A Christmas Miracle Dog

Hello, lovely readers! Right now, you are probably just waking up, maybe enjoying a nice breakfast…and I have been on the road for HOURS already! 

Because there is no way for me to post today, I thought I’d tell you a little Christmas story instead. This is a blog about vegetarianism, and to me, a big part of being vegetarian is being aware of animal cruelty.  I know that a large part of the “vegetarian campaign” deals with awareness of slaughterhouse conditions and livestock cruelty, but it’s important to remember that domestic animal abuse happens just as frequently.  It’s hard to think about, but acts of cruelty to animals are all too frequent, and unfortunately often go overlooked or ignored until it is too late.  I know– it happened in my own back yard.

Back in 2006, I had just entered my second year of grad school, pursuing my MFA in creative writing.  My two roommates and I lived in a duplex, sharing a house with a man and his girlfriend.  They were less than classy, and in fact, very sketchy, but there had never been any trouble, and we barely interacted with them, really.  One day in late September, I returned home from class to find a romping, excited gray puppy in our backyard!  The couple had bought on a whim, and I definitely got the impression that they weren’t quite sure what they were getting into.  Regardless, she was one of the cutest animals I’d ever seen.  I didn’t recognize her breed, and asked what she was.  “An Australian cattledog,” they told me.  “A blue heeler.”

In the month of October, the couple began putting the dog outside more and more.  We would find her roaming the streets, occasionally covered in mud.  She was a digger, they told us.  They didn’t know how to keep her in the yard.  Still, we wondered– why weren’t they out looking for her when she got loose.  Every time we returned her back to her home, they would open the door, rolling their eyes.  There she is, they’d say.  Out again, huh?  Glad you found her. 

October began to turn colder and colder, and still the dog was left outside for hours on end.  Come November, the first snowfall hit the ground, and still the dog (Beavis, we learned they had named her, after she had failed to respond to Mathilda) remained outside, occasionally scratching at our door, begging to come in.  We began allowing her into our house.  One of my roommates already owned two dogs, so we would bring her inside to play with them.  During these indoor visits, we would also feed her– we noticed that she didn’t seem to be growing at all– she was still the size she had been when they brought her home in September.  In fact, she had started to look far too thin– sickly, even.

Around the time that we began to worry about the dog’s unhealthy state, we started hearing the couple argue through the walls of the house.  The man would yell at the woman, she would leave the house, crying and slamming doors…and then the man would yell at the dog.  One horrible afternoon, we heard what sounded like a kick and a yelp, and that was it– we were on the phone with animal control.  We reported the man, but never knew if animal control came or not.  The next day, he was back at it, yelling again. 

One night in late November, my roommate returned from class holding the dog, whom she’d found in the street, again.  This time she was covered in freezing mud and snow, and shaking.  Apparently she’d been out for hours.  We debated returning her at all– but what would we do?  Take her to a shelter?  Hide her in our house?  Eventually, we decided that she had to be returned.  As usual, they didn’t seem at all surprised or upset at the dog’s haggard appearance.  As we handed her over to her owners once again, this time, the dog seemed to pull back.  She didn’t want to go.

As we turned to return to our side of the house, my roommate paused and turned back.  “You want this dog, right?” she asked the woman.  “Excuse me?” our neighbor replied.  “I mean, you want her?  Because if you don’t want her, if it’s too much to take care of her, we would be happy to take her in.”  The women sniffed, looking offended at the notion that they couldn’t take care of this dog.  But the  man said, “Thanks.  We’ll definitely keep that in mind.” 

When we returned from Thanksgiving break, the woman was gone.  They’d been fighting more and more, so we assumed that she’d finally left him.  Or maybe he’d kicked her out– who knew?  But the man was still there.  And the dog– she was still there too.  Only now things were worse.  The man was obviously drinking a lot, and again we could hear him yelling at the dog, berating her.  We wondered if he was even feeding her at all.  He complained about her going to the bathroom in the house, and would refuse to let her into the house, telling us “all she does is crap in there.” 

In early December, I was talking to my mom about the situation.  “You just need to take that dog,” she told me.  “You can bring her down here when you come home for Christmas break.  Just get her out of there.”  I knew she was right– the dog didn’t have much time left.  It was now or never.

