When Dr. Karen Thompson messaged me two years ago and told me she had a dog that God meant for me to have, I thought she was crazy. I didn’t know of her faith – she is a minister – her perception, her compassion and judgment. I do now. She saw in Red a rare kind of spirit in human or animal, a sweet and trusting spirit that had, like Simon and so many other animals, been given good reason to be mistrustful.
Red has changed my life, and he continues to alter my life, almost every day. We work every day in all kinds of ways – on the farm, with sheep, in therapy work, at cardiac rehab and even in my new incarnation as a playwright. Red enters into the spirit of everything I do. Last night, he watched the actors performing my play, he entered the life of the play, just a border collie on a farm would.
The actors improvised when they saw him, they made him part of the play, they continued their dialogue and leaned over to pet and talk to him. Red grasped this almost immediately, When the actors were talking to him, he was alert and watching them, when they moved on to other scenes and lines, he lay down and went to sleep, right in the middle of the stage, all kinds of crying, yelling and movement around him.
But that, of course, is what a farm dog would do. He would ignore the animals and mayhem and take a nap, right in the middle of milking, I’ve seen it a million times. When Red is on the farm, he focuses on his work. He looks to see if I am heading to the car or the gate, and is always there ahead of me. He keeps the sheep away from Maria and I and the donkeys. He keeps the rams in check.
I’ve decided to focus some of our therapy work on cardiac rehab, it is needed and appreciated more than I realized. I’ve graduated from rehab but we come at least once a week to visit with the patients there, and Red makes an enormous difference there. He takes up his position on the edge of the carpet near the door and waits to receive the people who want and need him.
Some pull up chairs to sit with him, one woman has biscuits she keeps in her pockets in case he shows up. The men come by and pat him and talk to him before getting on their machines, everybody says hello or goodbye when they come in or leave. Everyone who sees him smiles or laughs, thanks me, asks me about him.
His range in my life is astonishing. He is a part of my life in the bookstore, he is loved at the dentist, they insist on seeing him at the hardware store, he has incorporated himself into all of my work but my writing, and I guess he is becoming a substantial part of that as well.
I am grateful we took up therapy work, continuing the work I started with Izzy, and to some extent, Lenore. Red has a genius for this kind of work, soon we will return to the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, I know the need is great. I have stayed away until I am far along in my heart surgery recovery, I do not want to bring any of my difficulties to them, they have enough of their own. Red has enriched and deepened my life and my experience with animals and helped me connect with human beings as well, and understand the pain and loneliness that is often in their hearts, and which can be eased and softened by a dog.
Red makes me better, it is true, I think, that if you want to have a better dog, you have to become a better human. Red makes me a better human every day. He gives me that opportunity, he leads me in that direction, he makes it possible for me to walk on that path.