The Dignity of Rose, a Beagle

Last summer, I met a dog named Rose. I still think of her sometimes.

She’d been rescued along with 26 other dogs from a man’s house—a man later charged with animal cruelty (maybe you saw the article, on Patch). She’d been found nursing another dog’s puppy after her own puppies were probably taken away from her and sold.

When I first saw her, she was being carried from a pick-up truck into the vet’s office, her small body and big ears on the arm of a woman wearing a peony pink shirt.

Inside, there was a whole wall of cages and she was in a cage at the bottom, floor-level. She seemed worn out, like a sad rag. Her teats hanging (embarrassingly) like small brown bells from her little barrel chest. She looked up, calm and unflinching, but with some worry lines around her eyes at all the curious faces coming in to see her, the new arrival.

The woman in the peony shirt said, “I named her ‘Rose’ because I thought she deserved something pretty in her life.”

I have a heart for abandoned creatures. For people and things that get lost or get mistreated. Rose was all those things but she still loved and took care of something other than herself. I felt a very deep respect for this small creature in a cage on the floor. Sure, I wanted to take her home and take care of her (I suspect everybody in that vet’s office did), but I also wanted to be a witness to her dignity.

I hope by writing this I have.