Her Name was Etta

I’ll never forget the day that animal shelter had called me. They told me that they had gotten a boxer that had been rescued during a police raid of an underground dogfighting ring. I had completely forgotten that I had even put in a request for a boxer all those years ago. At this point my family already had a black lab and three chihuahuas. The last thing we needed was another dog, but I figured the least I could do was to drive to the shelter and see the boxer in person.

I had been in the waiting room for about thirty minutes trying to figure out why it was taking so long to see this little boxer. I thought maybe I had been too late and someone else had already adopted her. Suddenly I heard a door slam and the halls echoed with loud barking and deep grunts from the volunteer along with a few curses in-between. The door to the waiting room opened wide and there she was, a black boxer with a white under belly and brown stripes layered across her back. She stared at me with honey gold eyes and snarling teeth. She was barking and jumping around aggressively, fighting against the leash with all of her might and dragging the volunteer around like a horse pulling a sled through the snow. Her name was Etta and it was love at first sight.

I tried with all my might to coerce this dog into the back of my car with a handful of treats, but to no avail. Eventually I was able to pick her up, although she constantly bit at my hands, and fit her into my car. Like an angry toddler in a car seat, she refused to make eye contact with me and constantly growled and moaned as if cursing me in her own canine language. As I drove back home, I tried to prepare a speech to explain to my parents why I had brought yet another dog into our house…unexpectedly. And then it came to me, the reason I had called the shelter in the first place. I remember I wanted to get a boxer for my dad’s birthday like the one he had when he was a little kid all those years ago.

It all started when we had moved into our new house at the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. There were mountains of boxes all throughout our new home. While unpacking one day I discovered an old musty cardboard box that was full of my father’s old war trophies and memories. I found all kinds of shiny metals, his uniforms a couple of knives and a bunch of photographs from his time spent in the Navy deployed in Vietnam and Desert Storm. One thing about my father is that he never, and I mean never speaks about his time as a soldier, nor any part of his past for that matter. I remember one photograph that caught my eye; the one and only photograph I have ever seen of my father as a child. He was standing in the driveway of his childhood home dwarfed in comparison to a behemoth brown boxer towering over him like a mountain next to a pebble. I also found a small, distorted figurine, truly a hardened lump of brown clay with two black eyes, assumingly. I began to ask my father about the things in the box, and he simply stared for a second and began to put everything back in without a word. He packed up the box and took it down to the basement. Even to this day I haven’t found it. He stepped outside and began to chain-smoke staring off into the distance. I thought bad for upsetting him, but I decided to ask him about the clay figure and the old picture I found. To my surprise he didn’t stop talking for the next three hours. This was the first time my father had ever opened up to me about anything from his past. I clung to every word he spoke because I didn’t know if I would ever get this experience again.

His name was “Big Boy”, my father told smiling at the old picture. It was the first and only pet my father ever had, a birthday gift from his dad when he was just eight years old. You see, my dad had trouble making friends when he was a child, and he was severely bullied in his neighborhood. One day when the neighborhood bully stole my father’s lunch money and began to beat him as was his weekly routine, Big Boy jumped over the fence and mauled the bullies’ arm and attacked the rest of his delinquent gang of juveniles. My father recounted that after that day he could finally walk around his neighborhood and no one ever hurt him or stole from him again, truly a man’s best friend indeed. During art class, my dad had sculpted to the best of his artistic prowess his greatest masterpiece; a crude figurine of Big Boy that had earned a prime focal point on his family’s mantle above their fireplace. It is the only thing my father had kept of his childhood and throughout the years has remained his fondest of memories. My dad’s family was very poor, and Big Boy was the only gift he had ever gotten. Although the dog had been for the whole family, it was clear that Big Boy had a special bond with my dad.

Now, my father’s birthday was around the corner and I had no idea what to get him. After talking to the rest of my family we decided how great it would be to get him a boxer, just like the one he had when he was a child. I remember calling every animal shelter within three hours of my house, but unfortunately no one had any boxers. My father’s birthday gift may have been three years late, but it was well worth the wait.

When I got home from the shelter that day, I sat in my car and prepared my speech in my head. I walked in the front door and told my parents that I had a surprise and for them to come outside. Curious, both my parents came outside. I opened up the back door of my car, and Etta pop out in a hurry, continuing to bite and attack the leash, her sworn enemy. “Her name is Etta!” I exclaimed. My mother was filled with excitement and joy for yet another dog, our fifth if you really count the three chihuahuas. My father on the other hand, not so much. His only comment being “just what we need, another dog.” How compunctious.

Before I knew it Etta and my father watched TV together, they ate together, they slept together, they took walks together; they were two peas in a pod. She was my father’s shadow and wherever he would go, she was sure to follow. If he ever left the house, she would sleep next to the door until his arrival. If was in the bathroom she would yelp and moan and groan as if she would never see him again. One night my mother had gotten into bed late. My father had said “I love you soo much!”, to which my mother responded, “I love you too!”. As she rolled over to give him a kiss, a black bundle of hair let out a great yelp. Etta’s head popped up under the sea of blankets. “I was talking to Etta” said my father, followed by a symphony of laughter from both of my parents that had woken me from a deep sleep.

Without a single word, my dad and Etta seemed to understand each other. There was some kind of unspoken bond between them. They had so much in common too. My father had been sent off to fight others in war, Etta had been sent off to fight in vicious dogfighting ring. My father had a difficult time with friends, and so did Etta. To our understanding, Etta was not only abused in dogfighting but was also severely neglected. She does not know how to fetch. If you throw anything she stares at you with those big brown eyes full of confusion. She does not know how to play with our other dogs. My father had found, yet again, a faithful friend in a boxer and Etta had found a loving family. With my father’s severe PTSD and other things that he has never talked about with us from his war days, I believe Etta has been the best companion in helping my father continue to fight the inner battles he doesn’t speak about.

I never knew the impact one dog could have on a person. My father’s entire demeanor changed over the years. He was generally happier, more vocal and outgoing and more joyful and talkative. He is the first person to volunteer to let the dogs out each and every time, multiple times a day. When we’re not looking, he sneaks her food from his own plate. He always has a secret reservoir of dog treats in his pockets reserved just for Etta. And just as much as Etta has changed my dad’s demeanor, so to was there a change in Etta. The snarling and fearsome boxer that had once been so scared and aggressive has now become a fat coach potato full of love. She no longer flinches when you try to pet her head nor does she cower when you approach her, putting her head low to the ground in a submissive state. She has finally made peace with her mortal enemy, the leash, whenever we take her for walks. When I adopted Etta, I thought I had just gotten another dog to coincide with my father’s nostalgia. But, as it turns out, I actually adopted another family member, a very hairy one at that, who has helped us more than we could have ever imagined. I did not adopt a mere dog, no. I adopted my father’s best friend as they helped each other heal from their pasts; from wounds that the rest of us can’t see, from memories that they cannot talk about and from the horrible ways in which the world treated them both. They both helped each other on the long road of healing, paw in hand. When I think of things such as love, compassion, understanding, joy and peace all these things needed in one’s healing process I find it easier to summarize it in a single word: Etta.