Posted on August 31, 2011 by: WayCoolDogs

I don’t usually walk boarding dogs, but Chico was there for a long stay and I knew he would need the exercise.  Plus he was just gorgeous. And irresistible.  His cage was one of those that had only one door, whereas the best ones have an upper and a lower door, so that you can open the top one and get your leash sorted out and in place before opening the bottom one to let the dog out. 

But I needn’t have worried. A very gentle, well-adjusted dog, he would wait patiently when I opened the door till I got the leash over his head and then come out to me – no pushing and jumping like some of the others. 

Outside I could really appreciate his stunning good looks. His fur was greyish white, and I could picture him as a wolf in Alaska, slipping soundlessly through the snow drifts, melting into the landscape.  He was lanky but not thin, carried himself with confidence, and behaved beautifully under all circumstances.

I could count on him not to rush another dog if we bucked one up on our walks, and nothing ever spooked him. In short, he was the perfect walking companion.  We would do a couple of turns of the car-park, and then I would sit on the old upturned cupboard for a rest.  Once I was seated Chico would hop up beside me, turn around, position himself so he was sitting right up close to me, and very delicately lick my cheek.  Needless to say, this ended up in a hug, and he would slide down into a lying position with his head on my leg.

After we had been walking for a week or two, one day a young man approached me to ask a question, and Chico got very agitated and began to growl, as if to say ‘Don’t come any closer, I am here to protect her’.  I’m sure I could have walked on any road with him, and felt safe. 

Inevitably I began to have visions of taking him home, but with two fully adult males already in residence, I knew it would be folly, and in any case he had an owner, and had been brought in as a boarder, for a very specific period of time.  As the end of that time approached a change came over Chico. 

There was a female on heat in the cage to his left, and to his right a large, dominant male shepherd. Whenever I took Chico out of his cage he stopped to speak to the female, they had a bit of a sniff-in, with a lot of wagging, and as we passed the male on the way out, Chico would bare his teeth and snarl (as if to put the other guy in his place), which naturally brought a noisy reaction from the caged shepherd (thank goodness he was!), and the two would rear up and have a real stand-off there in the passage for a few moments.

I hastened to get Chico out of there, as I was never sure when a door might fly open and we would have a real ding-dong fight on our hands.  

Amazingly, once out of the kennel area Chico seemed to completely forget about the other dogs, and we went on with our usual routine, with him acting as if nothing had happened at all.  I thought to myself how much I wished we humans could do the same, forgetting our anger and resentments so quickly, and going on with our lives. 

On the precise date when the little slip of paper on his cage said he would be departing, his owner came and Chico left the confines of a cage, hopefully for a better situation.  I was sorry I had not happened to meet the owner when he or she came, but I figured anyone who was willing to pay two months’ boarding fees would of necessity be a person who loved his dog.

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Guest Post by Cindi Scholefield, a volunteer at the local animal shelter in Kingston, Jamaica. For any donations to Cindi and her dogs, please send to:
Eunice Crompton-Nicholas
c/o
Harry Dufour
9330 Dunhill Drive
Miramar
Florida 33025-3869

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