The Animal Lover at Seven and Thirty-seven

by Hannah Melin

        When Avery grows up, she will be an “animal rescuer, just like her Mom!” Every adult in Avery’s life is assigned an animal: a kangaroo for her father, a vulture for her mother. For the first week as her babysitter, I am watched cautiously from behind a stuffed lion. After a week of careful consideration, I am labeled a zebra.

        No jokes are made about Erin’s title as a vulture. Erin grins and swings Avery around in a hug when she correctly recites a fact on the wingspan of an African Condor or the lifecycle of a Common Turkey Vulture. Above their television set, framed photos of Avery in diapers are mixed in with fuzz-headed owlets, fledgling eagles, and newly hatched vultures. Foot-long, sleek black feathers are tucked between well-worn romance novels and dog-training guides.

        Avery’s hands are always ready to grip, touch, and pet. She pinches her crayons tightly between her fingers, drawing savannas with thick, heavy lines. The skin that stretches across her palms is porcelain pale, interrupted only by light freckles. Erin’s hands grip lightly. Arthritis, she says, from zoo work. The skin is paper-thin and as pale as her daughter’s. Scratch marks and scars cover her thin hands, running up past her wrist and onto her forearm. The razor-width cuts seem to track decades of self-harm, a conclusion dismissed only by the photograph of a younger Erin holding up her forearm for a massive Horned Owl to perch.

        Avery sinks into the comfy couch, immersed in a Disney movie while Erin leans against the kitchen counter, staring into her coffee mug while I sip from mine. She talks about the latest tragedy at Animal Kingdom: an aggressive male Grant’s Zebra broke out of his holding pen in the night and into the pen of a resting mother and her three-month-old foal. It trampled the foal to death and ripped off the mother’s right ear. She tears up, covering her mouth as she tells me how the mother whinnied and bayed for hours. She’s furious that the locks weren’t strong enough, but she never blames the male. It’s a survival mechanism, she says, to ensure their genetic line survives. A female won’t mate with a male if she has a foal. The male will kill the foal to confirm his own lineage. She’s glad no keepers tried to intervene during his rampage; she’s certain they’d have been trampled. The attack never makes the newspapers and I try not to wince when Avery gives me a crayon drawing of my animal avatar.

        Avery knows to ask owners if she can pet their dogs before approaching. She assures me that she knows lions, leopards, and tigers are all deeply dangerous creatures. She scoops up Rosie, a Chilean Rose-Haired Tarantula the size of my fist, without hesitation. She giggles as the fanged spider walks across her hands. She asks me if I want to hold her. I decline, but I do let Valentine, a six-inch Corn Snake, wrap around my wrist. Once I’m preoccupied with the small warmth making its way to my fingertips, Avery plops Mr. Bojangles, a six-pound Bearded Dragon, on my shoulder. It scrambles on my t-shirt and falls asleep, staining my sleeve with raspberry juice. Raspberries are its second favorite snack, after live crickets.

        Avery’s best friends are carried around with her at all times. A balding stuffed zebra, a lion Beanie Baby, and a dull yellow dog. If she moves from the room, she scoops them up in her forearms and lines them up in their new position. She engages in a constant dialogue with them. If I ask one of the stuffed animals a question, she responds in a squeaking character voice, but her personal conversations with them are one-sided. She speaks to them, pauses, and continues on with a new talking point. She doesn’t see the point in giving them voice when she already knows what they would say. Erin thinks she’ll grow out of it any day now.

        Erin attended a parent-teacher meeting last month, where one of Avery’s teachers was concerned by Avery’s introversion. She’s the same as Erin was at that age, Erin recalls. Erin seems proud to tell me that Avery prefers animals to people.

        Three months later, Snowball, their twelve-year-old house cat, drops dead in front of her food bowl. Erin sobs into her pillow. It’s too much, she says. Such reactions adds to her belief that her husband will leave her. She thinks her ex-boyfriend has been stalking her (“Make sure you lock the doors,” she tells me, “but I don’t think he’d hurt you”). She’s convinced Avery will spend the rest of her life talking to stuffed animals. She thinks she’s going to lose her job because of her arthritis. To not work with animals, she says, that would be worse than death for me.

