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| Meghan and Protector |
If you are an animal lover, the Pine Ridge Reservation can be a tough
place to be. Dogs by themselves and in packs are a common sight. In
the summer they are hot, hungry, and scared. And in the winter they are
cold, hungry, and scared. There is no shelter, no spay and neuter
program and animal control is an occasional rounding-up of strays, who
are then taken out to the dump and shot. The dump is also where
unwanted dogs and puppies are...well...dumped. Hundreds and hundreds
of animals do not survive their first year on the Rez.
But thanks to
dedicated Lakota animal lovers on Pine Ridge, a wonderful Native man
who scours the dump, locals who help injured dogs and a rancher from nearby Gordon named
Miss Jean, hundreds, if not thousands of Rez dogs have been saved and
are living in homes all across America - including mine. Miss Jean has
been known to race the 50 miles to the Rez, when she gets wind of an
impending “sweep” of the strays and fills up her truck with as many
dogs as she can get her hands on. Sometimes going many miles into the heart of the
reservation to find the “lost ones”...those who are wandering in the
middle of nowhere far from any handouts or trash cans. It was in one
such remote location that my friend Charlie Yellowbird and I were
driving one day, when we had to slow down as 2 skinny dogs crossed the
road in the middle of nowhere.
Charlie spoke under his breath more
to himself than to me.
“Survivors”, he whispered, never taking his eyes
off the dogs. He was honoring them with the word; perhaps he recognized
himself as the third member of the pack. Survivors all.
But nowhere on the Rez is this word more appropriate
than for the dogs and the humans who live on the streets of Whiteclay.
A mere 1000 yards off the Rez, Whiteclay, Nebraska is home to 14
permanent residents who have roofs over their heads. It is also home to 30 or
so who call the streets and the abandoned houses that dot the two-block-long town...home. At any given time there are a dozen adult dogs and an
assortment of puppies trying to survive the summer, but most won't
survive the winter. The Rising Warriors of the streets are family we
know and love, and to many of them the street dogs are their family. They share
their food with the strays, name them, sleep with them and on more than one
occasion have covered the dead body of a dog with the one blanket they possess. The streets of Whiteclay
are dark and violent for man, woman and dog. For every dog who has
someone who loves them, there are two dogs who are chased off, kicked,
punched and cussed at; dogs who will not know a gentle touch unless
someone places a blanket over them when their street hell is over.
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| Protector |
But one four legged girl has it better than most. She is loved by he Rising Warriors...even
revered.
They call her “Protector”. Rumor has it, that when bad spirits try to
get into the abandoned house where they sleep, Protector will bark and
scare them off. Many know her, some love her, but to Robert Little
Crow, a beautiful soul whose address has been the streets of Whiteclay
for 15 years...she is his best friend. A former radical member of the American Indian Movement, (AIM) Robert these days is more likely to be found being sure Protector is free from ticks and is often seen limping across the street with an empty broken dish of some sort or another filled with water for "his girl." Feed Robert and you will be feeding Protector.
More than once, we have rescued a starving dog from the Rez streets and
taken them out to Miss Jean's ranch, but it has never crossed my mind to
grab Protector; she belongs to Robert- she is his guardian angel. But
the week before Thanksgiving, myself, my niece Meghan and my nephew
Robert decided we were going to pluck a little black and white abandoned mutt named
“Oreo” off the streets before we headed back home. Simple enough?
Not
so much.
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| Oreo |
Oreo had hung out all day long in front of our building in Whiteclay, but now
that it was time to dog-nap her she was nowhere in sight. Neither was
the other pup, Essie, we had decided needed to get off the streets, who seemed to have gotten wind of an ensuing liberation and stuck by our side all day.
My nephew
came in and said. “We have to go if we are gonna get out to the ranch
before dark, but the dogs aren’t here.”
Not only were the two we wanted
not there...there was not a stray in sight. I had never seen that
before. Streets completely void of dogs. “Let’s pray ‘ em in!” I said with a laugh, but began to do just that.
