy gal with horses of my own, I was excited about the assignment.

I interviewed the Grace Foundation director, Beth DeCaprio. She provided some solid information and great tips on how to find a perfect equine partner at a rescue organization. Then she told me about an upcoming project—the HELP Rescue Me Trainers’ Showcase. It had grown out of a crisis involving wild horses.

In the Midwest about two hundred of the Bureau of Land Management’s mustangs had gone through three auctions with no bidders. When that happens, the BLM brands the horses nobody wants with a big letter U to identify them as unwanted. They are no longer the responsibility of the BLM. Most of the horses with this sad scarlet letter go to slaughter operators. These particular two hundred U horses were sent to a ranch in Nebraska, where a rancher placed them on his property and then left them to fend for themselves.

The Humane Society of the United States rushed in to help but not before many of these horses died from starvation. Horse rescue groups, including the Grace Foundation, traveled to a rehab center where the surviving mustangs were being held in the hopes that they could be helped. Beth and her volunteers agreed to take thirty-one of the U horses back to her center in California, near Sacramento. Other rescue organizations took on the remaining unwanted horses.

Beth came home with the daunting task of finding these horses forever homes. Suddenly an inspiration hit her. Why not pair professional trainers with each of her thirty-one mustangs to give these wild horses seventy days of training and make them more adoptable?

Local trainers took to the idea. They came to the Grace Foundation and each picked out a mustang. At the end of the training period Beth brought the whole gang—mustangs and their trainers—to the big annual horse expo in Sacramento to show off. She called it the Trainers’ Showcase. Each trainer demonstrated to the crowd what had been accomplished in those seventy days of training. I watched in the audience as thirty-one horses and thirty-one trainers entered the arena to show what an untrained wild horse could learn in a very short time. The crowd in the stands was moved to standing ovations again and again. Many of the horses were under saddle and seemed at ease with the chaos of the arena, the lights and the noisy crowd. Some of the U-branded horses had learned impressive dressage movements; others jumped obstacles with confidence; all had the beginnings of trust with humans, despite the fact that all the humans they’d met in the past had brought them nothing but hardship and pain. At the end of the event the mustangs were offered for adoption. Would they still be unwanted?

I wrote my story about adopting a horse from a rescue organization, plus a sidebar about the unwanted horses at the horse expo. Editors at the magazine suggested I check on the U-branded horses in a few months and find out what had happened to them.

In the meantime my life suddenly, unexpectedly, turned upside down. My seemingly solid twenty-four-year marriage crumbled, damaged beyond repair. For a time I thought the shock and the pain would kill me. I fled to the guesthouse on our property to be alone. In those first few days of facing the ugly truth about a marriage I had thought was based on faithfulness, I asked God for help. I remember praying, Dear God, if what I feel now is going to kill me, please take me now. But if I am supposed to survive it, please let me rest and feel your peace. Show me your light and I will know I can get through this.

For the first time in several days I slept for many hours. What awakened me was not the jolting remembrance of the nightmare I was living. It was the brightest light of morning I had ever seen, streaming through window blinds that were closed…the light so bright, so lovingly piercing, it woke me up. Something had shifted in that dark night of the soul. In the recesses of my mind there was a knowing—I am deeply loved by God and the divine that dwells within me. The pain, the anger, the unbearable grief just dissolved away. God’s peace was all around me and in me. Thank you, God, I said to myself. I have my answer. I can go on.

In the days that followed I began to count my blessings. Our children were grown and on their own. I had financial resources. And I had strength beyond anything I could have imagined. Upon filing for divorce, I moved out. I found a nice house on five acres with a perfect setup for horses and moved in, along with two dogs, one cat and my two horses.