        I tell my mother what Erin said on the car ride home. My mother has to pick me up when I watch Avery into the evenings. I’m not allowed to drive at night until I’m old enough to get my Class D.

        Avery chases their Pitbull mix around the yard, whooping and giggling. The sun glints off her hair, turning it into a writhing, glimmering halo. She stretches open her arms, inviting the dog to jump onto her and knock her into the grass. The dog does not bite, but he plays rough. Pink ridges rise across her upper arms where his dewclaw scrapes, not quite deep enough to draw blood. He shoves into her side, hard, but she tackles him back, squealing.

        At age seven, the animal lover knows no fear. She does not bother to adjust for the rest of us. She spends recess hunting for garter snakes and doesn’t bother with the comments made about her on the swing set. She lets every creature, ant and elephant alike, crawl into her heart.

          At age thirty-seven, the animal lover learns the weight of these creatures. She lets every one of them into her heart and onto her skin. They leave more scars than she can count.

(The names in this essay have been changed to protect the identities of those featured.)

Hannah Melin is a writer working out of Dallas, Texas. She studied Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida where she worked as the Fiction Editor for The Cypress Dome literary magazine. After graduating, Hannah worked as a literacy teacher for the Peace Corps on islands throughout the Eastern Caribbean. Hannah's nonfiction has been featured in Big Muddy. Her fiction has been featured in Monkeybicycle, Heart of Flesh, Night Picnic Press, and The Metaworker.

Taking Refuge

by Marjorie Maddox

          The sixty-year-old volunteer in a coyote T-shirt wipes the sweat from her brow with a brown bandana and then turns to us. “This morning at 10:00 am,” she says, “there were fifty people on this tour.” 

          It is almost 2:00 pm and nearing 100 degrees. There are only four of us waiting on two paint-peeling benches. My daughter and I look around at the large, faded sign and near-empty lot, which we passed twice before deciding we had reached the entrance to our destination. “I guess this is it,” I said just fifteen minutes earlier, as I pulled alongside a still-locked gate. A smaller sign read, “Tour starts here.” A minute later, an elderly man in jeans had strolled out, smiled, unlocked the padlock, and swung wide the gate.

          Since my eighteen-year-old had slept until noon, we would have to suffer the hot sun for the second and last tour of the day. We are joined only by a sporty grandmother and her pre-teen grandson, who is visiting her from California. They have hit the local amusement park they tell us, and tomorrow they will hike under the waterfalls in the nearby state park. Today, though, today is animal refuge day. The grandmother, who is younger than I am, shields her eyes from the sun and nods towards us. “Want some cold water?” she offers.

          “Yeah, sure!” I exclaim, and she retrieves a bottle from the cooler in her nearby SUV.

          “To Cats of the World!” we toast.

          In a sense, my daughter is on vacation as well. At home for a week from her pre-college summer job a few hours away, she has been joining me for day excursions, impromptu adventures in between medical appointments that brought her back to our suburban Pennsylvania home before she begins college classes. “This will be great, Mom,” she says as we pull away from the dentist’s office, the GPS on her iPhone now set to “T & D’s Cats of the World: Animal Refuge Specializing in Exotic Felines and Wildlife.”

          And so she and I, the animal lovers in the family, are off on a last hurrah to explore a thirty-five-acre wild animal refuge way off the beaten path. The site has been open since 1985, but we only just learned of this place, and—although we have ventured out as tourists—we are surprised to find we are not at a tourist attraction, but at someone’s expanded home, a home that has been opened to over 200 abused, rejected, abandoned, or otherwise mistreated animals.

          The elderly owners’ adult daughter, one of the children who has taken over the day-to-day management of the refuge, appears with feed bucket in hand, quickly introduces herself, then turns back to her chores. She nods goodbye to the guide.

I look at my daughter, who is looking at me. “Kinda cool,” I tilt my head and whisper, “It’s just you, me, and them.

