Hecabe was in the most horrible cage of all in the public pound of Sparta . All we first saw was a black, feral dog with mange. That's what we knew about her, until we found out she's ten years old.
Ten years old means that a dog is elderly, that it does not have the same endurance, that it has more needs, that it needs more care and that it deserves more respect. Who knows her past, where she came from, how she ended up there, what she remembers and what she doesn't. For a ten-year-old dog, living in this way acquires an even more tragic dimension.
This dog looks like a heroine of an ancient Greek tragedy. At first she didn't approach us at all and as we looked at her from a distance, her tragedy seemed in all its glory, without anything being able to hide her.
She has now begun to open up, to approach, to take treats from our hand, and she also enjoys the caresses of people she knows well. She has a sweetness in her gaze and a gentleness in her ways, which makes you want to spend time with her, makes you want to help her understand what she has already begun to suspect. That people are good, that life is beautiful, and that love deserves her trust.
