The dog with several names

The best thing for a dog is to have its own home and its own people. But if that is not the case, the next best thing is for the dog to have its own territory and a lot of its own people who feed it, stroke it, protect it…. One such dog is Her.
Her name is Mila, Mica, Milena, Debela, Lajka, Carica… About ten people from the neighbourhood look after her, and each of them gave her a name. She long ago forgot who her first owner was. For about ten years she has been here, nobody's and everybody's.
I remember her as a slim young hunting bitch, a little frightened. I remember being told how she had puppies twice a year, behind bushes, warehouses… How her puppies died by the road. With all their effort, the good people could not find homes for all the puppies.
For me, at that time, spaying was a fairly unfamiliar concept. Information was hard to come by, opinions were exchanged among a narrow circle of people, misconceptions prevailed. A dog that had food regularly and was stroked by someone at least once a day was, to me, a pretty happy dog.
Time passed, the internet became more and more accessible, my awareness of animal welfare changed. I took both my own dogs and “nobody's” dogs to be spayed and neutered, but Debela somehow kept slipping away from me. We did not meet, as if she had changed location. I had almost forgotten her.
In the autumn of 2012 our paths crossed. I saw her in the throes of labour. Exhausted. They told me she had been in labour for several days and was at the end of her strength.
No time to wait! To the vet, urgently. The ultrasound showed that all the unborn puppies were already dead, that decomposition had begun, sepsis was hanging over her life. Emergency surgery was performed and about ten days later the spayed Dog of Many Names returned to “her” location. Money was collected jointly for everything that was done, and she got a second chance.

She lived a quiet life, she loved “her” people and they loved her. In one dog-catching raid she was caught, but one of her carers raised a hue and cry, threatened that within five minutes he would bring everyone who loves her out onto the street, and managed to get her out of the trailer. More than four years have passed since then, and the darling of this neighbourhood had a peaceful old age. But the toll of her youth and of human ignorance came to collect these days. She developed a mammary tumour. Once again she was counting her last days. And once again people rallied, together, to save her and prolong her life. She has had surgery, for now she is doing well, she has a safe place to recover, she has all the love and attention. I hope she will come out of this battle a winner too.
Forgive me for being stupid, uninformed, inert. Forgive me for all your dead children. For all your suffering. For the tumour that would not have appeared if you had been spayed in time. Forgive me for everything. And fight!

Author: Dušanka Gavran Brajić