Where The Coconut Palm Grows...

The easy way and the right way are rarely the same path.

Vince and I had been putting off doing the right thing for Scratch for three months now. We kept looking at him thinking, "He's not in pain." "He doesn't seem unhappy." "His tail is still wagging." Deep inside we knew that when a dog stands on the tops of his toes he is not doing well. When he is falling down the stairs or when he is dragging himself along like Frankenstein things are not getting better.

But he was still walking down the road with me and wagging his tail at me and eating heartily! It was a tough decision to make, but, as I mentioned, the easy way and the right way are rarely the same path...

I was living in Saipan when I was found by Scratch. Woody and I were jogging on the paved sidewalk on the beach road just up from Oleai. I hadn't gotten far (since I wasn't highly motivated to begin with) when I found myself having to encourage Woody to keep moving forward. He was distracted by something behind us. I turned to look and from beneath the roots of an ironwood tree sprung the tiniest little boonie dog puppy I'd seen. (A boonie dog is a wild Saipan dog. The boonies are the jungles. Some people believe that they are the descendants of the war dogs that the military left behind after WW11. They are wild and clever and not a typical domesticate-able dog.)

Because Vince and I had made an agreement not to take in a boonie dog, and because they are so plentiful and pathetic all over the island, I turned and continued jogging, begging Woody to keep up. He was dutiful and kept up with me but was constantly was looking behind us at the tiny puppy who was running full tilt to keep up with us.

I lead with my heart and my heart said to stop. I picked up that tiny puppy. His stomach was distended. His fur was healthy but he was itchy. His eyes were bright. I decided the best thing to do was to find who brought him to the beach. I started back to the ironwood tree and began asking people if this was there dog.

"Is this your dog?" I'd say. "No." They would respond.

After four times of that I came back to the parking lot where I had left my car and approached a man sitting in the shade watching his children play in the surf. "Is this your dog?" I asked.

"No, but...maybe six months that dog be good eating. It's OK. I'll keep him."

Did I mention that in Saipan boonie dogs were a food source like a chicken or a pig. Have I ever told you about the school lesson I gave where I was trying to tell the children the difference between a farm animal and a pet. Rooster? Pet! Dog? Farm Animal!

"Oh..sorry! I think I see his owner over there. Sorry!" I ran to my car with Woody and the tiny puppy and jumped in.

I drove home at lightening speed. I called Vince. "I'm sorry. I know we had an agreement but I couldn't let him get eaten..." Vince understood.

And so, we had a new dog. May 1999. The month Falcom was born to Resihna. Falcom's first word, "scraaatttccchhh."

Scratch will always be the most jungle savvy survival oriented wip smart dog I've ever seen. He could find a weeks old rib bone buried six inches under the sand. He could steal eggs from the chicken coop without disturbing the chickens or breaking the eggs. Leery of men, he would put up such a fit and look so insane while he was doing it he could prevent them from getting out of their cars on our property. He was so fast he chased down a coyote and caught it.

Valda told us after having kept him for us for six weeks, "If there is a nuclear war, I will follow Scratch because it will be he and the roaches that survive."

Vince told me that at the clinic he had been wishing there was some way that Scratch could have a more natural exit from this earth, something that would not involve a back hoe or a cremation. (Once an animal has been given a lethal dose of phenobarbital they can not be ingested by any other animal or that animal will also die.) Then Vince got to laughing. Here was a dog who had devoted his entire life to NOT getting eaten by anything...only to be devoured in the end. No, we could not let that happen. We will work a cremation into our lives in the next week or so and leave his ashes at our cabin near Woody.

It has not been easy saying good-bye, but we take a great deal of comfort in knowing it was the right thing to do.