Selma Lu Mela

All my dog wants to eat is apples.

She nibbles them from my hands with her four front teeth. She flips her ears back, which stretches her eyes to really thin slits and it is all she can do to sit still as my hand gets closer and closer to her mouth. She thinks they are special and so delicious and I get my pleasures out of her eating apples this way too. Her eyes cross in the cutest of ways as she stares at the apple in my fingers the whole while. She has been in love with the apple since she was about 4 weeks old. I said, “Nick, what is apple in Italian?” He said, “mela”. And this is how Selma became Selma Lu Mela.

Selma Lu Apple? No.

Selma Lu Mela? Much better.

The Lu came naturally. It happens when I talk to them. They get a middle name beginning with an L just because it ends up coming out of my mouth and… I don’t stop it from doing so. Shakti was “Shakti Locks”. China is “China Lingua” (sometimes China Ling in my head). And even our friend’s basset hound is, to me, “Sophie Loaf”. Yeh, I don’t know, it’s an oddity. But, they seem to like it okay.

The Selma came from me staring at her face and thinking, “What do you look like? What’s your name? Hmmm? What do you want to be called?” And “Selma” kept answering. Not Selma the pup, just Selma the word. It was there every time I asked. It matched her face. Her eyes rimmed in black to give them a distinct slanted and exotic look. But her constantly worried face, her furrowed brow, turned the mysteriousness of her lined eyes into tenderness and sensitivity that matches her personality. Selma. To Selma Lu. To Selma Lu Mela. Perfetto!

I think back to this naming of her because today I cooked her the same meal she survived on in Anguilla. She was very sick last night. She ate soft dog food, which she normally does not eat, and that mixed with other factors (that I’ll never exactly identify to avoid in the future- it is a puzzle) caused us all a very long, sleepless night. I won’t get into the details; I will not describe a thing, as you would no doubt gag. But, I spent a lot of time hand washing garments and bedspreads and Persian rugs. And the washing machine helped with all the other linens and non-precious materials. It was unbelievable, really, in the respect that she somehow “touched” every wool, barely worn, J.Crew coat, or cream colored Nanette Lepore jacket, or dry clean only wool sweater, metallic blend dress… the list goes on. The rugs that have to be dry cleaned, the bedspreads that are folded in such a way to be kept neat and out of the way… those were all things that acted as magnets to last nights tragic sequence of events. I looked up at one point and said, “It’s 4 A.M.?” Nick, half crazy, said, “Yes.” That’s about all he said. Selma was full-body shaking (something she climbs in my lap and does over big deals and not-so-big deals) and looked so pitiful that not once did I even raise my voice to her. I looked at her and looked at all these things I loved and there was no comparison. They can be substituted. Selma Lu Mela cannot.

This dog is so cautious that if her ball rolls near an air vent or by something of mine or by… the list goes on… she just lays down and stares at it until I become curious about where she is, search for her and find her patiently waiting for her toy to be placed in her “safe zone”. She walks the perimeter of the corridors only, close to the walls- she is scared of the floors. She jogs with me at night in the middle of the street only because she is scared of shadows. (Someone was standing in a shadow once, she couldn’t see them, and then they spoke. This is trauma for Selma!) She is like D. Zoolander every time she wants to come down stairs. She stops, lays down, darts, zigzags, then runs in a tight circle to the right about three to four times before she will walk the “plank” to the stairs. She is not fond of the wooden walkway from the stairs to our bedroom. This routine, I love! I laugh every single time she does this. Oh, and the number one most terrifying obstacle in Selma’s life is… The Trash Bag. The kitchen sized trash bag is cause for major concern for sweet Selma. I change a bag, she runs from the kitchen, hides under the table, then I say, “All clear, Selma. You can come back.” And she rounds the corner to carry on eating or whatever task she was in the middle of doing.

The Trash Bag, an Anguilla legend, a sure sign of puppies meeting their demise, their fate, their last moments. It is a tale passed from mommy to puppy at the moment of birth. “Stay away from The Trash Bag!” This is basic survival for dogs in Anguilla, where some people on the island take litters of puppies, put them in a trash bag or sack, tie it in a knot, and then they walk to a cliff and pitch the bag full of puppies over into the ocean. They don’t even give them the chance to survive. They drown them. So, you see, Selma’s fear of a trash bag I am convinced is more than a sign that she is paranoid. She is smart. And who knows what she escaped when she was only three weeks old and scampering blindly on a scorching hot coral reef island in the middle of the summer? I do not know. She is a survivor; that I do know. She didn't have much time to learn how to be a doggy from her mom. She’s been winging it, learning things from me and Nick, and then, China and Shakti (Shakti was a master teacher. She left Selma with a present- a little dot of a scar on her top lip from when Selma, unwelcome, put her nose in Shakti’s face when Shakti was curled in her basket getting her snooze on. Shakti didn’t mess around. She was smarter than us all.)