          The animals come from circuses, zoos, government agencies, people’s apartments—these lions, tigers, bobcats, but also bear, fox, lemurs, monkeys, parrots, and other creatures. Almost immediately, our guide tears up. She has been driving here twice a week from the next town over for twenty years. Her tears show the volunteer work continues to change her life. As she points out the spider monkeys, she tells us about the pet primate that was dressed up and treated like a baby, the raccoon that was fed primarily candy, and the black bear that was chained for years in a man’s front yard. “What’s the matter with people?” my daughter leans over and asks. What, indeed?

          Near each animal is a sign that lists its donors, who are contributing to that animal’s food and care. “If it could,” I ask my daughter, “what would that otter write on the sign about its own life?”

          My daughter counters, “What, if it could talk, would that skunk tell us?” We giggle, but our questions also are serious. What, we wonder, have the rescued animals learned from the strict teacher of experience?

          While we stare in the eyes of a particularly mischievous monkey, I think of the TV commercials for sponsoring wide-eyed, thin-boned orphans. Yet, though many of this refuges’ animals arrived scared, malnourished, often with bones broken, today they are lazing in the sun, scurrying up and down ramps, swinging from tires, or hiding in the vast expanse of tall grasses. Our guide looks on admiringly. I don’t ask if she has children of her own; clearly she has “adopted” several of the “grown-up kids” at Cats of the World.

          It is the hottest day of the summer, but my daughter, who hated any family vacations that forced her too long in the sun for “educational” tours, is mesmerized. She squints in the bright light to read each creature’s story. The names, we learn, are only known by the owners and volunteers, whose relationship with each allows them to best care for their adopted clan. They, alone, have earned this communication. Visitors calling out bears’ monikers, whistling loudly to the Macaws, throwing bread at the coatis—none of this is allowed, and for good reason, the guide explains. Animals’ well-being over entertainment is the mantra. Diverse places to hide from spectators allow animals the choice of whether or not to be “on display.”

          “These animals are wild, wild, wild,” the volunteer reminds us again and again. She waves her arms for emphasis. “They are not—and never should be—“pets.”” I think of our local SPCA and, even there, of all the returned Christmas presents of rabbits, cats, and dogs—animals that turned out to be too much work for a young child or a busy family. But here, on this family plot turned sanctuary, over 200 creatures leap or growl or splash in a safe environment. If we listen closely to their healing, what will we hear about ourselves?

          On our windy path down dirt roads and around wooded bends, it becomes increasingly obvious that such consistent and safe care of so many is a lifetime of hard work. “Whoa,” the grandmother walking alongside us jokes when she sees the expanse of the property, “What kind of allowance did their kids earn growing up?”

          My daughter rolls her eyes. “Nothing, I’m sure.”

          I wonder at what moment the owners decided to commit their lives, and in turn, their family’s lives, to the nurture not of a few goldfish, guinea pigs, or hamsters, but to this diverse fur-and-feather community. Some parrots, we’re told by the tall and rather cute grandson, live sixty to eighty years. “Eighty years!” my daughter and I exclaim in unison. Eighteen years of raising my daughter zoom past. Eighteen years of preparing her to “fly the nest.” Multiply that by almost four and a half—not exactly a passing fancy.

          Soon, however, we find out that Cats of the World wasn’t a one-moment decision at all. Instead, it was a series of small choices that snowballed. It began, the volunteer tells us, when the father, Terry (the “T” in “T and D’s Cats of the World”) took in injured wildlife discovered by locals. An avid animal lover, he nursed the creatures back to health, then returned them to the wild. Later, when he rescued cougars and bobcats from illegal sales, the word spread. Here was an individual helping abandoned and abused animals. Calls came in from around Pennsylvania, from neighboring states, and then from even farther away. Cats of the World, which started out with wild cats but now hosts much more, unfurled into the homegrown refuge that it is today.

           As we walk along, my daughter and I talk about how—day in and day out— the owners communicate to the animals through action. The fox darting in and out of its man-made den doesn’t bark its gratitude, but it knows its food comes on a long pole through the fence. The brown bear scratching against a tree knows that someone will clean and refill the small swimming pool of water he uses on especially hot days. What really grips us is how many of the animals were captives their entire lives; they can survive no longer on their own in the wild. Others are too weak. Some are rescued birthday entertainment, “photo animals” that were too expensive to keep and would otherwise be put to sleep. We try to look in their eyes, but they are too quick, too busy with their animal lives to heed us. Their communication is made of furtive stuff.

