Dog adoption

Stokie loved jumping in my car when I had to go somewhere

We weren’t supposed to have her. We were too old to take her running. There were no sheep for her to herd. Yet, the moment we saw her gentle face, we fell in love with her.

Stokie was an older Border Collie from a rescue agency specializing in the breed. We didn’t know much about her except that she was found in Stokes County NC (and named for it), she was close to nine years old, and she had been severely injured. She had gone through reconstructive surgery on her lungs and had a deep, hoarse, strained voice if she barked. She also trotted more like a rocking horse than a dog. Sometimes, her back legs crossed and stiffened, and she needed help to uncross them.

For the first few nights, I slept beside her. She felt like a fragile doll that could easily break, and I just wanted to keep her safe. I listened to her and took my cues from her. She showed me how to help her, and I did my best. In time, she was walking normally and letting some of her puppy side show. She gave full toothy grins when she was happy, and she went wild over peanut butter. When she wanted me to stay home, she’d climb into my driver’s seat and just sit there with a big grin.

Though she had every reason to be filled with bitterness and distrust, Stokie was a gentle dog with nothing but kindness and love in her heart. This was especially true in the relationship she had with our cockatiel, Chester. When she first entered the house, she went right to him and stared up at him in love and admiration. She checked on him every morning, and watched him all through the day. This connection continued unbroken until Chester’s passing. To my cats, she was equally mellow. One cat she even allowed to curl up and sleep with her in her bed when he was a kitten. Sometimes, Stokie looked at then baby Mikah as if he was an infant in her charge. She was elderly then and more like Nana in Peter Pan than any other dog.

At the end, some of the old haunts came back to worry her. Arthritis settled into her back legs and made it hard to walk sometimes. Her eyes got hazy, and she couldn’t always see where she was going. We gave her supplements, massaged her legs, and installed a ramp to help her go outside easier. When it was her time to go, I buried her in the ground not far from Chester and the other pets we had owned and loved. I planted a rose bush to mark her grave. She became a permanent part of our family and the land that is our inheritance.

What Stokie needed most in all her seasons was love. She needed the patience and forgiveness to not expect her to be something she was not. She needed the grace to see her potential and bring out her best. She needed the safety of knowing she had a home and would be cared for regardless of what work she could do to contribute.

She wasn’t able to do much, but she gave love to everyone, and that was therapeutic. She came into a disabled home and taught us all that we had more in us to give a dog than we thought we had left to give.

Like the title suggests, this book of poetry is a memoir about the author’s journey into owning multiple dogs and what life is like with them. It is organized chronologically, so it is clear to see the progression of her growth over time. Becoming a dog mom to multiple dogs began as a grief response but blossomed into a new purpose. Adopting dogs that were often abused gave her a mission to love them back to health.

Barth’s honesty is compelling. Her poems are approachable and grounded in real events and images. This is not a poetry book that challenges you to think about philosophy or anything too deep. It is more about dog adoption and what that taught the writer. With several poems about the dogs themselves, the reader gets to fall in love with them as well. The journey of love and loss, healing and wholeness, is fully relatable and admirable.

This is a short book (just 35 pages) and all the poems are relatively short free verse. It would be a welcome read for animal lovers especially dog lovers. If you love Chihuahuas, this is a must read.

About the Author

Barbara Barth turned to writing and adopting dogs to heal after the loss of her husband in 2008. Known as Writer With Dogs over the years, she now calls herself Chihuahua Mama and lives with six demanding Chihuahuas in a charming small town forty miles from Atlanta. She is Literary Arts Chair on the Board of her local art center. Inspired by the many talented artists she meets Barth started painting. Her whimsical style embraces ladies, gardens, critters, and of course cats and dogs.