R.I.P. Pearl

Hurricane Katrina survivor Pearl - October 7, 2006	Pearl and MaxFund volunteer Jessica - Oct. 27, 2007

The Human Assistant has been working on this post and a poem about Pearl for three days. He's had trouble sitting and thinking about her, and putting words down, instead of just feeling stuff about her.

But he's settling down now. Things are getting back to normal. At least, back to how they were a week ago.

Pearl was the Human Assistant's favorite dog at the MaxFund shelter. She died from torsion Friday at an emergency clinic.

He has loved a bunch of MaxFund dogs. None of them as much as he loves me, of course. Or Gremlin, I suppose. Five of them he liked really a lot. They lived here with us until they found new homes of their own:  Jaeger, Mystique, Poo-Poo, Sally, and (not yet adopted) Shu Shu.

H.A. says he didn't bring them here because he loved them. He loved them because he brought them here and spent time with them.

What a funny idea!  I spent time with them too!  I didn't love them!

Fortunately, there's not enough room to bring all his favorites here. (And even if there was, I wouldn't let him.) So some had to stay at the shelter:  Adam, Bo, Churchill, Kodiak, Solo, Tanuki, Teddy, and Tommy and Helen. I smelled them on his clothes for a few weeks or a few months. But eventually they went to homes of their own. All except for Pearl.

H.A. started spending less time at the shelter because he had dogs here that needed attention. So he didn't make any new favorites. And after a while all his old favorites got adopted. All except for Pearl.

She came to MaxFund from the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina. With bad heartworm and something wrong with at least one of her back legs.

Maybe other stuff too. Pearl was already at MaxFund when the Human Assistant started volunteering there. So he doesn't know all her history.

She was hard for people to deal with. Well of course! She was sick and hurting and had come through a very confusing and hard time and didn't have her family. So Pearl joined a MaxFund program for special sessions with a trainer and volunteers to help her adjust to her new life.

I guess Pearl was still scary to most people. But she was good with a few. For some stupid reason she liked the H.A. He would take her for walks. When she had enough she would head back to the shelter.

I mentioned before that Nikki took new pictures of Pearl. With a real person! To show that Pearl wouldn't completely tear off everybody's head!

So here's one of those. Plus the picture that MaxFund had on their website before. (She isn't there now.)

But really. Doesn't the older photo make Pearl look like a happy-​go-​lucky, carefree kind of doggie? Maybe it was a picture of her inner self that was there but kinda buried under her problems.

Run in painfree peace, Pearl! I didn't know you. But I'm glad there were people who loved you!

-- photos of Pearl by Nicole Howard