          The owners’ wooded trail provides respite from the heat, so we take another gulp of water and continue with our five-some past wolves, coyotes, lions, and leopards. Our companions, the grandmother and grandson point at a yawning tiger and share a joke about an uncle. My daughter and I marvel at the lanky and beautiful servals, which pay us no mind. They are too busy slinking past each other, communicating in some way with their own family.

          What we also see throughout our trek is the owners’ family. In the background or off to the side, they are sloshing out food, cleaning pens, mowing fields, repairing animal “playgrounds,” and building new shelters. Like their charges, they also pay us no mind—that is, until we ask about the animals. The creatures’ habits, food source, life span: the owner’s daughter is an especially rich source of information.

          The last time I see her, I have one more question. “How,” I ask her as she refills a water trough for the Binturong, “do you ever go on vacation?”  

          She looks at me as if the idea has never occurred to her. “Well,” she says, continuing on with her work, “we don’t.” Then she heads back to a small cart for a shovel. “If I have to be away for a day, I just call my brother. He knows all our routines. But I don’t need to call him often.”

          On the last leg of our educational hike, we stop to see the parrots—all sixty or so. In huge cages, some are huddled together in twos or threes as if conspiring ways to save the world. Others flap from one branch to another in great paintbrush strokes of reds, greens, blues, and yellows. A few, perched alone and aloof, peer out at us: the families displayed on the other side of the bars.

          Social creatures, almost all of the birds are singing. Some are even talking. A Blue Fronted Amazon blurts out what could be “What’s up, pussycat?” but sounds more like “Wasp at?” My daughter takes out her iPhone and begins filming.

          As we finish our journey, my daughter and I bid adieu to the birds and thanks and farewell to our traveling companions. We toss our water bottle in the supplied bin, thank the grandmother again for the drink, and—for the drive home—buy another bottle from the small but well-stocked gift store. Cranking up the air conditioning in our Elantra, we head back to our almost-quiet and cooler home an hour away.

          There Gizmo, the lineolated parakeet that has traveled home with my daughter while her boyfriend vacations with his extended family, whistles his loud Welcome Home song. Automatically, my daughter translates: “I missed you! I missed you!”

          We do our best to whistle back: short, loud bursts, then quiet, breathy ones. It is the rhythm of our communication. After a few minutes, we open the cage and let him fly around the room. When he settles on my daughter’s head, we take turns telling Gizmo the tale of our day. I wonder what, in his smart bird brain, he will think. I wonder what he already knows. About us. About the world. About cats.

Sage Graduate Fellow of Cornell University (MFA) and Director of Creative Writing and Professor of English at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, Marjorie Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry—including True, False, None of the Above; Local News from Someplace Else; Transplant, Transplant, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award). Another collection, Wives’ Tales, is forthcoming in 2016, and the short story collection What She Was Saying is forthcoming in 2017. She has published over 450 stories, essays, and poems in journals and anthologies. Co-editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, she also has published four children’s books. For more information, please visit www.marjoriemaddox.com

Tao of Poo

by Mara A. Cohen Marks

   

          My home is an oasis of beauty and order, but as much as I enjoy it, I spend most of my time in my head. Which sometimes feels like a dangerous neighborhood.

That’s why I’ve started meditating. It’s a remodel for my internal landscape.

I’m carving out time each day to just sit quietly. No multitasking, no worrying about the future or rehashing things that happened in the past. Just paying close attention to what’s happening right now, moment by moment.

And in this moment, I’m perched in a lovely half-lotus atop my brand-new meditation cushion. Although my eyes are closed, I know the cushion complements my bedroom’s decor. Its curry color looks quite handsome against the wheat-colored background of my antique wool rug from China. This pleases me. What’s more, although my eyes are closed, I know the brand-new standard poodle napping beside me atop my antique wool rug from China will not shed. This also pleases me.

