Once Upon a Shelter

Appendix

Introduction

If you happen to notice our shelter’s logo of the little brown dog with a red scarf, you might wonder who she is... Well, that is Frannie, and she was my inspiration for starting an animal shelter.

I first saw her many years ago one rainy, grey afternoon when I was volunteering at an animal shelter in Oakland, California. A raggedy brownish dog was being dragged into the shelter by an elderly gentleman, who was struggling to keep a grip on her neck while he clutched a wooden chest drawer filled with squirming puppies.

Some kids was chuckin’ rocks at her and her pups behind the coliseum, explained the exhausted man as he wiped his brow. I chased ’em off and brought her to you.

I thanked him for his kindness, set the drawer on the counter, and gently moved the pups—five chubby, brown and black fur balls—into a box. The mother dog anxiously watched my every move. She was gaunt, terrified, soaking wet, but her eyes never left her litter. Don’t worry, I told her as I coaxed her into a cage. We’ll take good care of them. I decided to name her Frannie in honor of Saint Francis, the patron saint of all animals.

Over the weeks, the pups flourished and grew into healthy, happy little dogs. All of them quickly found homes. Not so for Frannie. When people passed her cage, she would cower in the corner and tremble. I would bring her treats daily and, eventually, she began to wag her tail ever so slightly. I wondered if she missed her pups and thought of how lonely she must feel, night after night, in her empty cage.

Like most big-city animal shelters, Oakland had a tremendous number of animals brought in every day, and the sad truth was they simply could not keep every animal indefinitely. All too soon, Frannie’s time was up... but there was one last chance: the pet parade. Every month, volunteers would line up in front of a crowd of potential adopters and march dogs around the shelter grounds. The parade had been the launch site for several adoptions, and I hoped that Frannie would be one of them.

On the morning of the pet parade, Frannie put on her best public performance. Sue, the kind-hearted shelter director, even selected her to lead the parade! Prancing proudly beside me, Frannie held her head high and wagged her tail. At the end of the procession, the crowd flowed onto the shelter lawn to meet any dog that had caught their eye.

Frannie and I sat on the green grass, drinking in the soft sunshine of the afternoon. One, two, and then three dogs were led into the adoption room, accompanied by their new families. Frannie wasn’t one of them... I knew that meant she would be euthanized. As if she understood, Frannie turned to me and ever so gently lifted her paw to me to say goodbye, quietly accepting the sad little life fate had dealt her. That did it. An hour later, Frannie sat on my kitchen floor. She was mine.

Over the years, it turned out that, actually, I was hers. Captivated by her soft brown eyes, her endless devotion, her gentle offering of her paw, I came to love her in a hundred ways. She was terrified of strangers, ran from other dogs at the dog park, and would shake in fear at new situations. But Frannie was never more than a few feet from me. She shyly learned to play little games, like the Touch Me game. I would walk away from our porch, thinking she was behind me, and then turn to see her sitting, her tail wagging, on the front step. I would then walk up and touch her nose, and she would bolt down the steps, wagging her tail wildly. It took so little to make her happy.

When I moved back to the Midwest, Frannie sat by my side on the cross-country drive. One night we stopped at a lonely motel in the desert. As I swam laps in the deserted pool that night, Frannie paced alongside, back and forth, back and forth, softly whimpering until I climbed out of the water and showed her that I was safe. As I dried off, I saw her looking at me with intense devotion, and I realized at that moment that no one could ever love me as purely as she did.

One frosty autumn morning, I was on my way to work when the phone rang. A friend stopped by to borrow a rake; he was going to close his summer cottage. Would Frannie like to go? I looked at her, sitting quietly watching me. Sure, why not? It would be better than sitting in the house all day. I reached down and patted her head for what would be the last time.

When I returned home from work that day, I was a little surprised not to see Frannie’s face in the window, watching for me as she always did. When it grew dark, I called my friend—no answer. Eight, nine, ten o’clock... something was wrong. Finally, the phone rang; it was the police. There had been a terrible car accident. My friend was in the hospital, injured but alive. Had anyone seen the dog in the car? I asked. One police officer said he thought she had jumped out the window, frightened by the sirens of the ambulance.

I drove into the frigid night and started looking near the scene of the accident. Miles away from home, terrified... where would she have gone? After slowly driving through a few alleys, I parked the car and walked the streets, calling her name. When the light of dawn came, I prayed someone would call, but no one did. Freeways, intersections, cars whizzing by... how terrified and confused she must be, trying to find me. I stapled posters, asked people in coffee shops and on the streets, but no one had seen her.

Someone once told me nothing good ever happens after midnight. Sure enough, about 2:30 the following night, the phone rang. Frannie was dead, hit by a car. Her body was lying in the causeway, about twelve miles from home. A passerby had stopped and taken the time to call the number on the collar.

