I rescue animals. I don't stop and pick up every stray dog or cat I see, but when I can if I see and animal that
appears to be lost and in need of help I will make an effort to help it. Fortunately we have an animal shelter
nearby that will take in abandoned and otherwise orphaned strays, and generally when I do pick up an
animal it goes straight there.
Not all animals I rescue are found out and about on the roads and streets that I travel. I have found several
of these wanton vagabonds right on and around the woods of Willow Oak, my 16 acre farm in rural Alcorn
County, Mississippi. For instance, I was irritated one day when the dogs that live with me started making
such a ruckus. I stepped onto the back porch and could see that they were barking at something just
across the fence behind the house. I walked to the fence where the dogs were, and woah! A litter of
puppies, perhaps no more than five weeks old were crowded into a ball of fur just outside the fence!
Ordinarily you might suggest that the puppies had been dumped there by someone, but if you had seen
where these puppies were you would question that assessment. I do not live in a neighborhood like most
people do -- no I am out in the country, on a lonely country road, and my house sits several hundred feet
from the road. A person would have a quite a long hike to reach the spot where I found those puppies.
How did those little guys get here? I wondered. Could someone possibly have dumped them here,
knowing that I keep a lot of animals, and thinking that I would take them in? I couldn't see how that could
be. How could a person expect to do that undetected?
Anyway, I was able to deliver the pups, five in all, to the local animal shelter where all were eventually
adopted. That was a strange incident, but it would not be the last. One year later, in approximately the same
spot another litter of pups appeared. How puzzling! Was someone deliberately dumping puppies at my
back door? Why would they do that? Why not dump them at the front door? I could not see how or why
anyone would go to all the trouble of traversing the several hundred feet to place the pups in a spot way in
the back like that, but there could be no mistaking the fact that someone or some thing was doing so. All of
the pups were simply too small to have wandered there on their own. Maybe one pup might, but a whole
litter? And if they wandered there by themselves, why would they then be all balled up like a litter of pups
or kittens are wont to do when their mother leaves them? If they had wandered there by themselves they
most likely would have dispersed, and besides, if they had wandered there by themselves, from where had
they wandered?
Again a year later I was sitting on my back porch one evening when I heard what sounded to me like a
puppy off in the woods. Here we go again, I thought to myself. Off in the direction of the noise I went, and
spent more than an hour looking around. On that occasion I didn't find anything so I returned to my house.
The next evening the same thing happened. I heard what sounded like a puppy somewhere off in the
woods. Once again I made a trek through the thick growth of gum and pine trees and even crossed into the
adjacent property directly behind Willow Oak. I spent considerable time looking for what I was sure was a
puppy but could find nothing.
Willow Oak had once been surrounded by a very dense forest of old pine trees, which had been harvested
some time prior to my acquisition. Hence there are huge piles of trees that have been pushed together to
form little mounds here and there. I was sitting on my back porch again a few days later when I heard the
noise again. This time I followed it until it sounded like it was coming from the direction of one of the old
tree mounds that are scattered about. The particular mound that I approached was so old and grown over
that it hardly appeared to be a tree mound, except for some large trunks that stuck out here and there. The
mound just looked like a big dirt hill. Nonetheless, the yelping of a puppy appeared to emanate from within
that mound of dirt.
As I surveyed the scene I could definitely here pups whining and crying from deep within. In the end I
would claw my way into the mound, which was covered with years of dirt and humus, hacking my way
through until I reached the pups. Part of the way down into the pile I had to retrieve my chain saw to cut
through some large tree trunks that were still relatively intact. I eventually retrieved two six-week old pups
from deep within the earth, and subsequently delivered them to the shelter. How they got down into the
mound of dirt and trees I could not tell, but they obviously were not dumped there by a human.
I continue to find puppies in those woods and on my property. Where do they come from, and how do they
end up in little piles just behind the fence and out in the woods? Are these puppies being deliberately
dumped there by someone who is trying to get rid of them and knows that I will take them in? Are the pups
somehow wandering there by themselves? Those two answers don't seem reasonable to me.
I've thought a lot about it, and I have a theory that somehow, someway the mother of these pups knows
there are humans nearby, and she has an instinct that tells her that if she will carry her pups, once weaned,
and place them near the house there is someone there who will take care of them. I can't prove the theory
-- I wouldn't even know where to begin to even test the theory, but it is the only reasonable explanation I
can come up with. I simply cannot come up with a better explanation.
It is an enigma.
| I found Oscar as a six-week-old baby wandering the woods around Willow Oak. How he got there is an enigma to me. |
| An Enigma Daniel Taylor |