A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, the one I feed the most.

George Bernard Shaw

Five years ago this week the Jersey Girls had a very serious decision to make, isolate ourselves again or rejoin the world.  Would we continue to feed the mean and evil girls or would we feed the good girls? By now you know the Jersey Girls are Lina, an adorable pit mix, Toto, a precocious wire-haired terrier something or other and me. We came from places that were not kind to us to New Jersey within three days of one another in September of 2008. We were ecstatic but reeling from the change with little time to adjust to our new surroundings.  We did the best we could not knowing what the future would hold but thankfully, clinging to the old saying that a dog will find the person that needs them most, we knew we were meant to be together and to be in Jersey.

By Thanksgiving we were at a crossroads, the dogs were unruly and aggressive to anyone they came in contact with and I was curing that by walking them behind my building.  People were no longer coming over and I was right back where I started, alone.  Of all the blessings Muriel has bestowed on me, the best one ever was; I’m not coming over anymore.  I know that doesn’t sound very blessed but it had the impetus that inspired action.  The Jersey Girls spent Thanksgiving week recalibrating our lives.  I took back my power with that one line.  You see, that would never do, there was no way to fulfil my friend, Cookie’s, request that I take care of Muriel if she wasn’t ever coming over again.

Say what you want about Cesar Milan, he saved our lives.  We became the house of “nothing for nothing”.  The girls didn’t eat until they sat, they didn’t touch the food until I said OK,   They didn’t go out until they sat, and they never again went out the door first. They didn’t come up on the couch without being invited. They learned words like sit, stay, off, and no.  I’m mean they really learned.  I mean I really learned.  We all learned.  At the end of the week, Muriel put her stamp of approval on the amazing transformation.  There was much more work to be done but we had a solid start.

Continuing our education would come a bit later when we needed to conquer the walk.  We still had our issues, Lina was terribly frightened, Toto was terribly protective of her and that combination didn’t bode well around a neighborhood full of dogs on extending leashes and owners of sweetie dogs that had been raised from puppies.  Mine were dogs found together at a dumpster, starving, ribs showing and about as suspicious of other beings, canine or otherwise, as you could imagine.  Add to that a woman who was all too willing to let the dogs protect her from the new neighbors and avoiding the chit chat and you’ve got aggression at its finest, if you can possible use that particular word.

Enter Shawn Stewart, trainer extraordinaire. There is a way a man carries himself that changes the air in the room that puts ease in place of anticipation.  There is a miracle that happens when a man of grace simply walks into a home, our home, and two anxious rescue girls fall in behind him as if he were the Pied Piper. Ears forward, hair down on their backs, tails wagging.  Exhale.  To say that Shawn was generous with his knowledge is an understatement, to say that his patience was un-ending; to say that his frankness was welcomed would be even more of an understatement. We worked, we learned, we grew into the women we were meant to be.

And so it is that every Thanksgiving, among all the blessings that have been bestowed on us we know that our lives are as magical as Stowe Lane.  That five years later the walks we take, the waves we get from neighbors (that prompt Muriel to ask; Who are you?), the people who stop to comment on how well behaved the girls are (that still makes me chuckle to myself) and the ease with which we move through the neighborhood are all a gift not to be taken lightly.

To wake up nose to nose with these two sweet girls is a confirmation of having grown into their pack leader, mother, Sargent and into my own true exhale.

I stumbled from the dark woods…holding these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the existence of God exists in the roundness of things. This much, at least, I’ve figured out.  I know this much is true.  Wally Lamb