Dogs and Damaged Souls

She handed me the leash before she said anything. It’s like she wanted to transfer responsibility into my hands before she told me the truth.

“Before you take her, you should know that she’s damaged.”

"What do you mean, damaged?”

“I mean that someone dumped her off at the shelter and they should’ve done it months earlier. She was ragged, malnourished, still has a broken tooth, and she’s afraid of her own shadow. She pees herself if you move towards her too fast. Another family tried to adopt her but because she is afraid of everything, she chewed on things when they left the house. They dealt with it by punishing her and locking her in a crate for 20 hours a day. She’s normally a high energy dog so she went insane. They ended up dropping her off at the shelter again as damaged goods.”

I looked at the quivering bundle of agony laying like melted butter on the floor. “Oh honey, we’re going to get along great because I know exactly how you feel...”

Seven out of ten women around the world experience abuse or violence at some point in their lifetime. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the obvious physical domestic abuse because it comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s a deeply complex issue threaded through families and society, but abuse can be summed up as simply being with someone who wants to take control over how you feel, but not in a good way. They want to be in charge of you and make you do what they want you to do. This isn’t about controlling the T.V. remote or normal disagreements in a relationship. It’s an insatiable need to control how you feel and to take away every aspect of your free will. They’ll do it anyway they can. Physically and/or emotionally. Life is always about what they want. They may not succeed, but the consist attempt to dominate you in any way is an act of abuse.

Looking at this dog puts abuse into an instant visual understanding of what abuse does to the receiver. Humans have the fantastic ability to hide what we’re feeling. Dogs don’t have this filter so they act the way they’ve been treated. What you see is what they are. Damaged goods.

I too am damaged goods. My heart now forever hurts and my instinct is to not trust (hu)mans, just like her. But, what one person takes away, another can give back. With the right person, we can both heal our hearts, but it has to begin with reminding ourselves that man has the ability to be kind.

On our first morning, my damaged dog woke up and wasn’t sure where to go to the bathroom so she just went where she was. Then she instantly crawled to the corner expecting the usual punishment. Instead, I just smiled, said it was okay to make a mistake and she watched as I cleaned it up. We all make mistakes and it’s no big deal. Now, let’s go outside instead! She stayed in the corner like I had made a mistake, that I had forgotten something. She eyed me asking, where is my punishment for my mistake? It’s okay, we don’t punish for mistakes. She slowly and literally crawled out of the corner and into my lap as I sat on the floor. I’d never seen a dog Army crawl like that before. The healing had begun. Not for her, for me. By knowing what she needed, I discovered what is it that would help heal my damaged soul.

Each day I shattered her perception of what she thought she deserved. She thought she deserved nothing so I gave her everything. I gave her trust and opened the front door for her. Freedom to come or go. I have no fence and she knows it, but she never strays and she comes back every time. Getting in the car equated to something bad in her past, so she didn’t want to get in. Now, the car means the wind in her face, a walk in the park or a swim in the swamp – and it’s okay to get muddy and stinky. She forgives me if the destination is actually the vet.

I wish someone could take my leash (and all of you that have a damaged soul) and hand me off to someone safe with the caveat that I am damaged goods. I might crawl into a corner when I am afraid and I might flinch when I shouldn’t be afraid. It takes time to dig around inside and find where I hid my self-confidence. I tucked it away in order to stay safe because confidence is an abuser’s enemy. It’s what they hate but ironically, it’s what we need most.

So if you find yourself with a damaged soul, it’s often the soul of a dog that will put you back together again. She looks at me now and knows that it is actually the dog that rescued a human.

Erika Armstrong is the author of A CHICK IN THE COCKPIT which gives the reader a look behind the cockpit door while flying down the rabbit hole of an abusive relationship. Her articles can be found in Disciples of Flight, NYC Aviation, Plane & Pilot, Contrails, Consumer Affairs, Mentor, Business Insider and Flying.com. She is a professor of aviation and can be reached at erika@achickinthecockpit.com Buy the book here!