“The spiritual gift of the Coyote is total integration with her life and her environment. She is strong, proud, and regal. She is fiercely proud of her independence and yet at the same time, she is fully integrated with everything around her.” - Animal Wisdom Oracle Cards Guidebook by Dr. Cara Gubbins.
Remembering Sheba now, I continue to be struck by how at ease she was in her own skin. She was always self-possessed, strong, regal, and fiercely confident of her place in the world. People would comment that meeting her was like meeting a real person. “I can see a presence in her eyes. There is someone there. She carries herself like a person,” they would say.
I adopted her almost 15 years ago as of this writing. My recollection of that day is admittedly colored by my experience of her life. But I believe it was her self-awareness that drew me to her, that made me choose her over the two littermates.
The backstory to her adoption started when I got a call one night from the shelter manager. A stray that had been picked up was already on the table for spaying when they realized she was pregnant. They wanted some inputs on whether to spay abort the dam, or let her come to term.
By that time, I had already decided I wanted to embark on the adventure of becoming a dog trainer. Our teacher’s requirement was to create a “demo-dog.” We would work with it to hone our training skills, and bring it to the highest level of training fit for its temperament and physicality. He recommended we get a puppy, a mix, from the shelter. So I asked the shelter manager to let the dam come to term as I and another one or two people would adopt the puppies. The dam and all the puppies were in fact later adopted.
We visited the puppies often, but we made our choices only when they reached seven weeks. Sheba moved around the shelter's activity hall with purpose, like she knew what life was about. When I called to her using wordless clucking sounds, she came around, let me pick her up, and hold her for a while. When I put her down she went straight back to playing with her siblings; like the interlude had no ill effects on her.
This carried through to most of her life. Many things did not faze her. For example, although she did not like swimming or being in the pool, she would not panic if I lowered her into it. Instead, she would swim steadily to the other end and climb out. Thunder, lightning, and rain did not bother her. She must have really wondered about the border collies because they would shut down in storms.
Dogs did not scare her either; she would just stay away or tell them off if they came too close. When she was five months old, she and another five month old puppy had an interesting encounter with a boxer bulldog. The boxer was boarding at the school dorm while the owners were deciding what to do about its very serious aggression issues. Sheba and the other pups were with us in the training hall when they led the boxer in, on leash. As the boxer approached, one of the other pups turned on its back and very clearly peed on its own belly. The boxer sniffed it and moved away. All this while, Sheba remained lounging at my feet. I watched her as the boxer approached. She had gone very still, except that I could see her head move as she tracked the boxer. When he got to within two meters of us I felt on my legs, more than heard, a boom. It was her. The boxer promptly turned and walked away.
When she was a bit older, we joined a nosework class. One of her classmates was Jacob, the beloved malamute of a friend. He was an anxious boy, but with my friend’s training and management he was able to do a lot with her. One afternoon, as we waited for class to start, he decided to move close and check Sheba out. This was very unusual of him, as he usually preferred not to interact with other dogs. Sheba stayed relaxed as he came in, close enough to almost touch her with his nose. Only when he had stayed that way for more than the cursory couple of seconds did she let out a soft woof, the dog equivalent of a gentle “that’s enough.” He pulled back with a quizzical look on his face and moved away.
Years later she and Jacob spent a comfortable morning together at the park, and then later at a nearby restaurant. I tell myself now that Sheba knew Jacob was a gentle soul, if a rather anxious and unsure one, and that she made allowances for that.
