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Calm, but anxiously expecting the unknown, the neighborhood conducted normal routines while waiting for the animal control officer.  Of all days, this was the day Pretty Girl decided not to come out of her hole at all. She had not been sighted for over 24 hours. Was she still under the house? Had she sensed a foreboding energy in the air? Did she silently move over night? The animal control officer was late. She had said she would be there by 8 in the morning. It was 10 when she arrived with the humane trap. We set it up four feet from Pretty Girl’s hole and baited it with canned dog food. There was nothing else to do but wait. The officer left to attend to other situations but said to call immediately when Pretty Girl took the bait. Linda had to go to work, Bob had appointments to keep. I went back to my studio to work.

But to work was difficult. I kept worrying about Pretty Girl’s reaction to being trapped in a cage, especially since I was convinced she had puppies under the house. Would she get aggressive? Would she fill with dread? By separating a mother dog and her pups (even temporarily) her behavior could be unpredictable.  An hour passed, then two, still no Pretty Girl. It was lunchtime, and so I mixed up a new batch of kibble and canned food. I replaced the original food inside the trap, all the while talking to an absent Pretty Girl. I hoped dogs could not feel betrayal. Somehow, even though she did not show it, Pretty Girl had learned to trust and now we had to capture her (and her pups).

I left the food and walked to the street as Bob drove by. We talked and speculated and shared our common worry. Clunk. A clear sound of metal meeting metal. We ran back to the trap and there she was, our very Pretty Girl sitting calming inside the humane trap. Her soulful eyes looking at ours, a quiet puzzle on her face. The animal control officer was called. Linda too. I sat next to the trap contributing peace to the situation. The officer had to finish up her current task before she could get back to us and that could easily be an hour. Bob drove home. Just Pretty Girl and I, alone, two feet from each other. I wish I could say that at that point she licked my hand or showed some sort of dog/human bond, but she didn’t. If I placed my hand on the cage, Pretty Girl backed into its farthest corner. She stayed quiet, accepting fate, but wary. 

Was it 30 minutes or more? I don’t know how long I stayed next to Pretty Girl until Bob came back with supplies to crawl under the house. It was lucky for us that Bob fit easily into Pretty Girl’s crawl space.  He entered the low, dark space crawling on his stomach, just as Pretty Girl had done.  Most crawl spaces under old houses are a labyrinth of stone and cinder block holding up the house. Bones and bottles, dirt, webs and imagined slinky, slimy things love the dark undisturbed space. This house delivered all that. Bob slid a few feet at a time, rounding a supporting block wall, hitting a dead end, backing up and trying a new route. Fifteen minutes passed when Bob finally reached the farthest side of the house from the “entrance.” He called out, “I see puppies. Three, no four football sized puppies.” “Healthy and asking for mom.”

The animal control officer arrived and so did Linda. The puppies were as far from the entrance as possible. We pushed open a crawl space vent opening closer to the puppies and one-by-one Bob lifted each pup out of the hole and into waiting arms.  Tears, lots of tears ran down faces as the neighborhood witnessed each miraculous rescue. The pup’s eyes were still closed, making them approximately a week old. They were big, round, well fed and extremely clean. Pretty Girl could see none of the rescue. She was still trapped in her cage on the opposite side of the house.  The four puppies were placed into the cool (yes, air conditioned) animal control truck. They squirmed and squeaked, searching for momma.

Back to Pretty Girl with a leash and in minutes with no fuss or stress, she was tied and seemed more domesticated than we could imagine. Now sitting next to her, I could finally touch her pet her.  You could call me crazy but as I stroked her, I felt Pretty Girl send out a powerful feeling of overwhelming relief. It was as if she thought, “this is what I missed, this is what I hungered for.”

The animal control officer walked Pretty Girl to the truck. Before reuniting with her puppies, the officer opened the cab door to get the necessary paperwork. Pretty Girl jumped into the cab and took position next to the driver’s seat.  She was ready to ride, ready to go home now. “This is not the place for you, Pretty Girl. Come on down.” She was led around to the back of the truck. Puppies in view now, she made her way into the cubby where her babies waited, but right before she left Pretty Girl turned and gave me a lick on my ear.

Pretty Girl and her puppies left for Labrador Retriever Rescue of Florida. The four puppies have grown to adoptable age and are already enjoying new forever families.

Pretty Girl is in foster care with the loving caretakers of Lab Rescue. She is waiting for her forever family.

http://www.labradorrescue.net

Look for Dazzle, her new name.

Weeks ago the Broward County Animal Control division had been called to capture Pretty Girl, but she would outsmart and out maneuver the animal control specialists. Along with her new given name ”Pretty Girl”,  “phantom dog” or “ghost dog” described her silent passes through the yards and landscaping on our street. “Did you see Pretty Girl, the phantom dog?” “Maybe, not sure. I saw a large tan something disappear into the bushes.” That was before, now she no longer played phantom. She took matters into her own “hands” and made a home for herself under the foreclosed, for sale and empty house next door.  Too bad we can’t give squatter’s rights to dogs.

Pretty Girl rarely left the crawl space under the house. When she did she would come out, stretch her long legs and look around for food. She no longer roamed more than 20 feet from the hole under the house. The neighborhood Pretty Girl watch patrol developed a feeding schedule. I took early morning and late evening. Linda took mid-morning and afternoon. Bob took lunch. The rest of the time, Pretty Girl lived under the house, even when unsuspecting realtors showed the property to their clients. I watched protectively from across the property line as daily human traffic increased next door. They must have dropped the price, because now that Pretty Girl claimed the house as hers, more and more buyers were interested too.

