One of the qualities for which dogs are noted is FIDELITY. Faithfulness, loyalty, unchangeability in affection.
Dogs are known for it. Proverbial for it, even. But . . . what about dog people? Specifically, what about dog people with respect to their dogs?
Over and over I've read statistics indicating that the "average" person in the dog game lasts around five years at it. One third of a dog's life, that is . . .
Others last longer. Fifteen years. Twenty or more. But eventually, most have to call a halt. It's expensive. It's physically taxing, in most cases. It's emotionally demanding.
But, when one does have to call a halt, there's a right way and a wrong way, at least. Of course, I should talk! I had to give my dogs up in the mid-1970s, finding myself overextended and unable financially to continue my Seppala commitment. But at least I did my best to find homes for all of them and to close down Markovo Kennels decently.
All the same, the ghosts of the Markovo kids haunted me sufficiently that in 1990 I found myself getting involved with them all over again. Yes, it's the second time around for Jeffrey.
But when experienced, highly committed dog people just throw up their hands and declare that they don't want any part of it any more -- or worse, when they declare to their partners in the dog game that if they cannot have total control, they don't want any part of it -- what is one supposed to think of that? How can anybody just walk away from their dogs?
A few years ago a guy trucked his sleddogs all the way from Nova Scotia to the Yukon Territory, stayed there a few weeks, and then abandoned his dogs, tied out in the bush, and left the Territory. A well-known Yukon Quest musher spent months re-homing the rescued dogs this nut case abandoned. That disturbed me pretty badly, as I knew both parties to that sordid little tale.
Now it has come a lot closer to home . . . and I just don't know what to think. I don't see how people can just walk away from dogs they have known, loved, cared for, bred, driven as sleddogs, entrusted their safety to in the bush in the dead of winter . . .
Let's just say that I completely fail to understand it. I'm having to live with the aftereffects of it just now, but I'm not doing at all well with working through it and moving on.
Our dogs offer us their total fidelity, with their whole souls. What do we offer them in return? And for how long . . .