In point of fact, the poodle’s eight years old, so it’s only brand-new to me. My daughter was the main reason there’s a poodle in my bedroom. She’s wanted a dog for the longest time. “Oh Mommy, see that fluffy dog? Isn’t it cute? Please, can I have a dog? Someday? Or at least a fish?” But every time my daughter said, “dog,” I envisioned slobber on my silk upholstery, scratches on my glossy black floors, and fleas in my Egyptian cotton sheets. I felt like a failure as a mother, more concerned with maintaining the museum-like atmosphere of my home than with my daughter’s happiness.

I wasn’t entirely sold on getting a dog, but my interest was piqued when I heard about an eight-year-old standard poodle that needed a home—a retired show dog who’d given birth to several litters of champion poodles. Such a dog would be obedient and even-tempered. As far as dogs go, this one sounded ideal.  

But adopting a champion standard poodle is an entirely different prospect than say, bringing home a fish. Prior to welcoming such a creature into my home, I wanted to feel confident I’d be able to welcome her into my heart. My husband and didn’t tell our daughter what we were up to the day we went to meet the poodle. I stroked the poodle’s curly black fur and enjoyed its surprising softness. I held the poodle’s long, elegant muzzle in my hand and admired her regal face. I imagined how comforting I’d feel at night, knowing the poodle was there in my room, asleep on the antique Chinese rug. The poodle and I gazed into one another’s eyes, and I decided that yes, I could open my heart to such a creature.

I imagined my daughter’s excitement to finally have a pet. She’d have her pet, and I wouldn’t have to contend with an untrained puppy.

Come to think of it, my mind is like an untrained puppy. Notice how my attention just wandered off—replaying events of the recent past that explain why there’s a poodle beside me right now? And the thing I need to remember right now is that I’m breathing. I’m perched atop my meditation cushion, paying attention to nothing but my breathing. I’m paying attention to my breathing as I sit atop curry-colored meditation cushion that complements my bedroom decor beside the poodle napping on my antique wool rug from China.

The poodle sure sleeps a lot. I hope she isn’t sick or anything. That growth by her rectum doesn’t look so good. It’s probably nothing. Her veterinary records indicated it wasn’t anything to worry about.

The next day, a veterinarian recommends surgery to remove the growth beside the poodle’s rectum. But his floors are dirty, so I decide to get a second opinion. The veterinarian at a well-regarded animal hospital where the floors are immaculate explains the poodle suffers from an enlarged perianal gland at imminent risk of rupturing. I present the poodle’s health records, which indicate the perianal gland in question had been surgically removed two years earlier, but the veterinarian at the well-regarded animal hospital with immaculate floors is unimpressed. “They probably didn’t get all the cells,” he shrugs.

The poodle undergoes surgery later that week. It costs approximately what a reputable poodle breeder charges for a healthy puppy, but afterward she’s given a clean bill of health. Back home, the poodle spends most of the next two days sleeping. She dozes on the antique Chinese rug while I read instructions for a walking meditation by Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet,” he writes. “… every step makes a flower bloom under our feet.”

That night I awake to the sound of the poodle barking. Undoubtedly she’s attempting to alert me to an intruder. Glancing at my husband’s unoccupied pillow, I surmise that poodle has mistaken whatever action movie my husband is watching downstairs for an intruder. “It’s okay,” I whisper groggily. But the poodle keeps barking. “It’s okay,” I say again as I stagger out of bed. I head toward the bathroom where my robe hangs from the hook on the back of the door. I tiptoe over creaky hardwood floors until I feel the antique Chinese rug under my feet. “Shhh,” fearing the barks will wake my daughter. “It’s just Daddy watching TV—”  

My voice trails off as my right foot slips on something cold. Recovering my balance, the ball of my left foot comes down on something squishy. “Oh-no. No, no,” I chant. My stomach tightens as whatever I’ve just stepped in oozes between my toes. Hobbling on my heels, I traverse the remaining distance over the antique Chinese rug to the bathroom, punctuating each step with my desperate mantra: “Oh-no, oh-no, oh-no.”

