How My Dogs Taught Me To Heal.

Flint & Steel Full Circle Writing Challenge

I am drawn to animals more than people because I trust animals more than people. I tend to rescue animals with traumatic pasts… because I understand them and truly believe that they understand me. Especially when it comes to dogs.

I long referred to Rosie (the tan dog in the forefront of the photo) as an “accidental adoption”. I wasn’t looking for her when she crossed my path. But I know now, that there was nothing accidental about it.

Rosie and I met at a very difficult time in my life when I’d only recently lost the dog I’d had before her. A dog I’d loved and who’d loved me for over 16 years. I wasn’t ready for a new dog… but suddenly there she was. She’d been bred into a fighting ring. She was beaten, tortured, starved, and attacked by other dogs until they thought they’d broken her. Then she was given a cat to kill. Instead, she protected the cat. She refused to give in to what they wanted her to be so they tried to have her put down. They called her “bad”. And it was their downfall because once I knew about it, I made it my mission to have them shut down and I retrained every single dog in that ring and they are all now in loving homes. But Rosie started it all the day that I realized we belonged together.

Stirling (the pointy-eared dog with his head on top of Rosie’s) was not an accidental adoption. We were specifically looking for a dog to be Rosie’s sibling. Rosie loves our cats but she’s so much bigger than they are. While we absolutely knew she’d never hurt them on purpose, she often wanted to play with them and it was clear that she needed someone her own size and species. We met several dogs before we found the “one” and there were signs everywhere.

The first thing we noticed about him on his bio… he had the same birthday as Rosie, just one year later.

His story was as traumatic as hers but in a different way. He’d been hoarded and had to struggle for food for his entire first year of life. He’d grown in height but was severely emaciated and was terrified of having his ears touched (they’d been pulled until they bled) and was completely mute. He’s mostly Husky and they’re known for making quite a bit of noise, but Stirling had been beaten and locked in a crate every time he’d vocalized. So he learned to be quiet. He learned to lay down and make himself as flat as possible. He even did it with our cats if they hissed at him.

Both dogs came into our home scared, hungry, and unsure. On the 27th of this month, Rosie will turn three years old and Stirling will turn two. They are not even slightly close to the same dogs that they were when we adopted them. They’ve come full circle. Born into trauma but raised in love. They trust us.

Rosie gives full-on hugs where she stands on her back legs, puts her front paws on your forearm and turns her body into yours, rests her head on your chest, and just stays there. It’s the most comforting and delicious hug I could ever describe. She not only continues to protect cats, but she raised two of ours from the time we brought them home as kittens. She loves to play and lives to cuddle and while there are still some triggers in her life, she is one of the most well-behaved and beautiful creatures I’ve ever had the pure luck of belonging to.

Stirling found his voice again and learned that it was okay to let his ears be touched because no one was going to hurt him. He’s gained enough weight to no longer be considered emaciated but still has about two pounds to gain before he’s considered a normal weight for a dog his size. He sleeps in his crate but is afraid of it if we have to leave him in it. He’s quite the escape artist and will get out of it before we return, even from a short trip to the grocery store. He taught Rosie to play with toys. She’d never had any before she met us and was never really sure what to do with them until he showed her. He is goofy and silly and makes me laugh at least 20 times every single day just by being himself.

It boggles my mind how anyone would ever harm these dogs. But I understand them because I’ve been them—a voiceless creature born into trauma. The entire time that they’ve been in my life, I thought it was me that was helping them to come full circle. To learn that they deserved to feel safe and to be loved. But that’s not the entire story.

They were teaching me.

I was born unwanted. I was sent away to ballet school where I learned to dance on broken bones, hide my pain, starve my body, and do what I was told. At the age of 16, I was assaulted so brutally that I died two times in the hospital which claimed two months of my life and all of my spirit.

The stories of my dogs, though so different from each other, mirrored my own so completely that I almost couldn’t even see it at first. My life has been a series of traumas so consuming that the idea of coming full circle never even occurred to me as possible. How could I ever trust another person completely? How could I allow myself to be touched and not recoil? How could I show my pain and fight against it? How could I love myself when for the entirety of my life I’d been taught that my worth was my weight and even that wasn’t worth much? I bathed and stewed in my trauma, scraping through the darkness my life had amounted to, never expecting to find light.

As I watched my dogs, individually and together, learn that it was okay to trust me, to love me, to feel safe with me, I started to take a look at my own life. I started writing about the things that I barely survived and trying to work through them.

Safety is Rosie. She’d never let anything happen to me any more than I would ever let anything happen to her.

Levity is Stirling. His simple nature gives me permission to smile, even on my worst days. He dances to the sound of my laughter.

Trust and light are reflected in the soft warmth of their fur and slobbered kisses on my cheek. They gave me permission to heal. Because they did. I can’t say that I’ve truly come full circle yet… but I’m getting there.

I’m getting there.

Thank you, Ellie Jacobson for this challenge. This will likely not be my only entry but it was the only place I could start.