All of a sudden dogs appeared from behind buildings, from under cars and the two we
wanted, walked right up to us. What happened next was just a little extra “God thing” thrown in to
remind us who was in charge of the rescuing around here.
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| Robert Little Crow |
Robert Little Crow hurried across the street as fast as his two
bad legs would let him, “KC- wait!” he shouted. The three of us turned
around, concerned by the urgency in his voice. He kept talking as he crossed the street.
“Take my girl!
Please! Take my girl! She’s gonna have puppies. The last litter froze to death.” He had tears in his eyes.
“Please get her out of here. We’ve spent two winters together in that
basement over there. But she needs a better life than this.”
So do you, I thought to myself.
“Are you sure?” I asked, not knowing if she would come to us, let alone allow us to pick her up to put her in the truck. Robert seemed to read my mind and he started to call her name. She
appeared in seconds, answering the call of her trusted friend.
Robert knelt beside her hugging her. “I’ll miss her, I’ll miss her.”
He kept repeating, tears streaming down his face. Now you have to
understand...when you live on the streets of Whiteclay you pretty much
own nothing. Maybe you’ve been able to keep a backpack with a handful
of this and that from being stolen while you were passed out drunk.
Everything Robert owned and loved-he was hugging.
Without saying another word, he lifted Protector and put her in the
truck. Just like that her new life had begun...and just like that
Robert Little Crow became my hero.
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| Meghan and Essie on her rescue ride |
Miss Jean’s ranch is
miles off the main highway and then miles more into the center of the
vast ranchlands outside Gordon, NE. In the back of our borrowed van were 3 dogs who had never been in a vehicle in their lives, who
had never been put in a small space with other dogs and the sometimes-to-be-feared humans. My nephew, Robert crawled in the back with two of them and
Meghan held one in her lap. Protector took quite awhile before she
relaxed enough to lay down. An hour and many miles on gravel roads
later, we delivered the comandeered canines to Miss Jean’s ranch where they were sure to spend this night safe, fed and warm for the
first time in their lives.
I couldn’t wait to tell Robert Little Crow how content Protector
seemed and to be and thank him again for what he had done for her and her unborn
litter. But what COULD wait was my telling him two days later...with temps
in the single digits at night...that Protector had vanished; in the dark
and the cold, more in the middle of nowhere than ever. Was she looking
for Robert? Who knows. She was just gone.
Miss Jean looked for her for days; hours every day, she was so
distraught. Never in 25 years of rescuing dogs had she had a
“non-feral” dog just vanish. All I could think about was how Protector
would not have had any way of knowing how remote of an area she was in.
I imagined her hungry, cold, pregnant and lost wandering the vast plains until she couldn’t. I prayed for God to keep her safe, I placed
angels around her (I do that alot) and I asked Him not to let her
suffer. I knew we had done the right thing, but I still felt guilty.
A week later Jean stopped looking and I stopped praying.
Protector was gone. God was in charge, as He always is. He knew where
she was and he had not let her suffer. I was sure of it. He had
protected Protector.
Two days ago it had been exactly a month since
Protector had vanished into thin air. Robert, Meghan and I have been back in Colorado
this whole time and I have not seen Robert Little Crow. He did not know
that we had lost “his girl.” At night in my prayers, when I placed
angels around Robert (and Eli and Donovan and Granny Back Pack etc.)
I prayed that God would give me the right words to tell him when the
moment came.
But thanks to Miss Jean's words on the other end of the phone...those words would not be necessary.
“You’ll never guess who is in my living room!” she said excitedly....and I knew immediately.
“What the heck!” was all I could say.
A friend of Miss Jean’s had been feeding a stray at the hospital for
over a week, thinking it belonged to one of his employees. Earlier that
day when he saw the guy he pointed to the dog and told him he shouldn’t
let his dog run loose like that.
