Meet Mala

Since I have two rescue dogs, where better to start than with their stories? I will start with the more recent one, Mala, a German Shepherd I found last summer. I was driving down a road dotted with ridiculously deep and wide pot-holes that borders a forested park with trails I frequently took (and continue to take) my two (now three) dogs walking. That's when I happened upon a wolfish looking thing darting out of the woods. Not normally heavily trafficked, that road had several cars cross it that day as I scrambled to catch Mala in hopes of finding a tag on her collar with a phone number I could call. As my luck would have it, she didn't even have a collar on.

Since it was already pretty late in the evening and the sun setting, I normally would not have done anything and let Mala fend for herself. However, the potted road she kept pacing up and down ran parallel to a major highway, with only a thin patch of vegetation separating the two. It became evident that someone had dropped her off at the park, which, according to many local park goers, wasn't an uncommon occurrence since a lot of people in the area knew dog owners frequented the park. Worried that she would get run over, and about her thin figure (you could see her ribs) I attempted to coax her into my car (after which I had no idea what I would do with her). While curious at first and appearing somewhat willing to step into my car, Princess and Chiwi (my two dogs that were in the car impatiently waiting for their walk) quickly changed Mala's mind through their vicious, yet harmless barks.

I ended up having to call my sister to pick up Princess and Chiwi so that I could get Mala into my car. MUCH, MUCH easier said than done. It took me THREE HOURS to get that devil into my car. Keep in mind people that the sun had long since set within the first hour, and by the time I left with Mala in my car, it was after 11 o'clock at night. A deserted, heavily forested park isn't exactly the ideal place for a 19 year old gal to wanna be by herself at night. So you can see why I resorted to trying to grab her after attempting to use the paddle board car straps I had in my trunk as a leash didn't work. Not to worry though, she snapped at my neck to make sure I didn't try to pull my dicey endeavor again. And so, that was how it went for a couple of hours that night, Mala endlessly pacing up and down the road, following cars that passed by for a distance and then turning around, only to repeat the process, and me, sweet-talking and making nice, doggy noises (whatever that may be) to try and get her to come to me. While she did cautiously approach me several times, and even went so far as to allow me to pet her, she would quickly retreat when I took any sort of initiative to gravitate her towards my car.

At long last, the brilliant idea of using food to cajole Mala into my car happened upon my unimaginative head. I called up a friend and had him bring bologna to the park. Although that took another hour's effort of her haphazardly stepping into the car to snag a piece of meat only to quickly jerk out of the car (I swear I had never met a more non-trusting dog up until that point), my friend and I finally managed to shut the car door behind her in time.

As I got in the car after Mala that night, I couldn't help but think how this beast could attack and potentially rip my head off on the drive home because she felt confined and threatened in a car that was completely foreign to her. Luckily for me, she didn't attack me and we managed to get home safely. Now, the only reason I took her home and not to the shelter was because everything had way since closed. I didn't dare bring in another dog after having brought Chiwi back with me from a soccer game to my family's dismay (that's a story for another post). So you can imagine my surprise when my brother said he was going to keep Mala, after everyone got over the shock of my audacity in bringing another animal home. Now, this probably had something to do with the fact that Mala reminded him of his old German Shepherd, Mali, that he had to put down at the age of 10 after having an unsuccessful surgery for his hip displacement, among other health conditions. (Mali in Bosnian means small, which Mali was as a puppy in comparison to his siblings, and Mala is the female version, how original, right?)

I won't go into detail on how Mala managed to escape from our backyard that night after we gave her a bath and how we had to chase her throughout our neighborhood (me by car and my brother on foot armed with a bag of turkey meat), but I will say I lost a $150 paddle for my paddle board in the process, which I'm still very spiteful about to this day.

Oh, by the way, low and behold my brother didn't take Mala with him when he moved into his new house. I guess it's for the best though considering my brother's temperament isn't exactly the best and Mala's now a monster who eats anything and everything left on counters or tables and will knock over anyone who doesn't brace themselves for her excited greetings. Nonetheless, I love her to death. She is the most loyal dog I've ever had, fiercely protective to the point of growling at any passerby when we go running, and she has restored a sort of playfulness in my thirteen year old dog, Princess, when it comes to good ole games of tug-a-war. Sometimes when we go on long walks, Mala gets too far ahead, and there's nothing that pains me more than the panicked look she gets we she doesn't see me in sight. And it's during these moments I realize I will never abandon Mala after she has placed so much trust and dependency on me when she had little reason to in the first place, having been deserted once before.