Goldie

Goldie  (13+) A Writer's Cramp entry for May 13, 2017 543 words #2121457 by Chris Breva

543 words

Those who take in stray dogs save the lives of one of God's most loyal, loving, and intelligent animals. I know this to be a fact because I worked in a pound. We had a very limited budget so when the animals got sick we had no choice but to either let them die or put them down ourselves. I remember one day we went into the shelter and discovered that one of the dogs had distemper. That meant that we had to put down every animal in the shelter, 125 dogs and about 50 cats. It was a very heart-breaking day. I remember each of those animals as if it were yesterday. The memory haunts me. We had one dog in particular that stands out to me. I named him Goldie because he was a pure bred yellow lab. I led him to the clinic with tears in my eyes. I petted him as the humane officer injected the euthanasia drug. He collapsed and I carried him to the freezer. Our crematory was running already and we had to store the dead animals. I was crying as if I had just lost a family member as I led another set of helpless dogs to their deaths. We injected them and I carried them back to the freezer room as well. When I opened the freezer Goldie stood up and started licking my face! My partner, a fellow animal control officer ran from the shelter screaming "I quit! I quit!"

I led Goldie back to the clinic and begged the humane officer to spare him. He was such a hearty dog that he had the lives of a cat and I wanted no part of killing him. I didn't care that he might spread distemper. I offered to pay to adopt him and I took Goldie home with me! He was the most loving animal I had ever met. He was also super intelligent. One time I was arguing with my wife over some trivial thing. She sneaked up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, which I had warned her never to do. When she did she triggered my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and I swung at her without thinking. Goldie saw it and the look he gave me would have wilted weeds! He knew I was out of line and he let me know it. He was a trained service dog and he responded to my PTSD reaction and intervened before anything really negative happened. I missed my wife when I swung at her and Goldie was at my side immediately as if he had been trained to respond to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I wanted to have him evaluated or at least find out his history but he had been brought toe finally died the shelter as a stray. However he triggered to every PTSD reaction I had and went on to reveal himself as a highly intelligent, highly trained service animal! He turned on lights in dark rooms, brought things to me, and did many tasks service animals do. I never took him out in public but I'm certain he deserved a vest! I asked myself many times how I could ever have justified euthanizing him a second time! He finally died of natural causes, never once showing symptoms of distemper!