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March 18, 2004 ~ Noshi
Thursday.
Note: Tomorrow, I will be posting a full entry with everything else that has been happening, I promise. For now, a story from last Sunday.
Noshi is the German shepard / lower-content wolf cross whom I have mentioned before, the one who cowers in the furthest corner of his pin visibly shaking in fear if humans are anywhere nearby, ears back, eyes wide, tail tucked under as far as it will go, cringing at every noise. I suspect that someone beat him horribly through most of his previous life.
I've spent a lot of time the past few weeks thinking about how to slowly help Noshi to heal. I don't have the time, the few hours I'm there every week, to spend much time with him, when there is so much other work to do.
So, this past Sunday, there were all sorts of projects to be done. Several new wolves would be arriving during this coming week. We needed to move several animals to different pens to accommodate them, and pens in disrepair needed to be brought up to standard. A few new pens are also reaching completion.
Noshi is not a jumper, and he never tries to get out, so his pen didn't have any reinforcing wire or top wire. Noshi will soon be moving to a different pen, however, and the pen he is in had to be reinforced and have top-wire installed in preparation for a new occupant.
With him in it.
N. looked at Morgan and me. "Somebody needs to go in there and put up the wire. You scared of Noshi?"
We both shook our heads. "This," I thought, "is a chance to give him a lot of time to get used to me while also getting some work done." Gathering the proper tools, I slipped into his pen, talking quietly to him. He compacted himself in the far corner, cowering and shivering. I didn't look at him; just kept talking softly off and on as I worked, crimping wire, securing it to the supports, while Morgan worked from the outside, passing things through when I needed them, Noshi always moving to the point that was farthest away from me, watching everything I did.
And slowly, slowly, he stopped quivering. His tail slowly relaxed to hang behind him loosely, rather than tucked up tight between his legs. His ears didn't lie so far back, and his eyes weren't quite so wide.
After a while, he started yawning. "Am I interrupting your nap? Poor Noshi. All these people. Are you getting tired of running from me? It's okay, Noshi, feel free to lie down. I won't trick you." He gave me an almost bored look, then turned to watch Sassy, the new female who just moved in next to his pen last week.
As he was near the front of his pen, I moved toward the back corner, where he usually cowers, to attach some more of the top wire.
About that time, Morgan came back over to the front of the pen, and started making quite a bit of noise, trying to wrestle some wire into place. Suddenly, he stopped. "Melissa, don't move," I heard him say.
Noshi, moving away from Morgan and instinctively toward his back "safe" corner, had come up behind me and was standing next to my leg, sniffing and sniffing and sniffing. As soft as I could, "Sweet Noshi, it's okay. It's okay, boy. You're a good boy." Sniff sniff sniff sniff. "I won't hurt ya. It's okay. I'm not going to get you." After a moment, I slowly reached my hand down, so that he could smell it. After a thorough sniffing session, he slipped around my side so that he was in his cowering corner. My leg was touching him, for there wasn't much room in between the fence and me. He looked out at the noisy, scary Morgan from between my legs.
"Wow," Morgan whispered. I was surprised that Noshi would run toward the scary thing inside his pen to get away from the scary thing outside his pen. Or perhaps I was no longer so scary.
I continued attaching the wire, talking softly to Noshi at my feet. After a while, he started pacing his pen a little again, but he always came back to brush against my leg or to hide behind me if anyone else came near the front of his pen.
When he sniffed my hand again, I slowly brought it along his jaw line and gave him a few scratches under his chin. "Are you okay with this, Noshi? This okay?" He nuzzled against my hand. "Oh, you do like that, don't you?" I brought the other hand around to scratch behind his ears.
Before long I was sitting on the ground next to him, his breath warming my cheek as he leaned against me, petting and scratching him all over. For the first time since I started coming to the sanctuary, I could describe his mood as "happy."
Later, when several other wolves were being moved around, and everybody in the compound was pacing and barking and whimpering and worried, Noshi came and laid next to me, nestling his head under my arm. I gave him lots of scratchin's and explained, "It's okay, Noshi. They're just taking Delaware out for a little walk so that they can clip Cheyenne's nails, see? Cheyenne's being a very good girl, not complaining at all. And Delaware is very friendly, so he's just curious about everybody else, in all the other pens. See, he's making his rounds, sniffing everyone. They're all very excited. You're a good boy, being so quiet and calm. Yes, a very good boy."
An hour and a half, two hours later, the reinforcement of the fencing and the attachment of the top wire was completed. I couldn't care less about that task, though. I had unexpectedly succeeded at a different job. I'd entered poor Noshi's pen a greatly feared enemy. I was leaving it as a trusted friend and protector.
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