The
first time I saw her she was walking away from me. Head hung low to the ground
while she emitted a low keening sound that occasionally crescendoed into an
outright high pitched howl before dropping back down. She had tiny feet at the
end of her abnormally long black legs. Her long lean body was marred by the
slightly protruding belly that made her look pregnant. Her blocky head appeared
too big for her body and her floppy ears hung listlessly along the sides of her
face. She was so ugly she was adorable and her history and refusal to desire
anything from humankind made her an instant sell to me. I had to have this
awkward man hating puppy.
At 3 months old she had already acquired a lifetime of
experiences. Having been abandoned in the woods near Hoonah Alaska at only 6
weeks old, she had had to fight for her continued existence while watching the
eventual deaths of 4 of her siblings. April in Southeast Alaska isn’t always kind
in its weather. While we get the typical April showers, we’ve also been known
to frequently get snow and ice as winter tries to hold onto it grip upon the
land. With temperatures ranging from 26 degrees Fahrenheit to 36 degrees, it
continues to amaze me that any of these defenseless puppies managed to survive,
let alone two of them.
Black
Labrador Retrievers are known for their high spirits, athletic ability, fierce
loyalty, and high intelligence. All traits that were needed when they were
originally breed to be companionable duck hunting dogs. I learned quickly that,
despite the boasting from the owner of her mother, my dog was NOT a Black Lab.
My first indication of this was the small white patches on the backs of two of
her feet and hidden on the center of her chest. According to the American
Kennel Club, Labrador Retrievers come in three solid colors with no markings.
This, and her strong independent streak, confirmed the rumor that her father
had been a husky.
I
gave her the name Freya. Freya is the name of a Norse Goddess, patron Goddess
of women. She is known for her beauty, her outgoing friendly nature, and in
some legends her fierce support of fighting women. It seemed rather appropriate
that my Freya was none of those things but chose to respond to this one, of the
thousands, of names I tried out on her. My Freya was awkward, strongly
independent, and wanted nothing to do with human companionship.
Despite
Freya’s determination to be self-reliant, she immediately glommed onto my 9
year old husky Dytie. Much to Dytie’s despair, she could not shake the small
furry beast that would follow her and lick her relentlessly. Dogs are curious
creatures. I’ve always heard that one of the great things about them is their
almost endless capacity for forgiveness and love. It was only with her reaction
to Dytie, and my mom’s 8 year old 130 pound Black Lab Malamute mix Monty, that
I began to see that Freya’s tough exterior was masking a quiet inner strength
and secret desire to be loved.
Frequent trips to the trails of Juneau revealed another
side of Freya. The second she would see the towering Evergreen trees her head
would droop and her tail would be tucked so far under her legs as to give the
first impression that she was actually a ‘he’. Then she would start to shake,
and if she wasn’t in the close companionship for Dytie or Monty, the low
keening sound would begin again as she started to panic from the memories of
those three horrible weeks of her puppyhood. I never knew dogs could experience
something as complex as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But she managed
to exhibit clear signs of it. These signs were also present at home.
A common way to house train a puppy is through the use of
a kennel. A kennel is a plastic crate with air holes and a metal grate that
latches. The perfect sized kennel is one in which the dog has plenty of room
move around comfortably, has space between where they lay in it and their food
and water dishes, and when they sit in it their heads down touch the top. To
train them you start by taking them out and having some kind of verbal command
such as “do your business” or “go potty” as you walk them in a designated
bathroom area. If they do their thing, then they get some free time before
they’re returned to their kennel. This turns the kennel into a safe place they
can always go and helps establish that the kennel is like the rest of the house
and messes should not be made in them. Over time their free time outside of the
kennel and the designated bathroom area gets extended until they’re
consistently making messes outside and the kennel becomes just an extra hidey
hole for them. The use of a kennel also gives us humans an added bonus of a
safe place for the dog to go when we have to leave the house so they can’t
destroy things. This concept did not work well for Freya. From her first
moments in the kennel she discovered that she was alone in a potentially dark
place. This brought on more screaming and I do mean screaming. She managed to emit
a high pitched kind of yell that sounded like someone was torturing a baby. The
sound was such that you could hear it outside and 3 houses away and would go on
for hours or as long as you left her in the kennel. However, if you left her
outside of her kennel she would quickly discover something the needed to be
eaten.
