White Dog Sleeping

If only all animals had a soft warm bed I could finally rest knowing none would die in a shelter tonight.  -Terri Davis -

Master Bedroom by Andrew Wyeth















 

White Dog

First snow-I release her into it-
I know, released, she won't come back.
This is different from letting what,
already, we count as lost go. It is nothing
like that. Also, it is not like wanting to learn what
losing a thing we love feels like. Oh yes:
I love her.
Released, she seems for a moment as if
some part of me that, almost,
I wouldn't mind
understanding better, is that
not love? She seems a part of me,
and then she seems entirely like what she is:
a white dog,
less white suddenly, against the snow,
who won't come back. I know that; and, knowing it,
I release her. It's as if I release her
because I know.

Written by Carl Phillips

Briton Riviere, Sympathy

Briton Riviere, Sympathy. 1877. oil on canvas. Royal Holloway Collection.

Riviere’s Sympathy was among the most well-known animal portraits of the day, as discussed by the Royal Holloway Collection: The Spectator made an important point: Riviere was the natural successor to Landseer, who had died in 1873, and that he had even surpassed Landseer in his own way, ‘for he has given feeling to his animals, and yet kept them strictly within their own nature . . . Never attempting to render in his works human expression in a dog’s face, he has nevertheless mastered the points where canine and human nature touch, and painted them with an insight and comprehension with which no other artist of whom we know can at all compare’.

LissiS, Ghost Dog. 2008. published in Worth1000.com

The painting has had a resurgence since 2007 when an artist rendered the dog as a ghost.

 

 

From FaceBook 10/27/15 (unknown author)

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her.

I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid. As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the overworked shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone's life.

She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship. A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well.

Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms.

I would promise to keep her safe.
I would promise to always be by her side.
I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.

I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.

I rescued a human today.