peaches

The neighborhood has a little dog.  

Peaches as I've come to call her, obviously has a sad history.  Everything, sometimes nothing, scares her.  She startles, she runs, she doesn't trust.  I know she wants to . . .

Time and patience can be powerful tools and I've got a lot of both.  In just a week, Peaches has warmed a bit, wanting company and communicating her basic needs; nose up in the air and faint whimpers when she's hungry, peering through the door if I'm inside, learning I might come out and sit with her.  

She's owning the neighborhood.  None of us own her.  

Four houses look after the precious little mutt, her sibling dumped in our cul-de-sac at the same time but since disappeared.  She roams the half circle, half lost among several cats to play with and squirrels to chase.  She's begun running round-and-round-and-round this tree, lightning fast, it seems just for the fun of it.

I cook her an egg every day for lunch, two if I think she missed breakfast elsewhere.  She spends the afternoons sunning herself on concrete or grass, awakened from her short, restless naps any time the blue jays bathe or a car horn honks or I shift in my chair.  Peaches heads across the street around five o'clock, to get in on scraps from the family who eats hours before we do.  I heard she turned down chicken-fried-steak.  I admit, that made me smile.

The past couple days have held a ray of promise for Peaches will nap at my feet, her back turned away from me even, and today she took several pieces of cheese from me, long slices dangling, promising safety from my hand, the hand which wants only to pet her precious little head and assure her everything will be alright.