I messaged the breeder on our
way home from the vet’s office that day.
I only wanted her to know for future litters, we didn’t want anything
else. As far as we were concerned nature
was unpredictable. It was nobody’s fault
that Target was deaf it was just life.
She gave us the option to return him for a full refund, we refused.
Sides formed very quickly. Friends and family that were close with us
took it in stride like we did, Target already knew some signs and my family
weren’t strangers to deaf dogs. There
were some people who couldn’t help but voice their opinions negatively. I understood their stance from a logic
perspective, we had bought Target from a breeder to avoid this kind of
“complication”, but from our perspective, he was just our dog.
The friends who had concerns
about how we would handle this were one thing, but it took me a long time to
get a thick skin to the random strangers who would comment about what we were
doing right or wrong for Target.
There were women in the pet
store who would tickle his feet while he was lying down and coo to him in baby
voice “did mommy walk you too far? Do
you have tired toes?” I would have hated to break it to them that five minutes
after we would get back from our walks to the closest pet store his “tired
toes” would already be doing zoomies around my coffee table. Didn’t these ladies know that looking tired
is just a border collie puppy’s way of playing possum until you were looking
the other way and he could successfully steal your socks?
When I took Target to the park
one day there was a man, not much older than me who tried to get Target’s
attention while he was chasing his ball by whistling to him. I let him know politely that Target was deaf,
waved my hand and the man started petting Target when he ran back to us. The man asked me about Target and since I was
still getting used to the dog park mentality of talking to strangers, I
answered him. The conversation quickly
took a turn when he became confused about the fact that I had purchased Target
from a breeder and he was also deaf.
“But, you said you bought him
from a breeder?”
“Yes, I did”
“But… he’s deaf?”
“Yes, he is”
“But… but… you bought him from
a breeder”
“Yes, both of those statements
are true”.
“So, you bought a defective
puppy from a breeder?”
The word, stung and all I
could do was stare at him blankly. How
is a dog defective? Seeing my shock and being visibly
uncomfortable with my stare he kept talking,
“I mean, I guess getting a
rescue is kind of like buying something from a garage sale, you can’t really
guarantee its quality, but you get it cheaper so it doesn’t matter, right?”
I
wasn’t going to agree with him and kept staring.
“But, going to a breeder is
like going to a department store. If you
get an appliance from a department store and it’s defective,”
There was that word again,
“You return it and get a
working one. You don’t just keep the defective”
Cringe...
“One, you trade it in
for one that isn’t broken”
At least he didn’t say defective.
It doesn’t happen often, but I
was shocked speechless. After the fact,
there were lots of things that have come to my mind that I would love to say to
that man. From a stoic, Braveheart style speech about the value
of deaf dogs, to a childish “You’re defective!” I have all the clap backs now,
but had nothing at that moment. I was
huffing my breath like a toddler ready to throw a tantrum and the man was
watching me with side-eye contemplating whether or not I might be dangerous.
With a swift jerk on his leash
I whipped Target away from the man by his harness and scooped him up.
“Sir,” I sputtered, “my dog is
not a toaster!”
I stormed off with
Target in my arms, peeking over my shoulder and wagging his tail at his new
friend, who was still standing perplexed in the field.
I have also been told that we
should have put Target to sleep because he will never fulfill his true life’s
purpose: to herd sheep. Not only did
this make me have to bite my tongue and not immaturely shout at the man “You
should be put to sleep!” This is comical
to anybody who has seen Target around livestock as his first and most basic
instinct is to run away! Far away!
This instinct isn’t reserved for large
livestock either, his first terrifying encounter was with a black chicken with “Farrah
Fawcett” hair. I can’t imagine what that
chicken was clucking to him, whether it be death threats or throwing down some hen
gang symbols, but I’m sure, in that moment, as much as we knew we were never going
to be farmers, Target was definitely never going to be a farmer's dog.
We received far more loving
moments with Target as a puppy than we did moments like these. His happy-go-lucky personality made it hard
to keep him down for long. It took a
long time for me to put aside other people’s opinions of my dog, or what I was
doing for him. Some days, people will
still find my weak spot and I have to work at making sure their words
don’t come before what I know to be the truth about my dog.
However, even before I was ok with it, Target
was. He doesn’t know he’s any different
than any other dogs, and taking his cues to just “wag on” I eventually became
as deaf to stranger’s comments as he is.
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