Reading Lynne Hugo's Where the Trail Grows Faint

In between adventures with Shamus (more Chase Farm and a hike through the North Kingstown Town Forest over the weekend), I've been doing some dog-related reading and just finished Lynne Hugo's Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year in the Life of a Therapy Dog Team (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). This memoir renders Hugo's experiences visiting nursing home residents with her certified therapy dog Hannah, a one year-old chocolate lab. Hugo's book won the 2008 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Award. A lovely piece of literary non-fiction that is very dog focused... this book is to me what a can of Canidae dog food is for Shamus: cause for salivating!

I loved every page of Hugo's book, which is more about aging and what connects us to our own humanity, to each other, and to our own sense of hope and being alive than it is about, say, training a therapy dog. It touched my emotions on almost every page. For one, Hugo is an ardent hiker and describes her adventures on the trail with Hannah using exquisite prose (the author is also a poet and her language use reflects this). For example, Hugo writes:


An ache of blue sky over yellow woods. The nose and throat tang of leaf-fall. My Hannah, leaping like a stag, bounding her zigzag trail revisions, exuberant, running as high and fast as her blood, chasing everything, chasing nothing. October (p. 96).



Short prose poems like these open most chapters, and serve to connect Hugo and Hannah's forest to the lives of the residents at the nursing home through the prevailing metaphor in the book, that of the ever-changing trail.

But for me, the best element of Hugo's story is the way she embraces, perhaps reluctantly, the uncertainties and disappointments of growing old, indeed of just living, and then shows how, anyway, hope is necessary; hope is possible. The story is in many ways a hard look at nursing homes and the way they deplete, unforgivably, hope and empowerment from the residents. The reader sees how Hannah, her warm body, her Labrador enthusiasm, her responsiveness, can restore (momentarily anyway) a sense of connection for the residents. Hugo also shows herself as a compassionate listener who interacts authentically with the residents, reminding the reader gently that everyone would want such a listener should he or she end up in a nursing home!

This book has won literary acclaim and rightly so; however, I also want to point out that it is probably a valuable reference book/ professional text for anyone who participates in or performs any kind of animal-facilitated therapy work. Hugo records in such detail her work with the residents, and also reflects on her own observations about how Hannah's presence benefits the health of those who interact with the dog. I've read many books about animal-facilitated therapy but never one quite like this, which is really a profound record rather than a testimony meant to convince people that animal therapy would work for everyone or to attend a therapeutic workshop/ lecture led by the author. (Many animal-therapy books do drift slightly towards those forms, though I still like reading them!) One of my favorite passages is when Hugo describes Hannah helping at home. Hugo writes:

Delta Society training material suggests direct physical contact with an animal can lower blood pressure and reduce pain, so when Alan finally gave in and laid down, I used treats to coax Hannah up beside him. [Alan is Hugo's husband and he has been suffering excruciating headaches.] Several hours later he got up having slept deeply and without pain. Alan was amazed and if I hadn't already believed the Delta Society and Therapy Dogs International, I did then (p. 122).

Part of the reason that this passage interests me so much is that I have had, believe it or not, similar experiences with Urban Adventure Dog seeking me out when I am sick and/or anxious. He lies down beside me and seems to stretch his body alongside mine in a way that he doesn't at other times. It's like he tries to comfort me with his presence, but also like he knows somehow that it will work! That it's what he should be doing. Just last week, I had a really restless night. It was after 2 in the morning and I didn't know how I would wake up and teach back to back classes the next morning. I felt a sense of dread and panic. Then Shamus appeared at the foot of my bed... he'd gotten up from where he was sleeping in the other room. He climbed into my bed, and stretched out alongside me. He slept there and I scratched his ears and back until I fell asleep. I wonder if other dog owners have had experiences like this. It's strange because in many situations animals will avoid people who seem anxious or sick... that's a survival instinct... but dogs seem to be different?

Hugo's story makes me question more than it brings me comfort... I just finished reading it, so I'm not exactly sure yet what my specific questions are... I just feel slightly unsettled, especially by reading about the lonely, heart-wrenching situations of so many elderly people. However, there is a strong sense of hope and comfort in the story, in Hannah providing a kind of connection and healing for the residents. Certainly, it reminds me in some ways of my experiences volunteering at High Hopes Therapeutic Riding... and confirms for me the idea that animal-human therapies are beneficial for all involved, even those who are only lucky enough to read about the experience.

Thaw

I intended my next blog entry to be titled "Depression, Aggression, Regression" - all of which have been recurring themes in the life of Urban Adventure Dog and Olivia Sage over the past two wintry weeks. But then, I decided on "Thaw."

The inspiration for this change was a hike we took this morning at Chase Farm in Lincoln, Rhode Island. It's a place we go often. Especially this winter, it has served as a source of inspiration. It's a public place, but you can tell that a long time ago it was someone's farm. Shamus and I walk the perimeter, and I imagine that it's my farm - that it's our responsibility to walk that fence line as a farmer of old might have done. In the winter, the farm was splendid - rolling hills covered with whiteness, pine trees decorated with more of the same. And it was often abandoned, or almost so, except for a fellow dog walker. It was more beautiful than it was today.

Today, Chase Farm's dominant color was murky brownish-green, and mud came up nearly to my ankles in places. And it smelled like spring, but also like marsh. And there were more people and more dogs. And the pond was melting around its edges. Thaw.

The thaw seemed to bring scents alive for Urban Adventure Dog, and reminded me that spring is coming.