He Entered the World, and They Took His Tail

He entered the world, and they took his tail.

He then spent his life protecting the wound.

He was tense, wound tight like a spring.

Worried. Anxious. He shouted loud at anyone who came too close. Not quite so loud if he loved them, but still.

The physical wound healed. The mental one didn't.

The mental damage stayed.

Early trauma is still trauma, and it doesn't get any less when the traumatised one can't fight or defend themselves.

He had landed in the world an innocent. A precious whole. A life as vulnerable as life could be. And they cut off his tail.

Nobody has been able to ask a dog what it feels like to have their tail cut off. We couldn't ask him in words how it felt, and he couldn't tell us. 

And like all crimes against the voiceless, humans made an 'educated' guess and did it anyway.

When we met, he was still such a baby.

A curved spine tucked in the hind. A swollen face. Coughing, spluttering, barking, infectious and messy. His legs were thick, and his paws huge.

His face back then was chocolatey brown.

In his younger years, he would race when his lead came off.

His little body would shoot like it had been released from a cannon. Straight ahead, then about turn and straight back. The first time he was let off the lead, we thought he was never coming back, stopping or slowing down.

He threatened to break the sound barrier that day as he shot along at the speed of light.

Then we got used to it. He always came back.

He barked a million times a week.

He barked at the wind. Even if the wind simply threatened to blow, he barked just in case.

His bark was big, huge, and everywhere. Yet while he'd been scared of sounds for most of his life, he couldn't hear himself, even before he went deaf.

Everyone else could hear him though. Long after he stopped. Ears would ring.

The years went by, and he became an old man.

The chocolate face went, and he was covered in white. He was deaf, and he was stiff. He snored like he never had before. His spine was taut, and his body was tense. He slept most of the days away, and sometimes I would see him standing, staring at the wall or the floor.

Then he got some sisters. Two little sisters who woke up his inner child.

Two little life breathers.

He was happy to the end. He died peacefully with no suffering and he will always, always be loved.

My Chips.

Chips was reactive and anxious all his life. They did, after all, take his tail.

They took his tail, and he spent every day after protecting the wound they left behind.

His struggles became my purpose. His story became my voice. Everything I write about anxious, reactive, worried dogs - it started with him.