One day Cocaine failed to return we all called out to him and waited. Whenever we went out to play, he would return home from wherever he was in the neighborhood. He had this incredible instinct when it came to us grandchildren. My grandmother didn’t allow dogs in her house, so Cocaine would walk the streets of East Lubbock, looking for shelter from the cold in the winter and the shade of leafy trees in the summer. His name was Cocaine, and I imagine one of my uncles or older cousins named him that because it was the 80s. I’m not sure what breed he was, but he had a beautiful white coat and looked like a powerful wolf. My grandmother had a dog when I was a girl. Imagine understanding that you are in your final moments before they become your final moments and letting go of all you know and love and needing no one to tell you it’s time. Imagine being born with no secrets and knowing exactly what you need to do to survive. He’d always known himself in a way that I’d never know anyone, not even myself. I was so small and lost in a world that he understood. ![]() I never saw the do-over dog again, but I appreciate what he taught me that night. I understand, I swear he nodded back at me before turning and walking away. When I mouthed to him, I’m not chasing you and nodded saying, I see. And I understood that he was an old dog and he was tired and he was ready to give up on us because we wouldn’t give up on him. Instead, he paused and turned his face to look at me and I knew. His trot was slow and deliberate, but he didn’t change his direction. I watched him do his business and when he began to walk away and not toward me, I called out to him. I couldn’t do that this time, not with the baby in my arms, and besides, he wasn’t a runner the front yard had worked before. He’d fell in before and I’d had to muddy myself to rescue him. My heart of hearts knows that animals are mirrors and balance beams sent to remind us of our own potential. It wasn’t a usual thing, letting him out front, but it was raining and I was sure our troublesome backyard dip was pooled with so much water it resembled a lake. It was a cold and rainy night and as soon as the fireworks and shooting died out, I opened the front door so that the dog could relieve himself. The winter after I became a grandmother, I brought the new year in with the do-over dog at my feet and my grandson in my arms. We kept that dog for fourteen years, and with the exception of the bed thing, he was a good pet. I never saw him do it in-person, but every time I left the house, I’d receive a video from a family member and there he’d be ruffling my covers, wiggling on his back, like he was having the time of his life. The do-over dog loved to roll his body around in my bed whenever I left home. 3) The dogs were not allowed on the furniture in the common rooms. 2) The dogs were not allowed in my bedroom. Our next dog-the do-over dog-was not a runner, but for years I considered him my arch nemesis because he broke the cardinal rules: 1) The dogs were not allowed in the kitchen or dining area. When I went out to search for her an hour later, she was on the side of road of a nearby thoroughfare. That he should let her return on her own. One New Year’s Eve, the runner darted out the front door and I told my little brother, who was living with us then, that he shouldn’t chase her this time. That she knew how little we had and that’s why she was a runner. I convinced myself that the dog hated being stuck there with us. She had no yard and was afforded none of the luxuries that a bourgeois Pomeranian likely needed to feel at home. I used to tell myself that it was because the dog hated the tiny, cramped apartment we lived in. The dog we had when my children were young was a runner. In the midst of our project of decimation, they love hearty and in order. They needn’t be told who and what they are. They are the root of King Solomon’s splendor. And still, we are never beyond redemption when it comes to these glorious harbingers of beasts to come, these messiahs that eat our sin. ![]() We fail them time and time again because their voices are in their eyes. Yet, my heart of hearts knows that animals are mirrors and balance beams sent to remind us of our own potential. And don’t get me started on aquatic life. Snakes and mice and marsupials make me cringe. I don’t want a baby elephant or a giraffe or a chimpanzee. ![]() I don’t want to be sniffed or licked by cute puppies and have no desire to pat kittens. I do not consider myself an animal lover. Man becomes aware of himself returning the look. But by no other species except man will the animal’s look be recognized as familiar. He does not reserve a special look for man. The same animal may well look at other species in the same way. The eyes of an animal when they consider a man are attentive and wary.
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