I reach the bathroom and flip on the light. Time stands still while I struggle to comprehend what my eyes are seeing. My feet are covered in brown sludge. Turning to face my bedroom, it is as if an army of Buddhist monks have conducted a walking meditation there, tracking enough dung across the antique Chinese rug to fertilize an entire meadow of flowers.

I conduct a triage operation on my feet and bathroom tile and return quickly to the bedroom to assess the situation. The situation is not good. The poodle, its vision obstructed by a lampshade-shaped surgical collar, paces the antique Chinese rug. Coppery marsh-like paddies are spaced irregularly over the wheat-colored wool. Several paddies bear smeary imprints of feet—some human, some canine, some both human and canine. “No, no, don’t move!” I plead. “Stay!” I correct myself. I lift the poodle, careful to avoid her sutures, and carry her to the stairs.

“Help!” I call my husband’s name in a loud stage whisper so as not to alarm our daughter, then louder: “Help! Help me!” I stagger down the stairs toward the landing.  In all the excitement, I’ve forgotten my robe, and as my husband and I reunite before the giant window overlooking the street, I have only the poodle to cover my nakedness. Exposing myself in the light of the moon and the glow of the street light, I bark, “You take the poodle! I’ll handle the poop!”

Back in the bedroom, I flush what’s flushable and scrub whatever’s left over with Nature’s Miracle, a scented product meant to prevent repeat offenses. Why? Why? Why? asks my puppy-mind running in circles. Stop, I command. The poodle just had surgery, and her bowels are just now waking up. The poodle was barking. The barking was probably the poodle’s attempt to warn me she’d had a mishap. The poodle probably feels terrible about this entire episode. I’m surprised by my equanimity, and I credit my meditation practice.

Sure enough, the harrows of the night recede in the dawn of the new day. I lie in my bed, my attention focused on my breathing. Nothing to do right now but breathe. Outside my windows, the morning sun kisses the top of the eucalyptus tree, and I watch the branches sway gently in the breeze. When I’m ready, I rise and inspect the antique Chinese rug. The wool feels coarse where I’d been scrubbing, but the color seems fine. This rug is very old, I tell myself. Probably it has been through worse. As for the poodle, the veterinarian has given her a clean bill of health, and with luck, she’ll see my daughter through her high school years.

Wearing her surgical lampshade collar, the poodle snoozes beside me while I settle into half-lotus on my meditation cushion. I close my eyes and feel my lungs expand and contract. I feel the cool rush of air through the tip of my nostrils as I inhale. The smell of Nature’s Miracle is very strong. It reminds me of Tang. Did the astronauts really like that stuff? I feel my shoulders relax as I exhale. I inhale again. Do I smell poop? I peek at the poodle to reassure myself she’s still sleeping.

After dinner the next night, I’m cleaning kitchen when I hear the click-click of the poodle’s claws climbing the stairs. Isn’t that sweet, I smile to myself. The poodle is tired and has decided to retire to the antique Chinese rug. Fifteen minutes later, I head upstairs toward my bathroom, intending to floss my teeth. When I reach the landing, I look up, and the poodle’s eyes lock on mine. Her face, framed by the lampshade collar, wears a mournful expression. “What did you do?” I say accusingly. I tell myself not to jump to conclusions, but my heart pounds with dread. I race up the remaining steps and down the hall to my bedroom.

I arrive at the doorway and flip on the light. I’m dismayed to discover that the poodle hadn’t gone upstairs in innocence. Instead, she’d returned to the scene of last night’s crime with the express purpose of repeating her offense. Anger, denial and betrayal compete for dominance as I take in the tableau—smeary turds deposited at random intervals across my antique Chinese wool rug.

I cry out for my husband who rushes from the den. “Bad dog!” he scolds. The poodle cowers and attempts to run away, but she’s no match for my husband. I think he’s been watching another action movie. He scoops up the poodle and deposits her in our kitchen. Where she will pass another night.

         

My sleep is fitful, and the sky is the faintest violet when I feel a set of eyes staring at me. The poodle has managed to push open the kitchen door and now has her front paws on the edge of my mattress, two inches from my face. “Off,” I growl.