I wanted to tell the interested buyers that this house was a 3 bed, 2 bath and came furnished with a dog. No need to go get a family pet, the house already had one, or two or ten. Pretty Girl was a mother now, Linda and I were certain. Not everyone was as convinced. There could be ten puppies or there could be one, or there could be none. Doubt surfaced because there were no little sounds of puppy squeaks coming from under the house. Pretty Girl gave low, gentle warning growls when we got too close to the hole, so no one could enter to check it out. Clearly she protected something and told us as best she could. All we really knew was that Pretty Girl was skinny now, had big breasts, lived under the house, no longer roamed the streets, and refused to allow anyone near her entrance.

When Animal Control had tried to capture Pretty Girl, an Officer showed immense compassion and left a direct phone number. Time to try once more to get Pretty Girl off the streets and into a possible better life. We called the Officer, who suggested the humane trap. Would Pretty Girl go for it, she was very smart? Would she bolt? First the realtor needed to give permission for the trap. Days passed, more house showings, more potential buyers. Finally the Officer called us and said that the realtor would allow the trap and hold off house showings. The Officer would be there the following morning with the humane trap.

Give her time (that was the advice) and if we left her food and water and talked sweetly and gently she would grow to trust us. How long does it take to develop trust with a dog on the streets? One week, two? A month, two months, three months? Time passed with no change in behavior, but the rainy season was starting. The heat, humidity and constant threat of hurricane weather, not to mention the daily dodging of traffic across city streets, all seemed to point to a tragic ending for Pretty Girl.

We claimed she must have an angel with her, protecting her. She received three full meals a day from the neighborhood animal lovers. She dug a cool hole in the yard next to ours in order to stretch out her length (a yard belonging to an empty, foreclosed house). She rested under the shade of huge bushes. She learned to disguise herself as a shadow in the corner of an open laundry room when it rained. And then she got pregnant.

If ever there was a time to pray for Pretty Girl, this was it. She did not deserve this life. Her belly grew larger with each passing day. Her breasts swelled ready to produce milk. We watched, fed and prayed. But suddenly without warning Pretty Girl vanished. The neighborhood patrolled every day, even through four days of aggressive rain downpours. We were a city block in mourning.

The blue sky returned on Saturday and a thin Pretty Girl came with it. We gazed across our yard into the yard next door like we had for months watching and feeding her. She was noticeably skinny. Her breasts sagged, full of milk, her nose to the ground, searching for food and water.  I grabbed food and water and quickly made my way over to feed her. As I entered the yard, Pretty Girl ran to the north side of the house, an area quieter but enclosed on three sides. For once, she wouldn’t be able to escape while I put down the bowl. I entered the north side area and a full grown, approximately 160-pound Lab dropped to the ground and shimmied into a 24 by 18 inch crawl-space opening under the house.  I left the food, walked away, turned and saw an orange nose peeking out of the hole. I walked further away and watched as Pretty Girl pulled herself out of the hole. She devoured the food.

Something like this happens rarely and reminded me of the precious bond of life we all share. Here is the story of Pretty Girl, a story that simply had to get written out of my heart and onto some sort of "page." I can't write it all in one sitting, so I'll post this one in parts.

Miracle on 16^th Street

In life there are moments that shine clearly, up and above the normal routines. The birth of a child, and winning a highly competitive trophy are two such moments. I guess there is an element of miracle in each. Pretty Girl gave our neighborhood a miracle too.

Pretty Girl, or so we called her, was a wandering purebred yellow Labrador retriever. I heard over and over that she was just a stray. “Just” and “stray” relieved people from responsibility, benign and harmless. Being “stray” implied that Pretty Girl decided one day to up and leave her normal existence.  That she somehow wanted to live on the streets. That deep down in her consciousness her wolf ancestors called out to break the ties of human bondage and live closer to her DNA.

But Pretty Girl feared. Her eyes belied our human justifications. She was not free, neither domestic nor wild, caught in a limbo she did not create. Pretty Girl had no choice but to survive on pure canine common sense. She was not a stray. Pretty Girl was homeless.

Homeless infers that at one time there was a home. That at one time Pretty Girl belonged. She wore a floral print collar that was obviously given to her by a caring human.  Now the collar remained but she had lost the belonging.

General Yeygraf Zhivago asks in the movie Doctor Zhivago, “How did you come to be lost?” I wanted to ask Pretty Girl the same thing, to reveal her story, to share, so that I would know how to help.  The wall of silence between us tore that hope into pieces. Inter-species communication relied upon my best interpretation of a lifted furry eyebrow or a start, stop, stare pattern of retreat. Pretty Girl held on to memories that prevented trust, but she could not explain. All she could do was run away. Spooked. Displaying dualistically a desire for closeness and a fearful knowledge of what closeness can do in the wrong hands.

She was tall and beautiful with an endearing orange nose and soulful eyes. Hunger and thirst would draw her to within 50 feet of a delicious bowl heaped high with a canned dog food kibble mix. As long as a human stayed near the bowl, Pretty Girl watched from her safe distance and did not move. Try to get any closer and she darted away, not angry, not aggressive, but afraid. Leave the bowl, go away. Only then would she come and feast.

Howard Chandler Christy specialized in Edwardian era pretty-girl subjects painted with the sort of looseness popular with the American bourgeois classes of the late Gilded Age. He’s remembered today for the WW I poster captioned “Gee! If I were a boy I’d join the US Navy!” with a grinning girl wearing her brother’s sailor outfit.

Here, such fluff is abandoned for a more serious message (without abandoning the girl as object of a salacious gaze, note). He combines a 19th C allegory with a flapper, to create this rather spooky comment on modernity and its attractions and pitfalls. Some of the technical aspects are a bit iffy - weird shadow on the chest area - but the painting, taken as a whole, is to my mind his most interesting and contains some superb passages. It will be offered Dec 10 at Illustration House’s next auction; more eye candy  on the site.