Freya’s
idea of food included things like rocks, towels, socks, shoes, chairs, and her
dog bowl. Yes, the bowl itself was a representation of food and therefore
needed to be eaten. I believe this view of food steamed from that same
traumatic puppyhood experience. As a 6 week old puppy she would have just
started eating puppy food and being weaned off her mother’s milk. Ideally a
puppy should be weaned at 8 weeks old or older. Historically speaking, this is when
they have developed puppy teeth that are tough enough to make an impact on the
skin, meat, and bones of the wild animals they would have been being taught how
to eat by their pack. Having had no such training from her wild brethren, Freya
and her litter would have had to try and figure out what food is for
themselves. As anyone who has been around young animals or young children know,
what constitutes as food is a supremely broad term to them. Anything that can
be put in their mouths for possible consumption, will be.
Training was another painfully sad experience in the
first year and a half of Freya’s life. Normally having an older dog around
helps immensely in the training procedures. The younger dog will watch the
older dog go through commands and get treats and pick up on what they need to
do to get treats as well. Once again Freya exhibited her complete desire to go
against the norms of doggy society by not learning from her elders. She would
watch as commands were given to other dogs and they were treated but when it
was her turn she would stare blankly and do nothing. My thought was that you
could clearly see that the hamster in her head was not running on his wheel
like he should have been. I once told a dog trainer and behaviorist about this
and was told how wrong I was. That all dogs, especialy Black Labs, had an
inherent intelligence and I just didn’t know how to train dogs despite the
classes and training I had done and the years of working with different dogs.
Once she met Freya and spent a very frustrated hour trying to teach her, she
dubbed Freya the ‘simple dog’ and never spoke of it again. I now know that the
behaviorist was correct in that we just hadn’t found a way to communicate with
Freya yet. This lack of learning was, once again, one of Freya’s external ways
of dealing with a deep rooted fear of dealing with humans and the betrayal that
could stem from such interactions.
My first indication that Freya was starting to warm up to
me was demonstrated in her new found love for eating my clothing. Only my
clothing and she was very specific on which parts of clothing were eatable to
her. The crotch of pants and undies, the cups of bras, the back of the knees of
pants and the elbows of my shirts, jackets, and sweatshirts. Also the left
shoe, only the left shoe, not the right one, and preferably the ankle of the
left shoe. The left ankle is where I’ve had extensive surgery due to my own reckless
youth and my need to refuse to conform to the norms of society that lead me to
constantly injure myself from doing things such as jumping off the roof of
second story buildings and down stairway shafts.
Over the last few years Freya has slowly learned to love
and find excitement in the natural world around her. It started with something
simple. Freya watched as the pounding rain that poured off the corner of our
roof would strike the ground and bounce back up. I watched as she decided the
flying droplets were attacking her and so tried to bite them before they could
bite her. This was her first decision to explore the natural world around her
that I observed. It didn’t take long before she was running through the rain
and trying to catch the water drops on her long drooping tongue. Her feet
splashing through the puddles and turning the grassy yard into muddy dibbits. Not
long after that short terrifying walks through parks turned into long hikes
through the temperate rainforest surrounding Juneau as she learned that she
could crunch through fallen leaves, chase after the chittering squirrels, and
still have a safe place to come home to in the end.
Her vomit inducing fear of car rides become exciting
outings in which her head could hang out of the car window and her nose could
quiver as she took in the intoxicating smells of damp dirt, sweet leaked
coolant, and the icy wind that blew off the Mendenhall Glacier that would
freeze the nose hairs, if she had had any.
Freya grew into a beautiful dog. Her tiny feet grew out,
her distended belly shrank as the parasites that infested it were destroyed.
Her body caught up with her long legs and turned her into a sleek lanky dog with
the softest fur the color of midnight. So dark she disappears when the lights are
turned off and is known to frequently scare the daylights out of people by
popping up in random places, unheard and unseen until the last moment. Freya
discovered the joy of having a soft place to land and a nice dark kennel to
hide in when she needed to feel safe.
I’ve learned a lot from Freya. Though the world can be a
scary place, we should take the time to find things of beauty and inspiration
in them. Like the smell of wood fire on
the breeze and the sound of fall leaves crackling under out feet. We need to
find joy in the small things that help us move forward from fear and into
forgiveness. Freya has shown that through love we can overcome the memories
that haunt us. Freya has now become my Fearless Freya as she boldly encounters
new experiences with confidence and curiosity and takes delight in the
knowledge that she will always have a safe place to come home to and a family that
loves her. Freya has also taught me
something profoundly impactful upon my own life: I am Freya.