The story of Selma, the reduced version, goes like this:

Anguilla, BWI- Jeremiah Gumbs Highway

July, 2007

Nick is driving to his office and decides to take an unusual route, the longer route. He, probably while listening to Jack Johnson, is cruising island speed, and notices a little chipmunk cross the road. “There aren’t chipmunks in Anguilla.”, he says to himself. He pulls over, he walks in the direction of the chipmunk and, being curious, calls out to it. “Come here! tt, tt, tt.” (You know that noise, right? I have no clue how to write it.) Then, like a scampering, desperate, tiny rodent; it comes through the grass that is much taller than it, swaying and tripping, it cries “arr, arr, arr”.

And whom does the ‘chipmunk’ find on the other end of the journey to the unknown voice? Why, only one of the biggest dog lovers in the world. (It is a family trait. Cassini loves Canine. His brother, his father, his uncle: all animal lovers. His half-sister nursed a goat back to health in Nevis once. They are the real deal in pet rescue.)

And, what does Nick find at the end of his journey of curiosity? Why, only one of the most needy, sweetest puppies in the world. A match. Serendipity.

He picked her up to look at her. She had fuzzy blue eyes, basically a brand new pup, and started suckling on his finger. She was literally starving to death.

He walked to the nearest home. He knocked on the door and spoke to the woman who opened it, asking where the puppy came from and said I’m not here to give her back; I’m here to tell you, “I am taking her.” This woman, who could care less about any animal, said the house next door took the puppy from her mommy and litter and then threw her out in the yard to be a guard dog. They tried to burn her tail off; I’m assuming they thought this would make her look mean.

Nick then took her to the vet to get basic, proper care and fed her and got her a small cardboard box lined with towels to call home for the day. By the time he picked me up at Blowing Point Ferry Station, having before flown to St. Martin from Atlanta and then crossed the water to Anguilla, the puppy was asleep on her side, arms and legs sticking straight out, belly so full it looked like it was about to pop. This is the moment I first held her and during the drive to our house, I named her.

She did well. Then, she had a second relapse almost two weeks later. She was in really bad shape, nearly dead, and I was so in love with her already. I called my mom, she instructed me that rice in a little bit of chicken broth or water and plain boiled chicken might work. So, I tried it and it did work. The vet on the island was of no help, they kept her for one night, paid her no attention and she was worse than when we brought her in. The vet hadn’t even seen her, the lady at the desk said. Typical.

Things weren’t looking good and the response from many people was “some creatures are sick and maybe they aren’t supposed to survive.” That may be true. But, I didn’t want to hear it.

I will never forget the night. I stayed up all night, lying on my back with Selma on my chest. I could feel her heart beat and she was really hot. If I fell asleep I was afraid I would wake up and she might be dead, so I stayed up running words through my head asking God for her to survive and trying to give energy from my chest to her chest. If love heals, this is what did the trick because I tried to make my love a physical energy that would swallow up her illness. I would get up and try to give her water or food every two hours and when she sipped I would be even more hopeful. This is one moment that I believe captures Selma’s spirit. I walked to the kitchen in the dark, holding Selma close to me in my hand. She was burning up and weak and floppy. I opened the refrigerator and the light shined on her and she, just beginning to see, turned to me and gave me one heartfelt, sweet lick on the tip of my nose. She was seriously dying and she kissed my nose; she was giving me love. She is a giver. She is a tenderhearted, sensitive, silly, quirky, very smart, giver of a spirit.

The next morning was a turning point and she only got healthier from then on. I took her everywhere with me, even into the ice cream shop. There were no signs against it, so I was not breaking any rule, and the look on the face of the ice cream scooper was worth it. She was so curious, like “why would she want to hold that dog?” She looked at the dog in a different way than she ever had before, I could tell. Selma was still so little I could hold her in one hand, so it wasn’t a big deal in my opinion. She was like any accessory. I mean, people wear dead animals all over their neck and body… this is acceptable, but that is not? Which is grosser?

When it was time for Selma to come to the USA, a hurricane was approaching, so we were in a hurry. She sat in her cat carry case, rode to the ferry station, over the ocean, to another port, through an airport, to an airplane, through customs here in the States where she received a lovely welcome and “goochy goo goo” from the customs agent, and then was picked up and spent her first night at the house of our friends with four other huge dogs. 2 boxers, a shepherd mix, and a basset hound. Oh, and 1 yorkie. She was shocked, but happy. She escaped the island and was in dog lover land at last! The whole while, she hadn’t made a peep.

That is the short version of The Story of Selma Lu Mela. She still has a scar in the shape of an arrowhead above her tail on her back. But, she has come to love her scar. I rub jojoba oil or Vitamin E oil on it and that feels really good to her. Other than those key things she is weary of, like The Trash Bag, her days of survival on an island is a distant memory. She instead spent the rest of her puppy days discovering nature in the Chattahoochee National Forrest and napping to Andrea Bocelli, maybe wrestling China, until China realized Selma was growing and promptly put an end to that. Selma Lu deserves her luck.

And, I get the lovely moments of having Selma Lu Mela, and her fifty pounds of pure muscle, crawl on my chest and shiver when she feels ill. I get to comfort her. She remembers that turning point too, I think.

Love is many things. And caring less about Persian rugs and dressy coats so that I can give my care to the one who loves me back… that is real love.

Love is for many souls. And my Selma Lu Mela is definitely the proud owner of one pure, untarnished soul.

In the Christmas spirit of the season, I give thanks for that.