DAY OF REGRET  #2

Five thousand, five hundred, and five days in the country and only three days of regret. (see March 1st entry) All three untoward events involved dogs, and in each case, the dogs survived in fine shape. It’s the humans who have never fully recovered.

Stella is a lovable lunatic, a little red Aussie. Her face peered out at me from an Aussie rescue site and screamed, “Get over to Oklahoma City. Come on, now. Get moving.” Her previous owner said she was a wonderful dog, but “just a little goofy.” When I pressed him to elaborate, he always came back to “just a little goofy.”

And she is goofy. She has one brown eye and one blue eye. Sometimes they appear to work independently. Her little powder puff tail never stops wagging, and it has one 6-inch long tuft that whips around in circles.  Stella doesn’t bark––she roos. She puts her nose in the air and lets out a melodic “rooooo!” whenever she is happy, which is all the time. She is well behaved, affectionate, and a comedian. She backs up to her sister and sits on her. When you enter a room, she rolls onto her back and extends a leg. If you fail to rub her belly, she extends both legs in your direction. We do not rooooooo the day we fetched Stella!

Stella is a diver. She runs at top speed down the hill, onto the dock, and dives into the pond. At first she disappears beneath the water, then surfaces and swims back to shore. Back up the hill, back down the hill, off the dock. Watching Stella, you cannot be crabby. Oh, da joy!

The dogs love to walk in the woods. We were on a wonderful winter stroll, and as usual, they were out front. They ran through the gulley checking for foxes in the cave. And although I have carefully researched the appropriate nutrition for their ages and weights and studied the contents of every brand of dog food, they really prefer to scoop up deer droppings by the mouthful.  In short, it was their best day ever. It is always their best day ever.

As we crossed the levee at the back of our pond, I heard a lot of splashing. The girls were out of sight for the moment but I figured they were running around the soft edges of the frozen pond.

As I reached the middle of the levee, my heart dropped to the ground. Stella was in the middle of the pond and had fallen through the ice. I slid down the bank to the water’s edge, screaming. Her little brown nose was barely above water. She was paddling madly but kept hitting the edge of the hole she had fallen through. She was about 40 feet off shore.

And this is where I had to face myself. Did I have the courage to go in after this dog?  Short answer––no, I did not. The ice was watery and soft near the shore, so Stella must have leaped across that gap onto more solid ice.

I stepped into the water and as my boots filled and my snow pants became soaked, I could barely lift my feet. The bottom of the pond was slippery, and I went to my knees. It was difficult to get up as my coat became saturated and heavy. Stella was still paddling wildly. I was screaming and crying. Why had it never ever occurred to me that this diving diva might go out on the ice? Why did I think a dog would understand the various physical states of water and the limitations of each?

I stood in the pond and tried to make myself lie down and swim but I could not. I fought off horrendous visions of Stella, now in the icy water for ten minutes, succumbing to hypothermia or exhaustion. I saw images of her body  lying under the ice until spring. But what I really saw was myself as a coward, unable to plunge in, my lower limbs already numb.

I ran around the pond to get to the boat on the opposite shore, but I couldn’t feel my feet, and I was unable to breathe. I was tired from running in soaked winter clothes, and I was hysterical, screaming  that I would move, I would leave this place if Stella drowned. I hated this place.

It took another ten minutes to get to the boat on the opposite shore. Stella still struggled with her nose barely visible, splashing loudly. I wasn’t sure if I could push the boat over the ice to her or through the ice if it broke.

The boat had been on the shore covered with snow all winter and as I flipped  it over, a muskrat leapt out and disappeared into the pond. And here I thought I had no more screams left. He had amassed a food supply under the boat, about 2 bushels of dead bullfrogs and fish in various states of disrepair. My shock absorbers were about to surrender.

I pushed the boat to the water’s edge and looked up. Turns out I no longer needed it.

Stella was plowing her way to shore by karate chopping the ice with her front legs as she went. She was as amazing as the ice breakers on Lake Michigan.

After  half an hour of trauma, I was frozen, hysterical, emotionally wasted. Stella, on the other hand, ran joyfully up the hill, butted into her sister, rolled over and wagged her ridiculous tail as she ran circles around me.

She got a hot bubble bath,  got blow-dried, wrapped in a heating pad, and fed hot milk. She was hugged on my lap the rest of the afternoon and evening. For that one and only time, she was allowed to sleep on our bed.

So maybe I wouldn’t leave the place, but I would be mad at it for a long, long time. I had a lot of self-examination to do. Why couldn’t I go in after Stella? Was I a coward? And what if that had been a person––what would I have done?

Stella’s assessment was easier. She crawled out of the blanket, raised her nose and let out a big, happy “Roooooooooo!”

Tomorrow: Day of Regret #3.