I can't find Stanley a home. I have put ads on websites, posters in shops, I even attached a sign to his back that says, "Necesito Una Casa" and paraded him down the city streets for a live public showing. If he only knew what I was trying to do, would he feel so happy? The people who like him usually already have animals, or they have excuses why they can't have animals. Research has shown me that putting a dog in a shelter is possibly the worst thing you can do for an animal. It is common for them to experience neglect, abuse, or premature death (either from extermination, or from the diseases they catch from other dogs).
And the thing is, the more time I spend trying to find Stanley a home, the more I just wish I could keep him. You should have seen the way he bared his teeth at a man who followed me one night. Or how he came over to the bed just now to place his paws on my chest and release me from a nightmare. It was pure instinct (and pressure from Jacey) that made me take him in, but it is reason that reminds me how I have to let him go; as with most foreigners who try to gain legal access into our country, the process of entry is long and often fruitless. (And, another instance of racism, purebreds get in more easily.) Furthermore, I couldn't be more held down than if I had given birth to a 20 lb baby.
Nevertheless, it's causing me countless headaches, and spurting yet another onslaught of tears as I type. It isn't fair that he lived on the streets, and it isn't fair that I love him now, and it isn't fair that there are no feasible alternatives in front of me. I wish he would break more dishes and run through his shit like the first few days, instead of looking at me that way, with total trust and contentment, more genuine than most people who look at me, so then I wouldn’t care so much what happens.
I want so much to find him infinite love and safety, but I am failing. I never expected to find myself in Argentina, crying so hard over a little street dog with ear mites. But it has given birth to a realization, a fear I must have held within me for countless years - that there is beauty in the world that goes unnoted, lives that persist without love or affection.
|  | 
|
