During a recent Sunday trip to the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, I stopped at Mission Concepción. I'd come to take some pictures of the light at sunset – practice for a series of paintings I was completing – and since it was still too early in the evening, I killed time by ambling along the walkways and reading the information tablets.
Dragonflies buzzed in the ambience, their long bodies zigzagging across the deep sky overhead. A man walked on the sidewalk, listening to music through headphones. A young couple made out on a blanket spread in the grass. Nothing too out of the ordinary seemed to be happening.
Suddenly, I saw a dog approaching from Mission Road. The dog ran across the street, peering around nervously, and he sat down in the grass next to where I stood. The dog was slender, with fine black fur and burning red-orange eyes. Since he wasn't wearing a collar or name tag, I couldn't determine if he was a stray.
I debated whether to call Animal Care Services to report him before realizing it was 6:30 and that the organization closed at 5 p.m. on Sundays. I looked around, wondering if someone would be coming for the dog.
As we stood together, the driver of an SUV pulled into the parking lot. Four people climbed out, along with two dogs of their own on leashes. They started up the sidewalk, taking in the scenery excitedly, as if it were their first time there.
When the visitors saw me with the dog, they started toward me, the dogs in the lead with their tails wagging. One of the dogs came up to the one sitting next to me and sat beside him like they were instant companions.
"Aww, he wants to be friends," one of the women said. I offered a wan smile.
"He isn't mine," I said. "He came over here from that neighborhood."
She looked surprised.
"Oh."
"Have you ever seen him?" I asked.
"No, I haven't."
"I think he might belong to someone. If so, they're letting him run loose. That doesn't seem right. He could get hit by a car."
"Sorry," the woman said, shrugging as she walked away to rejoin her friends.
I stayed at Mission Concepción for another hour until the light began streaming across the field, throwing blue and violet shadows against the limestone – the colors I'd made the drive to the South side to see. I lifted my camera and began taking photos, and at one point, the dog sat in the grass as if he'd posed for a similar picture countless times before.
Though I've never owned a dog and don't know much about their behavior, I know there's a reason they're referred to as man's best friend. As I walked around the perimeter of the Mission snapping photographs, the dog followed me, stopping where I stopped and staying close behind.
When I finished, the sun was going down and everyone else had left but me and the dog. I looked into its eyes, glowing amber-red. I wished I could adopt him and take him home with me. Still, we had a cat at home, and no experience taking care of dogs.
Sometimes I wish things were different – that there weren't stray cats and dogs without owners wandering the streets of San Antonio having to be taken to clinics to be euthanized. Then, I try to think back to a time when human beings and their pets were undomesticated and roamed the earth like beetles, armadillos and coyotes. Animal control and neutering wasn't an issue then. Life and death overflowed. The idea that death was a part of life was less an idea than a reality, as it is in nature.
Since moving to San Antonio, we've taken in a cat whose previous owner died. Though the owner lived at the apartment complex for 20 years and fed her, the cat, 'Annie,' roamed outdoors during the day. I spoke to the woman a few times, and she claimed the cat had another owner before her. I remember the April morning four years ago when I first saw Annie's face appear outside our window.
This made me realize that even with a safe home, the cat often went outside during the day and at night. Rather than being a strictly indoor cat that ate canned or dried food and sunned itself on window ledges, Annie, given the option, wanted to be an indoor and an outdoor cat.
After taking care of Annie for the last six months, I know that some animals won't ever be domesticated. I read in a book that a feline's environment in the first six months will determine its behavior for the rest of its life, and with multiple owners, it's more accurate to say she lives at the apartment complex rather than in any one apartment.
Still, I know it's morally wrong to let Annie be an indoor and an outdoor cat. She's a threat to the local avian population. Since cats are predators, they kill for sport as much as for survival, and I feel irresponsible for the birds, beetles and moths that have died on my doorstep.
On the other hand, it seems equally wrong to force a wild animal to live indoors. The room would be torn to shreds, and since I consider it insane to remove a cat's claws, much less, neuter it, we've struck a kind of harmony in letting her go outside during the day and hoping the steady supply of cat food will dissuade her from killing birds.
Though this may sound irresponsible, it's the truth. There is no way we could domesticate Annie, and I'm honestly happier knowing she's content.
Still, standing there with the dog that night, I seemed to face the consequences of my decision in not knowing where the dog came from. I felt bad leaving it there alone, and even considered asking someone who lived at one of the neighboring houses if they'd seen the dog before or knew who took care of it. Glancing around, however, I realized it was almost dark and that I had to be getting home.
As I walked back to my car, I was surprised to see the man in the headphones whom I'd noticed walking around the grounds earlier. Though it was twilight, I could make out the features of his face. He was tall and wore a t-shirt with a space ship traveling to Jupiter printed on the front.
I watched in disbelief as the dog whom I'd befriended in the last hour ran over to him, lowering itself on its haunches into the grass right next to him.
"Is that your dog?" I asked.
The man removed one of his earbuds and peered toward me.
"Yes," he said.
"You let him run around?" I asked. "Aren't you afraid someone will take him?"
The man shrugged.
"No one will take him," he said. "He's mine."
"He's supposed to be on a leash," I scolded. "You're not supposed to let dogs run loose. I thought he was a stray. He could get impounded, or worse."
The man shrugged again, looking a little ashamed.
"I live nearby," he said.
"Don't you have a yard?" I pressed.
"I don't have a yard," he said. "He likes to run around. He hasn't got anywhere else."
I watched as the man started across Mission Street again, the dog following in his footsteps. The man seemed to sense that I was watching him, and he turned on his heels, glancing back in my direction.
We stared at each other across a seemingly endless divide that hadn't existed a few moments before.
"It will be OK," he said.
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