His employee said “That’s not my dog.” I'd like to think God then commented, “No... that’s
my dog.”
Jean’s
friend immediately scooped up the cold, hungry dog and took her to the
only place to take a dog... Miss Jean's house.
“I can’t imagine what she must have been through.” Jean just kept
saying over and over again. “It was so cold the first few nights after
she disappeared. And Gordon is over 15 miles away!”
After examing Protector, Jean concluded that she was no longer pregnant
and we had to assume the puppies hadn’t survived, as it didn’t appear
Mama Dog was nursing. But Mama Dog was alive. Robert’s girl was alive.
What an amazing end to an amazing story we all kept saying. Amazing?
Yes. The end?
Not so much.
Protector slept in front of the fireplace for several hours,
seemingly exhausted and not anxious in the least...at first. But
suddenly she was up, pacing by the door, unable to settle back down. On
a hunch born of rescuing thousands of dogs, Jean examined Protector
again.
Milk. She was producing milk.
She quickly called her friend back at the hospital. “Can you show me
exactly where you have seen this dog over the past week?”
“Sure- why?” he asked.
“I believe there are puppies out there.” She answered before racing out the door...Mama Dog on her heels. Over gravel roads the 15 miles to Gordon will
take you a half an hour.
When Jean parked the car in front of the small hospital and opened
the car door, Protector took off down the street. So did Jean, on
foot...on a mission.
For well over an hour, she tried to keep up with Protector as she ran
through backyards, up streets, down streets, sniffing out front porches,
almost loosing sight of her several times. Finally, they turned a corner and
Protector raced toward an abandoned house. Jean grabbed her hind
quarters as she tried to get under the house in a small dug-out
opening. Jean held onto Protector afraid that if she got inside the
house she might refuse to come out. A phone call to the man who had
returned Protector, brought him on the run, along with a thin, young man
he worked with...who could fit in the opening.
“Are you sitting down?” said a voice on the other end of the
phone. “Seriously. Sit down.”
“Ok”, I said, pulling up a stool in the
kitchen.
“There are five of them.” She laughed.
“Five what?” I asked, even as I knew what she was going to say.
“Five puppies! Protector has 5 fat, healthy puppies!”
Five. The number of grace.
Protector.
Robert's girl.
Mama Dog.
Surrounded by angels...
by prayers...
by people who care.
Protector.
Protected.
Whisper out loud with me...
“Survivor.”
Epilogue:
If you would like to help us help the dogs on the Rez, you may
donate to the dog rescue we now have with Miss Jean....LightShine Canine. Visit us on FaceBook to see more pics of amazing dogs that have been rescued...redeemed and are ready to go..and of the Lakota young adults helping us.
Go here to help us update the housing and fencing for the dogs on The Ranch....our much loved Mercy Mutts.
Protector and her puppies, along with Oreo and Essie, all have found good homes. Protector is being loved on a ranch in southern Nebraska....and Robert Little Crow was able to see pictures of her and her puppies and know they were cared for, before he too found a new home in Rapid City with a daughter who finally found him.
Protector is a special, special dog. Please share her story.
Nestled up against the land that is home to The Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, The Retreat at Mustang Shadows is the perfect place for a workshop of art or a rebirth of the spirit...or perhaps both! Each class is limited to 5 and accommodations at this beautiful ranch are included in the price. With such a limited workshop size and the fact that I don't teach very much any more...the workshops will very likely fill fast, so reserve your spot today for a once in a lifetime experience.
In a setting that has history written all over it, what better place to create a piece of work that is aged, full of story and beauty. Using photographs of your family's history or choosing one of mine from the history of this area or of the Lakota people, we will create a textured piece of art that will remind you of your time on the ranch forever. A half day of the class will be a writing class where we will create a poem, a letter or a short-short story based on our image and tuck it into the piece. We will also walk the area a bit and collect things from the grounds and create a piece that allows found objects, meant to never be used again, to become a piece of art. 
