CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 Trust: July 2016

Trust is one of the most fragile things on earth. Whether you are dealing with an abused or abandoned human or animal, it is a huge issue. I believe that trust is the foundation of any relationship. Even one lie can destroy it. Some of us extend our trust pretty generously and some of us are very cautious; and our decision as to which of these attitudes we adopt is usually based on past experience.

If we are a human, it begins in childhood. If we are blessed with parents who make an effort to keep their word—do the things they say they will do and not do the things they say they won’t—we develop the ability to trust. When we get older, the same process takes place with friends and partners. If we are fortunate and smart enough—it takes both luck and good judgment—to surround ourselves with people who are honorable, we develop trusting relationships with our friends and partners. If trust is broken enough times by any of these people along the way, our ability to trust is damaged.

The same is true of our animals. Until I rescued Kaya, I had raised all of my dogs from puppies. Yes, I adopted The Zeakie Dog (actually, he adopted me), but I did so when he was still a puppy. My dogs Cinder, Santana, Lakota, and Zeak all learned that I meant and did what I said. They knew they would always be taken care of. They knew if I told them something was OK, it wasn’t going to hurt. They knew they were loved. Because of these things, they trusted me. I believe that trust is required to keep the heart open, and when it is betrayed, the heart closes to protect itself, whether that heart belongs to a human or a rescue dog named Kaya.

Kaya’s damage included: anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, fabric sucking/eating, tooth grinding, and excessive licking syndrome…sometimes to the point of self-mutilation. For the first few days she was with us she was chewing and destroying things, getting into wastebaskets and chewing up the contents, and counter surfing…a term used to describe dogs stealing food off of countertops. I could not take my eyes off of her for a minute.

If I had to guess how Kaya wound up in the streets—if I tried to piece together what happened to get her there, from her behavior—her story would go like this:

A busy family with kids, on impulse, buys a cute puppy in a pet store. Appearance and cuteness are all they are concerned about. They have no interest in determining if the puppy is a breed suitable to their lifestyle. The puppy is from a puppy mill. She has been separated from her abused, malnourished mother and siblings when she is too young.  The family who buys the dog knows nothing about dogs, and they don’t bother to educate themselves before they go ahead and get one, so they buy a high-energy breed that needs a lot of exercise because they like the way it looks. They have no time for walks, no time to train a dog, and no idea how to do it if they did have time, so they go to work and ignore it. When they come home they come home to a mess—a young puppy can only hold it for a half hour, and shouldn’t be asked to do more—and stuff damaged by the puppy because it is bored and lonely.

As the puppy develops its normal sharp, first teeth, it starts nipping everybody, partly because the puppy mill took it from its mother and siblings too soon and it never learned bite inhibition, and partly because it is teething. This is perfectly normal behavior for very young dogs. When it nips the kids they scream and yell, which makes the puppy even more agitated, and no one teaches them the proper way to behave around an animal. This creates an even more out-of-control puppy. It’s not fun anymore. So the parents stuff the puppy in a crate or chain it outside all the time. This is a recipe for madness. The intelligent, high-energy puppy is going out of its mind from not being able to work off its energy and having no mental activity. Over a few years’ time, the dog’s frustration develops into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, sucking on fabric and toys and grinding its teeth. It cries and screams to be let out of its prison. It is occasionally beaten by its annoyed humans and has its choke collar jerked so hard that it breaks her trachea.

Eventually, Dad and/or Mom, having decided they have had enough, hatch a plan. They don’t want to drop the dog off at a shelter because they don’t want to admit the truth: That they are getting rid of the dog because they don’t want to provide the proper care for it—it is an inconvenience. Dad or Mom waits till the kids are in bed, goes into the bedroom where the dog is sleeping, picks it up, and takes it out to the car. He or she puts it in the car and drives it far, far away. Then he/she stops the car in a dark place, shoves the dog out of the car, and speeds off. Done. And that is the story of the day trust died.

One evening, just after Kaya and I went to bed, we were hit by a fierce thunderstorm. It was the first one we had since we adopted Kaya. When the first loud clap of thunder hit, a terrified Kaya got out of her bed and came to the edge of mine. She stood on her hind legs, shaking in terror, her eyes pleading with me to let her up on the bed with me. I decided it was time to do that. If Kaya couldn’t turn to me for comfort when she was frightened, how could she trust me.

She snuggled next to me and close as she could get. She was still trembling. I talked to her in a soothing voice and stroked her gently. As I did so I felt a shift. It happened so quickly that I was taken aback, and in that moment, Kaya and I deeply bonded, this time on a spiritual level. There would be many times ahead when I would be dazzled by how brave she was, but perhaps the bravest thing she ever did was to open her heart to me after what humans had done to her. I felt a deep, powerful wave of love wash over us. From then on, we were so close that I could barely tell where I ended, and Kaya began.