The Dachshund

He hadn't been run over, but he seemed to have been struck by something with a great deal of force, which Dr. Ferreira surmised to be an object attached to a moving vehicle. One couldn't rule out other possibilities, such as malicious people, to be sure, but he had been found on the side of the road, a main road that ran past the entrance of a gated community, one without a sidewalk and usually lacking in pedestrian traffic. The vehicle explanation just seemed more likely. It was nighttime, and the woman who had brought him in had been returning from a social event well past ten o'clock. 

"It was just by sheer luck that I saw the little guy. I couldn't even tell it was an animal. It just looked like something by the curb," she reported. "You know, I have very bad night vision," which was such a commonplace thing to say it made Sophia briefly suspicious that she was actually the one who had hit the dachshund. She scrutinized the computer screen, reflexively avoiding eye contact after what seemed like the woman's confession. Sophia had just come out of three hours of surgery assisting Dr. Ferreira and the final thing remaining to do was to open a case file in the computer for the dog. 

There was the liar's game of unexpected frankness. A crude lie avoids the truth. A sophisticated lie incorporates the truth. But, no. Sophia looked up. The woman was a sweetheart, and what an ugly thing, if a good samaritan were to endure Sophia's suspicion. Anyway, even if she had hit the dachshund, anyone's who's had a license for more than a few years has a story about either hitting an animal by accident or nearly missing hitting an animal by accident. At least, if she did hit it, unlike so many other people, she had had the compassion to call Dr. Ferreira's emergency veterinary clinic, bring the dog in in the middle of the night, and even stay until 3:30 a.m. when the surgery wrapped up.  

"Thank you sooooo much, Anne. For calling us. For bringing him in. For staying until the surgery was all done. What a lucky little dachshund that someone as big hearted as you came along when you did." Dr. Ferreira had given Sophia permission to leave after the next assistant, Jim, arrived at six a.m. Before she left, she looked in one more time on the dachshund. No collar. No tags. No computer chip. No known name. He was lying on his side and breathing under sedation. A little brown ear was folded underneath itself.  Sophia unfolded it for him. His soft brown eyes were half closed. What awful misfortune to be such a lovely little animal in such a vicious world, she thought. 

It was Sunday, and after sleeping till twelve-thirty, Sophia sat up in bed and made a rather groggy phone call to Jim to ask about the dachshund's condition. Jim had unpromising news. The dog's temperature was slightly higher than expected, his heart rate was elevated more than expected and his blood pressure was lower than it should have been, which suggested there might still be internal bleeding.  Dr. Ferreira was coming in at two to make a decision about whether to operate again. When the dachshund had arrived at the veterinary hospital, before being sedated, he had been making high-pitched sounds that were halfway between terror and pain. Upon being brought through the operating room doors his whole body had started to tremble uncontrollably. 

Sophia lay back in bed and let the tears come. She was lying prone, so the tears went down the sides of her temples and pooled in her ears. She could still hear the dachshund's terrified cries in her mind. Two medical workers and a kindly elderly woman alone in a deserted veterinary clinic in the middle of the night trying to save a dog's life. It was conventional wisdom in medical settings not to get overly attached to patients, human or otherwise. It didn't help that she was exhausted. Through her tears, she said a silent prayer for all suffering animals and people. 

A little later, she would get up and do her work for the day. Much later, the dog would survive--or it wouldn't. She would cry for other animals, but mostly not. She would be a little bit stronger, with each passing year, and she would help them.