Shot with a 100 mm macro lens, ISO 800, f/2.8, shutter speed 1/80 in morning sunlight. Frieda is getting the idea of posing.

When I write about Frieda, I often get a lot of messages reminding me that I have questioned some of the motives,  intensity and self-righteousness I occasionally run across when “rescue” dogs are written about or spoken of. People say perhaps Frieda rescue me, or perhaps I view rescue differently. I don’t really. It’s a writer’s job to make people think, not just to make them feel warm and squishy.

I have rescued dogs for years, as well as bought wonderful dogs from good breeders, and I think both are pefectly valid ways for me to get a dog. I don’t use the term “rescue” anymore, at least when I think about it. I don’t see Izzy as a “rescue” dog, and I don’t think Izzy or Frieda or the other dogs I’ve “rescued” have saved me, or made me into a morally superior person. Dogs don’t need to see themselves as the objects of “rescue.” I think this is often something we need to feel good about ourselves.

Just a few decades ago, the idea of “rescuing” a dog was unheard of, like expensive dog food. We just adopted them and fed them.

That doesn’t make rescue invalid or worthless, just something requiring perspective. I often quote Carl Sandburg: “Who swindles himself more deeply than the one saying “I am holier than thou?” I have met many people who use animals to feel good about themselves, while assaulting people. Seems out of whack to me, and sometimes self – serving. People who do good don’t need bumper stickers and noble sounding phrases.

Dogs cannot save or rescue me, and I can’t really rescue them either. I can just give them good homes, and do the work on myself necessary to grow and change. I do believe there are people who exploit dogs by “rescuing them” and then using the experience to feel morally superior to others, or holier-than-thou as Sandburg would put it. I want to watch that in myself, especially with a creature like Frieda. Easy to make yourself look good and cheaply.  But that doesn’t mean you are good. Rescuing a dog can’t accomplish that. It’s harder.

A year ago, when I was introducing Izzy, I found myself describing him as an abandoned farm dog, a rescue who was a wild animal. It’s a good story and in most respects true. But telling it, I realized Izzy didn’t need to be portrayed this way. The story made me look good. And why did I need that? So I stopped introducing him as a “rescue.” He’s just my dog. That will have to do. It doesn’t make me an angel, not by a long shot.