Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs Read Free Page A

followed me home (quite nicely once
I took off my shoelaces and my belt and hooked
the makeshift leash around his neck) and that I had
hidden him in the small shed that housed our garbage
cans. How was I to know that my father would finish
his supper early and decide to take the trash cans
out then? He normally didn't take the trash out
until much later. Since I had momentarily
forgotten the dog, the combination of deep barking,
surprised swearing and the bellowing of my name came as
a shock. My allowance took yet another hit.
A good deal did happen to me in my youth and
adolescence that easily qualifies me for
membership in any number of support groups and
twelve-step programs. But somehow, I came through
it all relatively intact, bearing only a
reasonable load of baggage to sort out along my
life's journey. It may be that any child with a consuming
passion is buffered against life's blows by that very
passion; it may be that the animals themselves served as
both buffers and healers. I have a hard time imagining
that a stamp collection would have done as well as my
animal friends did.
    where the animals lead me
Through childhood and beyond, a veritable Noah's ark of
animals have accompanied me on my life's journey.
Long before I read Joseph Campbell's wise advice to
    "follow your bliss," I was already following my heart's
desire. There were other opportunities
available to me in life-my high school art teachers
urged me to attend art school, my English teachers
pushed me toward a career as a writer. My
grandfather, aware of my great love of books, offered
to pay my college tuition if I agreed to become
a librarian. I was surrounded by disapproval and
dire warnings of inevitable failure if I
pursued my dreams. My stubborn insistence on
following my bliss created conflict and pain in my
relation ships with those who could not understand why I spent my
teenage years at a nearby stable, why I pursued
an animal husbandry degree only to abandon that
to leap at a chance to work with a guide dog organization
and then move on from there to manage a stable and kennels
and to ultimately become a trainer. At every
crossroad, I took only the path that would lead
me where I wanted to go-toward a deeper understanding of a
life shared with animals.
I write this book in a house filled with wonderful
animals-seven dogs, seven cats, a pair of
tortoises, a parrot and a box turtle. From my
window, I can glimpse my horses, the donkey and
some of the Scottish Highland cattle that
grace our pastures. There is mud on my jeans,
left there by Charlotte the pig's affectionate
greeting. I know that in the warm glow of the barn
lights, my loving husband is tending to the nighttime
chores, talking to calves as he hands out treats of
stale bread, settling the turkeys, chickens and
quail in for the night. In my relationship with each of
these much-loved and complex beings, including my husband,
there are ghosts and echoes of all the animals that have
shared my life, and the seedlings of a wisdom crafted
from both joys and sorrows. I am grateful for the
immeasurable love bestowed upon me daily by my
husband and my animals. Sometimes, I question whether
I deserve such blessings. If I have somehow grown
into a person who deserves what she has been given
so freely, it is in large part the reflection of the
grace and forgiveness granted to me by the animals who
have accompanied me thus far on my life's journey.
    Those who do not know better label me simply as an
"animal lover" and find it charming, if odd, that a
parrot flies freely through the house, that a turtle
tells me quite clearly he'd like a cherry tomato for
lunch, that my dogs find it not at all unusual
to go for a walk in the woods with a turkey or
a pig. I give these people amusing tales of waking
to find a cat's gift of a dead mole on my
pillow or the inexplicable presentation of a
live, unhurt baby bird, and we laugh at