I drove to the scene and there she was, lying on her side, still warm. There was not a mark on her. I cradled her in my arms, looked up to the frozen stars, and pledged that she would not have died in vain, that someday I would make an animal shelter for all the beautiful little spirits like her that are lost or frightened, confused and alone.

This book is dedicated to all the Frannies in the world.

Part One

The Florida Years

One Hot Mess

Like most places in South Florida, the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was way too air-conditioned. When you walked in from the tropical stew of heat and humidity that is the weather during the summers here, it felt like walking into an old-fashioned ice box.

But here I sat, drenched in sweat. I wasn’t hot. I was terrified. I scanned the waiting area, as I had done dozens of times over the past 30 thirty minutes, for what I thought law enforcement looked like. I wasn’t sure why my ex- attorney thought the airport, of all the places I had been the last few weeks, would be the place where I would be arrested. At the time, I thought he was bluffing. But now, as his parting comments tumbled in my head, I wasn’t so sure.

Nobody beats the Bubba system. You should have let them keep the money. Now they’re mad... They’re going to try and get you on anything they can. Don’t think they can? Look what’s happened so far... Do you know what a perp walk is? That’s what they want... to humiliate you so they can save face... Just give them the money. Don’t fight it. You can’t afford to keep fighting.

I now realized that the attorney was, if not crooked or working for the other side, at least in competent. But maybe, just maybe, he was right about this one thing. They very well may arrest you just before you leave the state.

For the thousandth time, I went over the blind-sided, ham-handed developments of the last few weeks. For eight years, my organization, Stand Up for Animals, had done - by all accounts - an outstanding job of operating animal shelters for the middle islands of the Florida Keys. We had gained the respect of the community, won awards, received grants, and amassed a substantial savings account. Now, it was all slipping away, like a rope of an anchor dropped overboard.

Suddenly, inexplicably, at the end of our contract, Monroe County, in a Stalin-like ploy, seized our bank accounts with a shifty order from a local judge, without warning or due process of law. Paychecks had bounced, employees quit and board members were threatened. I scanned the room once more. Nothing. Finally, boarding was announced and I found my seat. Not long afterwards, we were in the air. It had been a bluff, after all. But who was behind this- and why? My mind frantically played the questions over and over again until they morphed into new thoughts. Vindication, vengeance - and memories of how it had all started, years ago…

It Began with the Blancos

Island, bridge, island, bridge... I never tired of the drive on US 1 as it snaked through the Keys, especially when the setting sun was brushing the surrounding sea silver. There are forty-two bridges connecting this strand of coral and limestone islands in a gentle arc separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico. As a new reporter for the Key West Citizen newspaper, I was getting to know the sometimes-quirky communities of each island, and I was surprised how many stories were generated from these skinny strips of land. Murders, drug smuggling, Cuban refugees, abandoned boats, buried treasure—there was a lot going on here.

I was heading home from Key West to the little town of Marathon, located in the middle of the island chain. Crossing on to Summerland Key, I noticed a brown form moving slowly on the side of the highway. As I moved closer, the form turned into a brown and white pit bull terrier. She was drinking from a mud puddle, seemingly oblivious to the cars whipping by her.

I pulled over, slipped off my belt, and walked slowly towards her. The dog’s mammary glands were swollen with milk and she looked up as dirty water dribbled down her chin. Come here, girl, I coaxed. She hesitated, and then bound towards me wagging her tail furiously. She wore a collar but no tag, so I pulled over to a gas station to ask if anyone knew where she was from. An attendant told me she lived across the highway in a trailer near the junk yard. I’d just let her be if I were you, he said. That’s Momma, one of the Blanco dogs.

The Blancos? It took a few minutes but then the name registered. It was the moniker of a local gang of alleged cocaine dealers. I knew of them because I had profiled one of their members, Little Jit, in a story on the revolving door of the juvenile justice system. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of returning the dog to them, but it was after hours and the local shelter would be closed. I turned off the highway towards the trailer park.

A dirt road filled with potholes muddy from a recent rain led to a shabby gray trailer. As I parked on the sparse grass, I thought I saw a window curtain flicker in the trailer, but I couldn’t see a face. I led Momma out of the car and then stopped dead in my tracks. Three other pit bulls were chained to the trailer, each straining to lift its head. The chains were the type used for towing boats with links as big as my wrist, and the dogs’ necks were massive, presumably from years of bearing the weight of the chains. There was no way Momma was going to come back here. I turned to lead her back to the car when someone shouted, Hey, what ya’ doin’ stealing my dog?

A strapping, baby-faced youth bounded down the