Hidden Trauma

Humans are not the only ones with emotional scars

We had an early start yesterday. Not sitting by the fire and reading and writing, but jumping out of bed, getting dressed and leaving the house by 7 am. This is hardly an extraordinary event in most people’s lives. Not even in mine, by previous standards. But it was certainly a break in our current routine, and the dogs and I were a bit discombobulated by it: Auggie by coming with me, and Eli by being left behind.

It was Auggie’s first official therapy dog visit to the local medical center’s long-term patient residence, designed for people and their families who live too far to commute for daily care. Our forty minute trip had little traffic, it being Easter week, with so many people off on their vacations. We arrived early, and Auggie recognized the place from his interview last week. He sang with happy excitement. When I tell him “we’re going to work” he immediately assumes his manners and walks politely with me. He wore his new red tag on his collar, identifying his accrediting organization. Their standards are strict, requiring three separate tests, a criminal background check for me, and adherence to very particular rules. I like the rigor of their approach, and not having to worry whether other dogs might not be held to the same standards to which I hold him. We had that problem previously.

We met friends who are staying there in the lobby, although the official purpose of the visit was the five year anniversary of one of the staff members—celebrated with round-the-clock therapy dog visits that day—these friends are the real reason we sped through the qualifying process. Auggie’s instincts are fine-tuned. He was suitably reserved around our friend undergoing radiation therapy, not pressing or pushing, but quietly sitting nearby, almost, but not quite touching, very clearly in protective mode. When other visitors came they sat next to him on the floor, and he changed his demeanor, giving gentle kisses when invited, and offering them his lowered ears as they fed him treats. He was clearly enjoying himself.

We stayed a little over an hour. The therapy association rules are that he cannot stay with anyone else. He has to be with me at all times, although his obedience training prepared him to stay quietly in a down stay even when left alone, but I feel better when he’s with me anyway. So we went together down the hall to the one-person bathroom, and I closed the door behind us.

Auggie immediately went into a panic. He ran around the corners of the concrete room, sniffing and crying. He began to wail. If I have learned anything, it is to trust him, but I was completely taken unawares and utterly clueless. His anguish was real and heart-breaking, but it took me a few seconds to understand what was going on. It was the small, concrete room, the locked door, the clinical smells of disinfectant. He thought he was in a veterinary kennel, about to be left for a month, as he had been three years ago during a terrible illness. I don’t know who heard his cries, but they may have thought I was torturing him, as I suppose I was, however unintentionally. As quickly as possible we left the room, and he uncharacteristically pulled me down the hall, desperate to leave.

I feel so much remorse about how abandoned he felt during that agonizing month. After the first few times we were told not to visit him because it took him hours afterward to settle down again. His life was hanging in the balance, and it was stay or die. We were only hours away from having to make the decision to euthanize him. But, by what I regard as an absolute miracle, he had a veterinarian who suddenly realized what was wrong, calling me on a Saturday morning, her voice excited and hopeful; and a surgeon who spent an entire day studying procedures, and together they solved the rare and complex problem that could have ended his life.

How do you explain those things to a dog? How do you help him to know that you were not abandoning him, but helping him? That your love for him was desperate and focussed on saving him? That the pain and trauma he is experiencing is not torture, but lifesaving medical procedures? That you were always coming back for him? We know he was treated well. Aside from having saved his life, the people there greeted him with genuine love when he returned for post-surgical checkups. I could hear voices in the hallways behind the treatment rooms repeating “Auggie’s here!” And staff who were not essential to his visit came into the exam room one after another to hug him and accept his little kisses.

We knew, of course, that he had been traumatized by this long incident, but, clumsy human, I did not anticipate this particular circumstance as a trigger. We will go back to the residence, and together we will walk through his anxiety to see if it reappears. If the bathroom were anywhere else, we would thoughtfully and carefully return to it and work on de-sensitization. But you can’t have wailing dogs in a facility with humans in the midst of their own traumas, so we will avoid that room from now on. I hope we won’t have to avoid the place altogether.

Poor Auggie. He works so hard to please, but sometimes life overwhelms us all. If we are able to continue, I guess I won’t be drinking coffee on any future visits.

***

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” ~Julian of Norwich

I apologize for my recent absences. I will explain soon. But meanwhile, please know I am immensely grateful for my paid subscribers. Times are hard, and your willingness to invest in my work is deeply inspiring to me and very much appreciated. It is a trust I take seriously. It’s essential to remind ourselves that there are still good things in the world, so I hope these posts provide a place of refuge for my readers. But if you cannot pay, that’s all right. Simply sharing these posts is helpful, too. Come and hang out with me, the dogs, and this stalwart little community of good people. We need one another.

Also: there will always be dog photos.

And now for your gratuitous dog photos:

We are always practicing our manners. This photo is from Friday.

Fall 2023. We visited Auggie during his month-long stay in the hospital until they advised us against it.

For the first weeks at home, we had to keep Auggie sedated to stop him from racing around and undoing his stitches. He had a lot of them. As he recovered, he began to use his cone as a battering ram to open doors. He went through several, and all were covered with duct tape before they had to be replaced.