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I always told my parents I
would make Basenji owners out of them one day. Of course they would laugh at me
and shake their heads as they watched me pick up shredded Kleenex that had been
scattered on the living room floor for the umpteenth time that day.
They loved my two basenjis, Hamlet and Rhumba, assured me they were the
most beautiful dogs they had ever seen, agreed that they were quite well behaved
as they turned a blind eye to the teeth marks on the arm of the rocking chair
and the nose prints that glazed the picture window.
They even convinced me that they thought it was fun to walk them both at
once and no, my dad didn’t mind at all when his shoulder was dislocated after
an impromptu squirrel hunt during one of these outings.
But would they ever have a basenji of their own?
NO!…er that is…no, but thank you very much for asking. In mid-September 1999, Wendy
Marquardt, then president of the Basenji Club of Southeastern Wisconsin, got
word of a Basenji in a shelter in Iowa City.
She immediately started contacting BCOSW club members to enlist their
help. Peggy Pick and Eric Sutton agreed to drive to the shelter to
take a look at the little girl and Pam Maremont, another BCOSW member, agreed to
foster her. Things moved quickly
from that point and before I knew it, I was volunteering to help with her
transportation. Peggy and Eric
picked the little girl up at the shelter. They
started calling her Nina because she was such a tiny thing—the name really
seemed to fit. They drove from Iowa
to DeKalb, Illinois where I met up with them. They warned me that Nina seemed to
have trouble seeing and she was very hard of hearing, if not completely deaf.
Then they brought her out of the car and I saw her for the first time.
Nina was nothing more than a rack of bones. Her tri-colored coat was long and dull and she had many white
hairs sprinkled across her face. But
oh, what a sweet face she had. I was only going to foster Nina for a week until I could get her to Pam’s house, but I was quickly falling in love with her sweet, quiet ways and gentle nature. My vet guessed her age to be around twelve. She weighed only fourteen pounds. Her teeth were worn from chewing rocks or chains, she had diarrhea, she was dehydrated, deaf, almost blind and she had arthritis and the beginnings of kidney and liver damage. Whoa! Who was going to adopt a twelve-year old dog with such a long list of ailments? Things didn’t look too hopeful, but the members of the BCOSW rescue committee agreed that Nina should be listed on the BRAT website in order to reach a broader spectrum of prospective adopters. In the meantime, I turned to the members of Basenji Companions for advice on caring for an elderly dog. The support was overwhelming. One evening I took Nina to
my parents’ house. She was a perfect lady, moving close to their sides,
silently asking to be petted, quietly exploring the house and back yard and
gratefully accepting bits of steak my dad offered her from the table.
By the time we were eating dessert, Nina was curled up on my dad’s
slippers fast asleep. I got the phone call the
next afternoon. “Dad and I would
like to give Nina a home.” YES!! My
parents knew from the start that Nina probably wouldn’t be on this earth too
much longer, but they didn’t care -- they just wanted to give her a warm home
and lots of tender, loving care in her final days. They became quite a trio and
it was an absolute joy to watch the shy little dog blossom under my parents’
patient, gentle care. She loved her
morning walks with my dad and would wait by the car for him to lift her onto the
seat so she could accompany him on his errands.
At home she would often seek out my mom’s company, softly nudging her
hands and then laying on her feet. Her
afternoons were spent dozing in her favorite beanbag chair. Nina spent the remaining six
months of her life with my parents and when she died, it was with dignity and
the knowledge that she was cared for and loved.
We never knew Nina’s history or how she came to be forgotten and alone
in a cold, concrete shelter, but everyone who came to know Nina and her story
agreed that hers was a life worth saving OK, Mom and Dad, so maybe I couldn’t make basenji slaves out of you…but one fourteen-pound little girl sure did! |
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