A (Canine) Refugee from New Orleans

As I write this post, I am looking from my second floor window across the alley to the house directly behind me. It is a big, well kept home and the wisteria hangs gracefully over the large deck. I see a black dog, probably of several pedigrees, running around. I can't tell the dog's age but it doesn't seem to be a puppy. Maybe two or three years old.

Yesterday I talked to my neighbor from this house as I was taking trash to the dumpster. We talked about neighborhood things--other houses up for sale, my newly landscaped back yard, the upcoming neighborhood alley cleanup.

As I was getting ready to go back to my own back yard, he introduced me to Penny, "a refugee from New Orleans." I asked what he meant. He said that another neighbor had acquired several displaced pets from New Orleans and offered Penny to his family of two teenage girls. They took Penny in and now she has a loving home.

I looked at Penny and wondered: What has she seen? How was her life turned upside down? Who in New Orleans is missing her? Or is anyone missing her at all? Was she one of those pets that was found floating on a door or on the top of a roof, the waters about to engulf her?

I am touched by the kindness of my neighbors in accepting Penny and giving her a home. Somehow and in ways I cannot describe, kindness to animals and to "all of creation" seems to me to be connected to kindness to other humans and to a better balanced world.

My partner took in a cat at his house named Webster. Webster runs in and out of the house. He eats there but doesn't always want to hang out. He makes few claims of my partner and his daughter. But one day when he was mauled in a cat brawl, he was lovingly cared for until he could go out on his mysterious prowls again. Another sign of kindness to animals.

Now when I look out and see Penny running around her new back yard, I will remember New Orleans. Many of the human refugees have not fared as well as Penny. It is strange that my most concrete and visible link to what happened down there is a dog.