Randy Fitzgerald

I first saw her in the alley behind our house, somewhere beyond gaunt and bone thin, backbone protruding, limping a little like someone who had walked a long way.
            We’ve all had that stray dog turn up in our yard, haven’t we?  We’ve all searched the classifieds hoping for a frantic owner, we’ve all sent out a message on the neighborhood yahoo or google group:  “I found a dog, I think a spaniel of some kind. Black and white. Is she yours?”
            Our notice was handicapped a bit by the fact that we couldn’t really swear that this dog was a “she” at all. I saw her off and on and from a distance for four or five days, but neither Barb nor I could ever get close enough to determine gender. Yet we independently starting referring to her first as “she,” and then as days passed, we called her Blanche, because like the character in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” she clearly was depending on the kindness of strangers.
 She was lost, no doubt about that.  She had that frantic, harried, exhausted look of the lost dog that never stops moving. I think she had probably been on her own for a good long while, because I’ve never seen a skittzier dog in my life. If she was in the backyard and we opened the backdoor—zoom!—she was gone. My good neighbor Patrick said he turned his car down the alley one day, and while he was still four houses from her, she took off like a shot, disappearing almost like an apparition.
She may have been tired and not feeling well, but she was fast.  We had no hope of getting a hand on her, even after Barb had been putting food out for her for several days. I still can’t tell you whether she wore a collar. We didn’t see one, but it could have been buried in her hair, and we never got close enough for a good look. 
Even from a distance, this dog had something about her.  There was a dignity in her condition, a wisdom in her demeanor.  She had obviously learned life’s hardest lessons during her travels—known hunger and cold intimately, experienced betrayal and perhaps even cruelty, and most of all, she was well versed in confusion. 
The first night she came into the yard, Barb was appalled at her condition. “She’s starving,” my wife said, and then went into the kitchen to try to find something that a dog would eat from a household of vegans.  There was no meat, of course, no milk, no eggs, no bread except whole wheat—never a canine favorite.  Finally, in the back of the cabinet, Barb found a small can of corned beef hash, appropriately enough for St. Patrick’s Day, dumped it onto a paper plate, and set it by the back steps.  The dog was nowhere to be seen.
“If she’s anywhere around, she’ll smell it,” said Barb, and we went back inside and watched from a living room window.  To our amazement, she soon appeared from within a thick stand of azalea bushes on the west side of our house.  First that white head popped out, disembodied and cautious, and gradually the rest of the dog crept across the patio and gobbled the feast in a few bites.
Watching the intensity of her hunger, Barb and I were heart struck.  “Do you want to keep her?” I asked. 
“No, we made a pact not to have any more pets,” she reminded me, “and I’m sticking with it.”
While no one has enjoyed pets more than Barb and I have, we’re done.  No more dogs, cats, canaries, cockatoos, parrots, goldfish—all of them. We’ve agreed.
When I got home from school the day after St. Patrick’s, there was a big bag of dry dog food on the back porch. And so we fed the dog and watered her.  And spoke to her kindly from a distance.  And, day after day, we watched her disappear into the shrubbery after she ate or run away when we approached.
One morning, she didn’t appear to get her breakfast.  I went out and checked the azaleas.  They were mashed down, like the places where baby deer often sleep in the middle of an open field, but she was gone.
“Darn,” said Barb.  “How is it they capture your heart so soon, even when you’re dead set against it?”
I guess she’s still out there somewhere, still lost, running frantically in one direction and doubling back in another, who knows how far from home?  If you see her, please remember her name for now is Blanche, and she depends on the kindness of strangers.