I just turned off my TV, blackened its blur of polarized politics and stuffing recipes. We’ll all be full soon enough.
Lilly, our Boston terrier, burrows her nose beneath a fold of velveteen blanket. Her eyes search my face. I grab a roll of furry scruff behind her collar emblazoned with the words “service dog” and give it a playful shake. She sighs. The wake of her breath fills me with gratitude for the acts of kindness I’ve witnessed — and those that’ve gone unseen.
THANK YOU, local rescues; the backbone of all rescue. The yay-sayers and haven-makers heeding pleas at all hours. Bailers of water from boats ever-leaking. Soldiering on despite the wilting brawn of human cruelty. Keepers of your donors’ cachet we know to be well-spent.
THANK YOU, trainers spying the glint of hope in a “dangerous dog.” Proponents of carrots over sticks, braided nylon over chain links. Pryers open of small chinks in armor steeled by a lifetime of abuse. Reformers of the un-reformable with your firm, silken way. Rooters of treasure from the deepest sloughs of despair.
THANK YOU, fosterers, for the safe bunkers you share. For perhaps the first kind face an animal ever knew; the smile untying a dog’s knotted brow. Thank you for the gentle leads they’ve been waiting to follow. For the towering doors of your heart — brave enough to swing both ways.
THANK YOU, adopters and other long-haulers, in it to no limit. Thank you, all who know that there’s no perfect time or encyclopedic knowledge to make it all comfy and right. Thank you, humans who embrace change and deny convenience because this is the formula by which love expands.
THANK YOU, first responders, for plucking strays from distant limbs and rappelling down from hundred-foot ladders — a collar of fur draped ‘round your neck. Thank you for wading waist-deep into feted mire to save whole families. Thank you for breathing life into chests fallen still.
THANK YOU, crafters of human-grade pet food and supplements. Shiners of coats and girders of muscle, sinew and bone. Foundations of the mythic leap and the agile weave between tight-knit poles and frames built for gleeful tumbling down a slope of lawn — or propping up a wobbly companion.
THANK YOU, veterinarians whose bedside manner sings an octave higher than their medical skill. Those who advocate for breadth over length of life. Thank you to those who make that somber house call to lull our beloved to sleep; those who treat our family as their own.
AND THANK YOU, curious companions of fur and feather, scale and shell, for sharing your lives with us humans. Thank you for tugging us away from ourselves so we can see how silly and mistaken we’ve been. For helping us to see the whole of the universe in your stride, your wriggle, your crawl, your perch.
May we all become better parents to those unlike us in so many ways — and, in so many ways, better.