Dogs escape Mideast cruelties

I've come to believe over the years that we have some sort of mystical, magnetic field or aura around our bodies that defines us and attracts the spirits we love. This has certainly been my experience with dogs since I have loved them beyond all reason since I was old enough to walk.

I remember attending a Chinese New Year's celebration in Phuket, Thailand, a couple of years ago when we were living there. The Buddhist temple grounds were packed with people, and Noi, an art teacher at the school where my husband, Rick, taught, and I opted to sit in the shade and smoke while Rick went to explore one of the wooden temples.

There were about 400 people hanging out in the area where we rested on the ground. As I leaned against a well manicured, dense hedge that was probably two feet wide, something dove through it and placed a soft wet tongue on the back of my neck. This temple dog, who couldn't get through the hedge, walked around the sidewalk, probably a half acre in distance, and presented himself at my feet some minutes later.

These kinds of experiences happen all the time to me and I no longer question them. The dogs and I just recognize each other and I feel blessed.

So, despite my promises to my husband to live in an apartment without dogs when we moved last August to Amman, Jordan, an urban area of 2 million people, he knew as I did, that it was probably an unrealistic proposal.

While he was teaching, I looked for things to do as I became acquainted with another new culture. Early on, I visited the country's only animal rescue center, privately owned and operated, a few miles outside the city.

Despite the fact that Jordanians are by nature hospitable and warm, conditions for dogs and cats are unspeakably harsh in a Muslim culture, where most believe canines are unclean and cats are no better than street rats. Many Muslims are very frightened of dogs and will cross a street to avoid them.

During that first visit to the center, as I sat taking in the overwhelming amount of animal life before me — dogs, cats, horses, birds, donkeys and even some wild things like hawks and a three-legged fox — I kept hearing a forlorn cry from a puppy somewhere. I excused myself to find this crying baby and entered a fairly large walk-in run where fuzzy puppies played. I picked up the screamer without looking at it and tucked it in the corner of my elbow close to my body while I petted the affection-starved other babies.

As it turned out, I never put the screamer down again and said, without really even looking at it, that I would take this one home with me. Since I can't save all dogs, I must satisfy myself by believing that I can make a difference in a few lives. So Nutmeg came home with me that day last September, and then her brother, Basil, two weeks later.

Probably descended from Jordanian shepherd dogs and sired by two different fathers, Basil and Nutmeg and their five litter mates were rescued by one of the center's volunteers from a huge trash dumpster where they would have momentarily been crushed by the grinders in the dump truck.

Maybe they were a month old. If they had remained at the center too long, they would likely have succumbed to diarrhea or other illness or apathy, all of which would have resulted in their demise.

As my two charges grew, even in a huge apartment, life became more of a challenge. (Muslims thought we were crazy if we had the dogs in the car, and it was difficult to exercise them without offending or frightening someone.) So I returned to the beloved mountains of Whitefish in late February, where Basil and Nutmeg have rapidly grown and prospered and adapted well to a friendlier world.

I nurture no illusions about ownership around any living thing. I am a steward only. As many in Whitefish know, over the years I have been a resting place for numerous lost animal souls who have ultimately moved on to live with others.

I am no longer young nor have the energy to exhaust my happy new, charges. While I am committed to care and love Basil and Nutmeg for the rest of their lives, I've had this recurring dream around their perfect environment — they are running in a field behind some boy flying a kite, or panting beside a jogger or romping in a meadow out of town, always together, of course, perhaps bonded to a family with older children.

They are young, strong, healthy, neutered, vaccinated and exuberant. If you can give them what I no longer can and are the right person or family for them, they have come a very long way to find you. I'm in the phone book.

Kathy Davis Kramer is a long-time Whitefish resident and former owner of The Soft Scissor Pet Care Center.