A few hours later I head to Petco where I purchase a crate for the poodle to sleep in at night. The crate is beige and brown plastic and clashes with my decor. I put the crate in my kitchen. Beige and brown and hulking, it looks like a VW bus. I look at it parked there, and l feel sad as I drink my morning coffee. I look at it parked there, and I feel sad as I sit down to dinner. I move the crate to a corner of my bedroom, near my closet, off the antique Chinese rug. With my eyes closed and my back turned on the crate, I sit on my meditation cushion, and I feel sad. Very, very sad.

“Hello, Monarch Rugs,” says the voice on the other end of the phone.

I tell the voice the size of my rugs and give my address. I tell the voice about the antique Chinese rug and the fact that it is wool. “Wool is highly absorbent,” observes the voice.

“Think you guys can get rid of whatever the poodle is smelling so she doesn’t keep doing it?”

“We don’t guarantee against red wine or pets.”

“Okay, I understand you don’t want to give me a guarantee. But do you think you can get rid of whatever it is the poodle’s smelling?”

“We don’t guarantee against red wine or pets.”

I perch atop my meditation cushion on my bedroom’s naked hardwood floors. The room seems austere and uninviting. I close my eyes, and try to follow my breath. Instead, I follow the click-click of the poodle’s claws as she wanders around the room. I hear her walk behind me, toward my side of the bed. I make my eyes slits, and see the poodle is sniffing my pillow. I close my eyes, and I hear the poodle click-click back to the floor beside me and lie down. I hear the poodle sigh, and I know for now my bedroom is safe. After a time, the poodle stirs, and I follow the sound of her click-click walk to the French doors overlooking my backyard. There she stops. I imagine her crouching in preparation to poop. Opening my eyes, I see the poodle standing alert, ears cocked, facing the backyard. She is the very picture of focused attention.

The full gravity of my situation begins to sink in as the next days and weeks unfold. One morning, I’m unloading the dishwasher while I drink my morning coffee. Turning around, I realize the poodle has wandered off. I discover her standing on the vintage Japanese rug in my dining room, and on the ground beside is a pair of fresh, brown turds. Several days later, the poodle savages a meticulously woven Navajo rug. And twice the poodle lays siege against a humble mass-produced doormat hecho en Mexico. The poodle embraces multiculturalism and does not discriminate.

But I do not blame the poodle. Instead, I greet each doo-doo boo-boo as a fresh opportunity to judge my shortcomings.  It’s my own fault for failing to anticipate that even a former champion show poodle would need to be taught where it’s acceptable to “go.” It’s my own fault for not realizing that even a mother who’d raised several litters of champion show poodles would need instruction as to how to navigate her new home and to recognize which door leads outside. It’s my own fault for not watching her every moment. I have to be more vigilant.

This awareness of my failings doesn’t prevent me from feeling irritated and bitter. The poodle anticipates my every movement, and she accompanies me everywhere. Sometimes she’s so close she causes me to trip. I tell myself I should be generous and offer the poodle some affection, some token of reassurance that she’s welcome in her adoptive home. Sometimes I pet the poodle, but inside my heart feels closed and stingy. Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to kick her.

Things were better before the dog. Things were better when my antique rugs were safe. Things were better before I had to pay such careful attention to the comings and goings and bodily needs of the poodle, before the poodle transformed the oasis of my home into a prison.

At night I toss and turn, analyzing each new mishap. In the light of day, the situation appears equally bleak. I sit on my meditation cushion, I close my eyes, and all I can picture is the poodle and her pooping. The poodle’s life expectancy is another four to seven years. I envision that time stretched out ahead, one long trail of excrement leading throughout my once-beautiful home.

“I’m sure the poodle can learn where she’s supposed to poop, but I’m not sure I’m the one to teach her.” I’ve interrupted my husband’s action movie to tell him this. It’s the middle of the night, and I’m exhausted. Sleepless nights have become a regular thing.

My husband pauses his movie. “Look,” he says, struggling to sound patient and reasonable. “Training a dog just takes time. And until then, we just have to watch her, that’s all.”

