*Spoiler
Alert!* I found her again. But not without significant emotional trauma….
Just
over a week ago, I took my darling girl, Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, pictured above, on a
hike in the Cienega Canyon Preserve. It’s a wild area out in the hills
southwest of where we live, and I’ve hiked there often with her. We both love
it. She gets to sniff wild creatures on the wind and in the brush, and I get to
watch for hawks, deer, coyotes, and other wild creatures.
On
this particular morning, we’d gone less than a mile before looking up to see a
very young bobcat playing in the trail about forty yards ahead of us. At the
sound of my laugh, the big kitten bounded off into the sage and sunflowers, and
a moment later we crept past that spot, Maya with her nostrils flaring, me with
my phone out, camera app on, hoping to see it again. No such luck. We walked
on.
The
morning was bright and already heating up at 8:00, and the trail we had
traveled in the past had become extremely overgrown, so I was just making up my
mind to turn around and head home when Maya began limping. She’d picked up a
sticker in her left front paw.
This
presented a problem. While it is no longer much of a struggle for me to touch
her feet (to check them after a hike or to clip her nails) when she’s in her crate, she is still too wary to let me touch her paws or legs while we are out
hiking. We obviously couldn’t go on, though, so I made her sit, and when she was
calm, I reached down to check her paw. She panicked, jumped backward, and slipped
right out of her collar. Then I panicked, telling her “Maya! Wait!” a bit too
sharply. But she stopped. (Good girl!) Hands shaking, I grabbed her scruff,
holding it tightly with one hand as I slid the collar back on with the other. I
walked her forward, and in the tussle, the sticker had apparently been
dislodged, as she was walking without limping. Whew. Safe. Or so I thought.
We
turned to go home.
On
a previous visit to the preserve, I had dropped Maya’s leash when we were about
a half mile from the trailhead, and she had done beautifully, trotting ahead at
times, but always stopping when I gave her the “wait” command. On this day, when
we were still three quarters of a mile out, I decided to try that training
again, but instead of dropping the leash in the dirt, I unhooked it. She trotted
along beside me in the trail, never going ahead, just being with me. It was
glorious. Until it wasn’t.
Because
we’d seen the bobcat, and because the day was warm, my gaze alternated constantly
between the trail up ahead (for coyotes or critters), the trail beneath our feet (in case of
rattlesnakes), and checking to make sure Maya was beside me. We’d gone a quarter
mile when I looked out, looked down, looked to my side—and she was gone.
I
stopped and turned. She’d taken a side path, a single-track coyote trail that
led toward a steep ridge, and those crazy long legs of hers were trotting as
fast as she could stride. She was already thirty yards ahead of me. Panicking
again, I called her loudly: “Maya! WAIT!” To no avail.
Here’s
the thing about feral dogs: You can’t chase them. In Maya’s first life, the one
she spent in two successive, awful rescues, they handled her by chasing her—out
of her kennel, then back in. When she sees anyone behind her on our walks, she
immediately becomes anxious and strains on the leash, trying to run.
In
this situation, I had to pursue her, but I knew I couldn’t run. I walked as
fast as I could, repeatedly calling her. She ran up a hill so steep, I questioned
whether I could get up it—but I did. I had to. As I topped the ridge, I saw
her, now fifty yards ahead, still trotting. She disappeared down a slope, and
all I could do was follow, hoping she didn’t leave the trail.
She
didn’t. As I reached the bottom of the downhill slope, I could see her topping
the next hill. On we went in that fashion, with me losing, then gaining sight
of her, willing myself to breathe deep, save my oxygen and strength.
I
topped a hill, and there she was, exhausted, lying in the shade under some
brush.
“Maya!
Wait!” I snapped. And she was off and running again.
I
slowed my walk, thinking, as the sun rose higher and I realized I’d brought no
water with me, I might have to follow her all the way to the
far end of the preserve, which was three miles along the ridgeline—and a block
from Interstate 10.
“Breathe,
Kay,” I told myself. “What would Cesar Millan do?”
Well,
he would adjust his energy, stay calm, and not utter a word.
I
did these things, as best I could, topped another ridge—and there she was again,
lying in the dirt, panting. I stood in the trail, breathing and sweating and
hoping, not saying a word. Slowly she rose to her feet. I didn’t move. She
walked toward me. Quietly, calmly, I said, “Maya, come,” and I turned toward
home. She followed, right at my heels. After a moment, she moved beside me on
the trail. Ever so slowly and gently, I reached out a hand and took her collar, stopped, and
snapped on the leash.
When
I knew I had her, I sank to my knees in the trail and sobbed. If she’d been
lost in those hills, she would not have survived. The coyotes would have
made a quick meal of her.
The
long walk back in the hot sun, descending those steep hills on shaky legs, took
an agonizingly long time. Maya was overheated and kept trying to lie down in
every little bit of shade she found. I would have carried her—all thirty pounds—but
on those treacherous descents, it would have been too dangerous. If I’d
sprained or broken an ankle, our day would have gone from bad to really quite
awfully terrible.
Friends,
I believe I have learned more from the mistakes I’ve made with my dogs than all
the YouTube videos and episodes of The Dog Whisperer (or Cesar’s other many
shows) I’ve ever watched. How did I fail Maya? By not realizing that, while I had
quickly moved on after the sticker-in-the-paw episode, she had not yet shaken
it off—how I’d grabbed her, speaking sharply and holding the back of her neck.
The trust of a feral dog is always tenuous. With Thomas, it still is, even
after nearly ten years. Yes, we have our sweet moments when I brush him or clip
his nails or simply sit and rub his belly, and he is blissfully happy. But then
I might do something he sees as threatening—slap a mosquito or pick up my
guitar or print out a document—and suddenly he is terrified, running through the
house and seeking safety somewhere away from me.
That’s
what Maya was doing, seeking a safe place to hide. Eventually, she came to see
that she could run forever—or she could choose to trust me again. Boy howdy,
did I get lucky this time.
Training
feral dogs is not for the faint of heart or for those with little patience. The
journey is often two steps forward, five steps back. The Universe gave Maya
back to me. I will be much, much more careful with her in the future.
