If you know our little Iwa, you know how she loves animals with a love so great, one might even use the word "obsession". She has always been this way. She would cuddle a stuffed pig before she would even notice a baby doll was in the room.
Both my favorite and least favorite Iwa stories deal with this love.
First, one of my favorites. Sometime last spring, I was taking a shower, getting ready for school when John came in and in a hushed voice told me that something had happened and wanted to consult on how we should deal with it. When Iwa was letting General, our dog, outside for his morning constitution, there was a dead squirrel in the grass. She came and got him and told him that General was stepping on a squirrel. John, trying to be discrete, came back to talk to me before he had made an official statement to her. I was giving this a lot of thought. How do you explain the nature of nature to a 3-year-old? It was just about then that she burst into the bathroom saying, rather mater-of-factly, "Mom, there's a dead squirrel in the back yard and General's stepping on it. I'm gonna hold the tail while daddy holds the body to throw it over the fence." That took care of that.
Now, one of my least favorites, happened today while we were visiting John's dad's house. They live out in the country with horses, mules, goats (one of which was Iwa's second birthday present- a pygmy goat she named Sheep), a pony, and, of course hunting dogs and barn kitties.
She went out to the barn with Martha to visit the baby kitties infesting the barn and one of the more socialized hunting dogs came along. She had made fast friends with this dog, whose name is "Broke Tail Buck" as soon as she arrived. These animals follow her around like she's friggin' Dr. Doolittle.
Anyway, when they came back, she was hysterical. "Buck the Dog" who I thought might have even been semi-retarded attacked one of the kitties right in front of them. Now, this really sucks but I really don't want to lie to her about these things. They weren't playing. The kitty wasn't sleeping. If she's going to be spending time around a farm and loving animals, she needs to know that wild animals do these things. That's why they're wild. Sometimes our inside animals can do these things. It's life. Not everything wants to cuddle and be petted.
I took her outside to a rocking chair, and after lots of tears and cuddling and talking, she was fine. Maybe she's a little more grown up, maybe scarred for life. I know I certainly am. As for her, only time will tell. Bless her heart.