“We?” I say, my voice rising. “What do you mean ‘we?’ I’m the one who’s stuck here all day! I can’t watch her every second!”

“We should just put all the rugs in storage,” he proposes.

“Turning the house upside down? That’s the whole reason we went with an eight-year-old dog!” Struggling to regain my composure, I express the thoughts I’ve been afraid to admit. “Listen, I know we just paid for this big surgery. B-b-but it’s just not working out!” My eyes turn to faucets and the words tumble off my tongue before I can stop them. “I mean, it’s all I do—keeping an eye on her to see if she needs to poop and waiting for her to poop and cleaning up her poop and never knowing if maybe she’s going to poop!”

“Oh my God, you’re obsessed! I don’t want to talk about the dog and her poop!”

But there’s little else I can talk about. There’s little else I think about. My daughter sees I’m coming unhinged. “Mommy, it’s okay. I understand if we can’t keep the poodle.” I don’t want to disappoint this little buddha. I think of the effort I’ve already invested and the sickening possibility it’s all been wasted. I decide I’m not ready to concede defeat.

I spend hours in the yard, watching the poodle for some signal, some indication she is ready to poop. “Go poo-poo,” I say brightly. “Go poop!” I command. But the poodle seems more interested in eating the herbs we’ve planted in the garden. Tiring of my vigil, I bring the poodle inside. Wearily, I ask my husband to please keep an eye on the poodle so I can meditate before dinner.

Twenty minutes later and feeling quite refreshed, I decide to prepare my family a nice dinner. But there’s been an exciting football game on television, and my husband’s gone off to watch it in the den, leaving the dog locked in the kitchen. When I encounter her there, the poodle greets me enthusiastically. Unlike me, the poodle does not worry about the future, and she doesn’t regret the past. The poodle lives only in the present moment, and she’s forgotten about the three small turds she’s deposited on the kitchen floor while I’ve been upstairs meditating.

But I’ve been meditating and am the picture of calm as I clean up the poop. Sure, I’m disappointed to have missed a teachable moment while I was off meditating. But because I’ve been meditating, I have the clarity of mind to recognize there’s no point reprimanding the poodle for an offense that occurred during some indeterminate past moment I hadn’t been present to witness. Anyway, no rugs were damaged because the poodle pooped on hardwood floors. I have the insight to recognize this as progress. Because I’ve been meditating.

I feel my heart pumping from the morning’s brisk walk as I bow low behind the poodle. “Good girl!” I enthuse in an octave higher than my normal voice. “Good poo-poo!” I make this pronouncement with genuine pleasure. That’s because for the past several weeks I’ve subjected the poodle’s bowel movements to mindful attention—charting their time and location. The wisdom born from this daily practice enables me to recognize the small sack of shit dangling from my right hand as a precious gift. The poodle has given me a gift of freedom, good for the next five hours. During that time, I’m free from worry about the dog, and I’m free from worry about my rugs.

I’m also free to enjoy to the poodle. So later when I settle onto my curry-colored meditation cushion that complements my bedroom decor, the poodle will stand before me. She will stare at me with soft brown eyes, demanding my focused attention. I’ll cup her chin in one hand and stroke the back of her neck with the other. “You’re a goo-ood gir-rel,” I’ll whisper. When I drop my hands to my lap and close my eyes, the poodle will nudge my arm with her wet nose, and I will pretend to ignore her until I hear her lie down on the antique Chinese rug. When I hear her sigh, it will be my signal to focus my attention on my breathing. And to ponder the environmental impact of those plastic bags of poop.

Mara Cohen Marks’s stories have appeared in Alimentum, The Hairpin, Jewrotica, Medium, Mothers Always Write and Pentimento. Her essays and op-eds have been featured by New America Media, Los Angeles Daily News, LA Business Journal, La Opinion, and rarefied scholarly journals including Urban Affairs Review, Sociological Perspectives, and Political Research Quarterly. She holds a doctorate in political science, an invaluable degree for her current position in the field of uncompensated domestic labor. She lives with her family in Los Angeles. The poodle is doing just fine.