A few days before I was scheduled to drive home for Christmas break, we got a huge snow, at least half a foot.  The snow fell on a Friday night, and on Saturday the whole world was covered in white.  Around 7:30 on Saturday morning, my roommate tapped on my door.  “Can I come in?” she asked in a strange tone.  She sounded nervous.  I struggled to sit up– she’d woken me out of a deep sleep.  ”Yeah, come in,” I mumbled, groggily.  She opened the door slowly.  “Look what I have,” she whispered.  From her arms, a tiny gray face peeked out.  She had the dog!

She said that she had opened the door to let her own dogs out that morning, and as she was standing, waiting for them to go to the bathroom, the man had opened his own back door.  He hurled the dog across the yard, where she tumbled through the snow, coming to rest under a tree.  “You want a dog?” he asked my roommate vehemently, pointing fiercely at the dog, crumpled in a pile.  “You got her!”  My roommate ran into the snow and swiftly scooped up the dog, and then raced back into the house. 

At this point, I had been thinking about getting a dog of my own for a few months.  I had a cat that I loved, but to be honest, I’m a dog person.  I’d been thinking that I should just wait until the right dog came into my life, and here she was.  “Can I have her?” I asked my roommate eagerly.  She nodded, and, smiling, set her on the bed.

The dog was in a sad state of affairs.  She was extremely thin, disoriented, and dirty.  Her hair was matted down in places, and, quite frankly, she stank!  We quickly dressed and rushed her to the vet.  We filled the veterinarian in on her story, and when we set her down on the examining table, she looked up pathetically at all of us.  “Oh sweetie,” the vet said, “what did he do to you?” 

It turned out that she had three types of worms.  She weighed only eleven pounds, at least half of what a dog of her breed should have weighed at that point.  She was incapable of absorbing nutrients from the food because of the worms, which left her severely dehydrated and malnourished.  She seemed dazed and lifeless.  The vet gave us de-worming medication and some high-calorie food to get her stamina back.  She told us to bring her back in when we returned from Christmas break in January– we could see where she was then, in terms of progress.

We returned home with her and realized that we needed to pick a new name– after all, the name “Beavis” hadn’t served her very well thus far.  I’d always liked the name Eloise, so I suggested it.  Eloise, we all said.  Ella.  I wish I could say she perked her ears up, but she didn’t.  Still, the name had a nice ring to it, so Eloise it was. 

After a few days on the medication, she was already looking better.  So much so that I felt comfortable taking her home to Louisiana, where she would further recuperate.  Over that Christmas break, she ended up doubling in size.  I took her to our Shreveport vet at the end of the two weeks, and she weighed 23 pounds!  It felt like a major success!

I wish I could say that our troubles (and Ella’s) ended there, but they didn’t.  The neighbor gave us trouble for months after we returned in January, leaving rotting food in the yard for the dog and even threatening to take her back.  “You know she used to be my dog,” he would said, glaring at us.  At one point, he even threatened my boyfriend (now husband) who had dared to tell him to stay away from the dog after he kept feeding her chicken bones.  “Don’t come over here like you’re Johnny Badass,” he growled at Ryan.   Ryan is an English professor from Seattle.  He is about as far from a “Johnny badass type” as you can get.  Still, the man felt the need to threaten. 

Eventually, we moved away, largely because of the man and his antics.  We were happy to be away from the house, and are now even happier to be living in another state.  Ella is doing great– for about a year, she had stomach issues, but now, for the most part, she is a happy, normal dog.  She is the light of my life.  Is it weird to feel so strongly about a dog?  Maybe.  Do I care?  Not at all.  I would take a bullet for this dog.  I often refer to her as my soulmate, and my sister’s maid of honor toast at my wedding was largely centered around the fact that I had, in fact, met two soulmates in Indiana– my husband, and Ella.  

My one regret with the Ella situation is that we didn’t act sooner.  I feel like we put off confrontation regarding the dog, because we didn’t want to “disturb” our neighborly situation.  We felt helpless, but because of that, for a long time, we did nothing.  If you know of a similar situation, I would urge you to act quickly in reporting the abuse, even if it causes an awkward encounter with a neighbor, coworker, or even friend.  I definitely think that if we had waited only a few more weeks with Ella, it would have been too late.

Here is a picture of Ella at 11 pounds, right when we got her in December:

And here she is now: happy and healthy!

Thanks for letting me share Ella’s story!  Have you ever rescued an animal from a similar situation?  

Hope you have a great Saturday!