Marty
10-27-2005, 09:27 PM
Phoenix, AZ -- I wasn't going to write about Sorcha. She is, after all, a dog. A brown and white pit bull who stands at your knee and waits. You work up your courage and reach down to touch her broad head, and after you've given her a brief pat - she is, after all, a pit bull - she pads off to her blanket, leaving you with the impression that she's available should you be having a bad day.
Still, I wasn't going to write about her. Dog stories are not what people in my business burn to write. We thrive on injustice and hypocrisy. This is a story about loyalty and humanity and how those things haven't deserted us, even as babies are born and left to die in trash cans and pedestrians are hit and left to die on streets.
Which is maybe why it should be told.
Sorcha and her owner, Dawn Prince, 37, came to town in September. Dawn has led a tough life. Bad childhood. Bad marriage. Bad back. For years, she has lived on disability and taken care of her ill mother. There haven't been many high spots, until Sorcha came along. The dog found her last year on a downtown San Diego street.
After Dawn's mother died, they came to Phoenix. Dawn figured she could work if she could find the right job. All too quickly, however, her money ran out. A policeman offered to find a shelter, but Dawn said no. Shelters, you see, don't take dogs.
Which is how Dawn and Sorcha came to be living in Washington Park, near 23rd Avenue and Glendale. Things were fine for a few weeks. Fine, that is, by her standard. She shrugs as she talks about how people wouldn't come near, as if she was dangerous rather than just down on her luck. "You toughen up," she says, "and deal with it."
Like I said, things were fine until Sept. 28, when a dog attacked Sorcha, and Dawn couldn't find anyone who would help. By the next day, Dawn feared her friend was dying. So she loaded her into a shopping cart and started pushing her east on Glendale Avenue. Surely, she thought, someone would help.
Mary Berg is a sucker for a dog. She even volunteers with a dog-rescue group, Paw Placement. Lately, she's been upset. Two months ago, she was in a vet's office when a homeless man came in and asked if they would cremate his dead dog. Because he didn't have $67, they turned him away.
Mary remembers thinking it was too bad the dog was dead, that she might have been able to help. It took a few minutes before she realized it wasn't the dog who needed help, it was the man who did.
By then, he was gone. It's bothered her ever since.
"I literally could not stop thinking, 'Oh, my God, I had the chance to help someone and didn't.' It's not going to happen again."
Mary was on her way home Sept. 29 when she noticed homeless Dawn pushing a shopping cart. When a dog's head popped up, Mary knew she had to stop.
Mary took Sorcha to her vet and Dawn to a motel. Over the next few days, she put out word to the dog-rescue community and searched for a place that accepts pit bulls. On Oct. 3, Dawn moved into an apartment secured by Mary, furnished by dog lovers.
"I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time," Mary says. "When I saw Dawn, I thought, 'OK this is my chance.' "
These days, Dawn looks around her apartment, hardly believing what strangers have done. She hopes to find a job and put down roots here. Phoenix, she says, is a place where a person can begin again.
"It's hope," she says. "Absolute hope."
As she speaks, her dog watches me with soulful, brown eyes, as if she knows that people like me don't consider such things to be news. What the heck, I figure. How many dogs have helped rescue their owner and given a stranger a second chance?
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1022roberts22.html
Still, I wasn't going to write about her. Dog stories are not what people in my business burn to write. We thrive on injustice and hypocrisy. This is a story about loyalty and humanity and how those things haven't deserted us, even as babies are born and left to die in trash cans and pedestrians are hit and left to die on streets.
Which is maybe why it should be told.
Sorcha and her owner, Dawn Prince, 37, came to town in September. Dawn has led a tough life. Bad childhood. Bad marriage. Bad back. For years, she has lived on disability and taken care of her ill mother. There haven't been many high spots, until Sorcha came along. The dog found her last year on a downtown San Diego street.
After Dawn's mother died, they came to Phoenix. Dawn figured she could work if she could find the right job. All too quickly, however, her money ran out. A policeman offered to find a shelter, but Dawn said no. Shelters, you see, don't take dogs.
Which is how Dawn and Sorcha came to be living in Washington Park, near 23rd Avenue and Glendale. Things were fine for a few weeks. Fine, that is, by her standard. She shrugs as she talks about how people wouldn't come near, as if she was dangerous rather than just down on her luck. "You toughen up," she says, "and deal with it."
Like I said, things were fine until Sept. 28, when a dog attacked Sorcha, and Dawn couldn't find anyone who would help. By the next day, Dawn feared her friend was dying. So she loaded her into a shopping cart and started pushing her east on Glendale Avenue. Surely, she thought, someone would help.
Mary Berg is a sucker for a dog. She even volunteers with a dog-rescue group, Paw Placement. Lately, she's been upset. Two months ago, she was in a vet's office when a homeless man came in and asked if they would cremate his dead dog. Because he didn't have $67, they turned him away.
Mary remembers thinking it was too bad the dog was dead, that she might have been able to help. It took a few minutes before she realized it wasn't the dog who needed help, it was the man who did.
By then, he was gone. It's bothered her ever since.
"I literally could not stop thinking, 'Oh, my God, I had the chance to help someone and didn't.' It's not going to happen again."
Mary was on her way home Sept. 29 when she noticed homeless Dawn pushing a shopping cart. When a dog's head popped up, Mary knew she had to stop.
Mary took Sorcha to her vet and Dawn to a motel. Over the next few days, she put out word to the dog-rescue community and searched for a place that accepts pit bulls. On Oct. 3, Dawn moved into an apartment secured by Mary, furnished by dog lovers.
"I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time," Mary says. "When I saw Dawn, I thought, 'OK this is my chance.' "
These days, Dawn looks around her apartment, hardly believing what strangers have done. She hopes to find a job and put down roots here. Phoenix, she says, is a place where a person can begin again.
"It's hope," she says. "Absolute hope."
As she speaks, her dog watches me with soulful, brown eyes, as if she knows that people like me don't consider such things to be news. What the heck, I figure. How many dogs have helped rescue their owner and given a stranger a second chance?
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1022roberts22.html