Dear Dixie

Dixie sometimes surprises me. Let me rephrase that: Dixie always surprises me. The first thing I figured out about her is that she is afraid of a LOT of things. Peacocks, most people, blankets, flashlights, goats, raccoons, me. When she first came here she was even afraid of treats. You know, like apples, carrots, and those little sweet crunchy things Gary keeps in a jar on his golf cart? I can't imagine being afraid of food! She said it wasn't so much that she was afraid of the treat itself, just the idea of eating from someones hand. She had never done that. Twelve years old and no one had ever given her a treat! I guess that's the first thing about her that touched me.

I'm not afraid of very many things, but I have decided over the years that when something makes my heart race a little faster there are two things that I can do: run away or show my teeth and run right at the thing scaring me. When you are less than three feet tall, running away is usually the best option. Option two works well on Miss Kitty, small dogs, and peacocks, but not much else. I guess I forgot to explain that part to Dixie.

I have been encouraging her to face her fears. Sometimes just looking at something in a more direct way makes it less scary. One day I got her to walk right up to Miss Kitty and stare. This worked quite well as an opening lesson on facing your fears, since Kitty is afraid of everything bigger than a squirrel. Kitty turned and ran, leaving Dixie feeling triumphant and empowered. She has since made quite a bit of progress, but nothing prepared me for this morning's display of fearlessness.

Today it was raining and cold. Really cold. Mel put our blankets on the night before. I never know how she knows in advance that it's going to be cold enough for blankets, but she does. Mine is purple; Dixie's is pink. Neon pink. Makes it easy to keep track of her if she wanders away. But today she didn't walk away. After Mel turned us out into the pastures Dixie just pranced around. I assumed the blanket was itching her; she had complained about it all night. With me, eating trumps discomfort every time. I had just settled into a nice patch of greens when she finally blurted out the reason for her fidgeting.

"It's looking at us!"

"What is?" I ask between mouthfuls.

"That deer over there," she squeaked with fear.

"Dixie, we see deer everyday."

"This one's different. It's big and has a tree on its head."

I have got to admit that I looked up from my eating at that point. It was just too funny an image. I followed her gaze to the trees lining the far side of the big pasture. Sure enough, there stood a big buck staring at us.

"Dixie," I reassured her, "It's not a tree, it horns. You know like the goats have?"

"Like the goats?!"

Oops, I forgot that was a fear we haven't worked on yet. "Horns like goats, but we know that deer are friendlier than goats, right?"

"But it doesn't look friendly. What if it hurts us with those horns? What if it hurts Joey?"

"Um, Dixie, remember honey? Joey and Rose aren't here. "

She was practically running circles around me now. "I know they aren't here now, but they could come back anytime. That deer shouldn't be here if they do. Look, it's eating now. What if it eats all of our food?"

That got my attention, but I decided to focus on the root of her fear, not mine. "Two things... First, at the rate Joey is growing, I'll bet he's way bigger than that deer. You seem to forget that he's not that tiny little thing that needs protecting any more. Second, Joey has his mother to protect him and she's big enough to kick serious deer booty, horns or no horns."

"Okay I get that. But what should we do?"

I confess, sometimes I allow eating to cause me to lose focus of the situation at hand. I calmly returned to my grazing as I said these fateful words, "This is just one of those face-your-fears moments, Dixie. It's a deer, not something to be afraid of."

The next thing I know, a flash of neon pink sailed past me. I looked up. The deer looked up. I don't think either of us believed what we saw. Dixie was charging across the pasture, teeth bared, right at a creature that was three times her size... with horns! I took off running behind her. I don't know what went on in that buck's mind. He wasn't around long enough to ask. Maybe it was that we had him outnumbered; maybe it was the bizarre site of pink and purple blankets flapping across the pasture towards him. Either way, he turned tail, jumped the nearest fence and disappeared into the woods with barely a backwards glance.

"We did it. Did you see him run?" Dixie strutted.

I shuddered at what might have happened. My heart has pounding. "Oh! My! Gosh! Dixie! That was..." I was about to tell her she shouldn't have done it when I saw the sparkle in her eyes. She wasn't afraid. "...that was brave of you. Now Joey will be safe if he comes back today. And we'll have plenty of food. Thank you."

I'll tell her the benefits of running the other way some other day.