I dream of animals often, and usually they are rapturous. But this dream was different. It began with a crisis.

A friend had given us a border collie puppy. What could be better? But I was beset with anxiety. In the dream, the baby was only about the size of a newborn mouse, and I was terrified it would die. I had no idea how to keep the puppy alive. I felt utterly helpless.

Then someone came to the door. I didn't hear a knock, but I knew someone was there. I opened the back door--and there stood Tess.

Oh! The joy of seeing her again! But even as I lay dreaming, I understood that Tess was dead. I knew in the dream that Tess was in her spirit form, and that she had come to help me. I raced to get Howard. He came to the door with me. But now Tess was gone. In her place stood a different border collie.

Like Tess, this border collie had a white stripe down the nose, white legs, and white tail tip. But she was even more luxuriantly furred than Tess. Her ears stood up taller, with no flop to the tips. She lacked Tess's white ruff. She looked at us expectantly with intense brown eyes.

Instantly, I understood that Tess had sent this dog to us. From the moment I woke up, I set out to find her....

THREE MONTHS LATER

For some reason, few border collies were available for adoption at the time, and no young females were available. I was starting to feel frantic. Now it was April, three months after Tess had come to me in the dream. It appeared not only possible, but likely, that I would fail her--and meanwhile, the dog who was meant to be ours was languishing out there, somewhere. I didn't even know where to start.

A breeder was out of the question. We knew an excellent one in the next town over, but he bred professional working dogs, not pets--and besides, we had always wanted to give a home to a border collie who wouldn't otherwise have a good one.

So, without much hope, I cast my dream upon the mercy of the universe. I told some of our friends that we were looking for a young female border collie. One friend was a Yankee columnist and knew, it seemed, half the population of New England. Another was on the board of the local Humane Society. A third friend had worked at the Massachusetts SPCA. Surely they would have some leads.

On a whim, I also called Evelyn--the woman who runs the private rescue where we had gotten Tess. We'd stayed friends ever since we'd brought Tess home. I had immediately told her about Tess's death, and of course, I reasoned, she would have called us if, by some fluke, she suddenly acquired another border collie--which was unlikely. Tess had been the only border collie Evelyn had gotten at the rescue in fourteen years. But I phoned her anyway, just to tell her we were looking.

Evelyn was silent for several seconds, and then replied, as if stunned:

"Well, I've got a girl right here."

She was perhaps five years old. Evelyn wasn't sure. The dog had lived in two different homes before arriving at Evelyn's rescue, and neither owner appeared to care very much for her. Her name was Zooey, but she didn't come when called--Evelyn thought it sounded too much like "no-o-o"--so Evelyn had renamed her Zack.

The dog's story was pathetic. That winter, from an ill-timed coupling with the border collie next door, which Evelyn thought might have been forced, Zack had borne her owners a litter of eight valuable, purebred border collie pups. But because her people had made her breed in the winter, and then whelp on the concrete floor of the cold basement, the babies were freezing to death. Five of the eight had died before the man called Evelyn for help.

When Evelyn arrived, she found the new mother desperate, running in and out of the whelping box, aware that her pups were dying but helpless to save them. "I was sick about it," Evelyn told me. "She was practically bald and loaded with fleas. I even treated her for mange. It was all I could do not to curse those people."

Evelyn saved the three remaining pups, whom the man planned to sell for good money. But he had no use for the mother. So Evelyn took Zack and nursed her back to health. She had a full coat now, Evelyn told us. "She's a beautiful dog," she said. "But she's not very well socialized."

Howard and I went over to meet her...

People often speak of a lifetime dog, a phrase that may have been coined by the author and fellow border collie owner Jon Katz. "They're dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways," he said. Tess was our lifetime dog.

But so was Sally.

Sally was no replacement for Tess, or for Chris. She was not a serious, intense, laser-smart border collie. She was not a great big Buddha master like Christopher Hogwood. She was not a wise mentor like Molly. And yet, from the moment Sally came home, I loved her no less than I loved them.

This is the gift great souls leave us when they die. They enlarge our hearts. They leave us a greater capacity for love. Thanks to the animals before Sally, I adored her with all the love I had for Molly, all the love I felt for Tess, all the love I had for Chris--and all the love I had for this silly, goofy, sweet, smiley, uniquely wonderful new dog.

"Tess must be laughing at us," Howard would sometimes say as I cleaned up the bag of dog kibble Sally had strewn all over the kitchen foor, or hosed the smelly remains of a rolled-in deer carcass from her fur. I never doubted it. I loved thinking of Tess smiling down on us from heaven, knowing that every time I looked at Sally, I thought gratefully and lovingly of Tess, too. For after all, everything had turned out as Tess had intended when she came to me in the dream.

TEN YEARS LATER

As I was looking over notes I had taken from talking with Evelyn about Sally long ago, I realized another miraculous aspect to that dream. It had started with a crisis: a puppy whose life was in danger but whom I felt powerless to save. The dream had occurred in January, the same month--and, who knows? possibly the same night!--that Sally, then named Zooey, was imprisoned in a cold basement many miles away from me, desperately trying to save her freezing pups from dying. Had I glimpsed, through the dream, the heartbreaking dilemma that, without my knowing her, Sally was facing?

I wondered: Did Tess appear to Sally, too? Did she show her me, a promise of a new future? Perhaps, thanks to Tess, Sally and I had seen each other that same night, in our dreams.

Source: How to Be a Good Creature: a Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery, 2018; ch. 8, Sally; pp 123-5, 128-31, 138-9. Illustrations by Rebecca Green.

EDITOR'S NOTES

Sy points out that her dream's first scene shows what Sally really was going through, seen in dog's-eye view, and around the time it happened. But Sy goes farther; wonders if Tess intervened in both her and Sally's dreams. Readers who might just accept the idea of shared or telepathic dreaming, but balk at spirits or life after death, may find this several steps too far. Let's distinguish those steps--souls exist, animals have souls, and souls are... detachable.

I'm a sensory minority; I sense human and animal auras, and emotionally they're much the same; so for me, the Cartesian belief animals are mere objects is palpably false. I see dog spirits daily--just attached to dog bodies! My (admittedly unusual) sensorium put me just one step away from "dog-souls might survive death", where for most readers it's several steps.

For me, the biggest stretch is the idea that Tess as a dog-angel worked to get Sally, Evelyn and Sy together. Tess didn't know Sally. Simpler to think it's Evelyn (who, after all, knew both Sy and Sally) unconsciously (in dreams?) starting to think about linking them; and natural for Sy to dream of Evelyn in the shape of Tess, since Evelyn brought her Tess.

On the other hand Tess our doggy angel could just as well have visited her friend Evelyn, found she was nursing an abused collie her friend Sy would love, and played yenta. "A match made in heaven," as we say. We just rarely add "by dogs".

--Chris Wayan

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites