On Lone Puppies and Good Men

Two lone puppies, abandoned in the snow. One had such cold paws, he was constantly climbing on top of the other

It is all my husband’s fault. He wanted to walk the dogs, but then didn’t wear the right shoes, so now he’s wearing shoes that aren’t waterproof, so he cannot walk in the snow, and because of that we’ve got to hike up the mountain along the road. I don’t like walking on the road with dogs, because although in general cars will slow down when they see the dogs, some do not.

That’s how it started.

My dogs, sniffing them out

So here we walk on the tarmac, snow piled up on both sides of the road. It is 4:00 PM, the sun is about to set and it is getting colder. And in the distance we hear a dog. It is in an area where there are no houses, so what could be yelping? We ignore it. There are stray dogs in these mountains, and entire packs of jackals come out at night, howling as they roam around the mountains in search of food.

But our dogs go after it. And then there’s obvious yelping in fear. Some animal is cornered. When I follow them, into the snow, and through the bushes, I find two puppies, left alone in the snow. No shelter nearby, not even a box.

It is clear that someone had just dumped them there, out of sight, where no one will notice them. They’re maybe two months old, and very cold. They try to climb on top of each other, because their little paws are freezing in the snow.

Two brothers

Why is this always happening to us? Why do abandoned and lonely dogs always cross out path?  It’s like they’re lurking around the corner, waiting for us suckers to pass by. There’s lonely dog  #1, lonely dog #2, and lonely dog #3. We’ve got like a whole pack of them at home now. This is about the last thing we need; more lonely dogs.

We want to continue our walk. But the sun is setting. It is cold, and it is clear they are not going to survive the night out here. It freezes at night in these mountains, and even if they’d survive the cold in the snow, without a shelter, there’s the jackals roaming those hills at night. They move in packs, and a little dog would make a good dinner. We’ve had jackals snatching away little puppies right under our eyes in the past.
So what do you do? Ignore it? Had we not chosen this path, they would have died too, so what is the difference? 

I once watched an interview where a grandmother explained to her granddaughter how she decided to marry grandpa. “I asked him where his dog slept, and he said in his bed, and I figured, if he’s that good to his dog, he’ll be good to his wife.”

Is it mom?

Another story.

A friend of mine, on her very first date with the man she eventually married, some forty years ago, told me that her dog had been sick that day, and the dog had left a long trail of diarrhea all over the living room. My friend told him she could not go out with him that evening because she had to clean up the mess. He helped her clean everything up, and it was only later she found out he didn’t really like dogs. “If he hadn’t helped me with my dog right then and there, I probably would never have married him.”

The moral of the story is that men who treat animals decently make good husbands. The Good Men Project, some American initiative that explores what it means to be a ‘good man’ also mentions that  real man love animals.

So what am I getting at? I am married to a good guy.

They check out of it is their mama. But it is not.

Yep.

We took them home. Bathed them. Fed them. Sheltered them. From the looks of it, they’re probably the offspring of a street dog somewhere, who lives at a construction site (one of the puppies was covered in cement) , and the workers may not have enjoyed the idea of having too many dogs around, so they picked them up and dumped them in the snow.

It is incomprehensible to me that you can just leave a living creature out there in the snow where you know it will die. No compassion. If you can do that to an animal, you can do it to a human.

So ladies, the moral of this story is, be with a guy who is good to animals. Cause he’ll be good to you.