Never Leave the Dogs Behind, A Memoir by Brianna Madia
I chose this book while browsing the new books section of the library. Four dogs, one woman, the desert. It’s a fairly arresting photo. Brianna Madia’s Instagram shows the alternate cover photo. Glad she chose this one.
Iwant to think I’m not influenced by influencers. Obviously not, since I had no idea of Madia’s well-documented journey over the last ten or so years. The author’s note following the dedication notes, “This story contains mentions of depression and suicide. While I have done my best with the accuracy of details and timelines, please know that memories can often form imperfectly when we are trying to survive.”
As I delved into the first few emotional chapters describing the dogs, the desert, the journey that led to Moab, Utah, for Madia and her soon-to-be ex-husband, and the reasons she had landed on the Mars-scape of nine acres on a mesa outside Moab, the thought kept recurring. Wait! She says she bought the land with the advance on her second book. Wait! What’s this about Dagwood’s accident? That led to Nowhere for Very Long, Madia’s first memoir that chronicles the early years of her life, relationships with family and husband, friends, time during college when she was committed to a state-run inpatient psychiatric unit following a breakdown, dogs and the desert. It’s definitely worth recommending also. Reserve judgment until you’ve finished both memoirs. Be gracious and kind. We all deserve empathy. As Madia asserts constantly, “The only way out is through.”
But we’re looking at Never Leave the Dogs Behind, A Memoir, an account of her decision to live alone in the desert, except, of course, for Bucket, Dagwood, Birdie and Banjo, rebuilding her life. And since October is Depression Awareness Month, it’s a good opportunity to share Madia’s poignant journey with despair, depression, overuse of alcohol, mania, being trashed on Instagram and the unwavering support of friends as she reckons with her freedom.
Brianna and her husband left behind a traditional life for an intentional life of less. “We had spent just seven months of our lives [on a dilapidated sailboat] existing in the way millions of people do for the entirety of theirs. No excess. No convenience. No luxury. And yet, alongside this invigorating new desire for a life of less, I also became acutely aware of the inherent privilege in choosing to struggle, in choosing to move backward in a world full of forward,” she says in Nowhere. The awareness of this contradiction travels through Never Leave the Dogs Behind as a subliminal theme; she continues to choose to demonstrate that she can do it all on her own.
Bertha, the van that was as old as Brianna and served as both living quarters and transportation, was giving out, so she was parked on the mesa and replaced by a used Jeep Wrangler. Brianna began to entertain the idea of building a house she couldn’t afford to build, and she settled on a retrofitted 1986 travel trailer found on Facebook Marketplace. Still without heat, reliable cell service, minimal electricity provided by a solar panel on top of Bertha or running water (the story of how water was obtained is a real part of the struggle), Brianna and the dogs slept for the first time in a nest of blankets in the “bedroom,” a space in the back of the trailer surrounded by windows, watching the stars.
Brianna understood the risks of a life lived in the desert. “Bad things could happen out there!” “What if a pack of coyotes eats your dogs?” “What if the dogs come across a snake?” people would comment. The coyotes are surrounded by hundreds of square miles of natural food sources, she asserts. Dogs have instinctual DNA that tells them to avoid snakes. Her life revolved around the dogs. “We were feral and unrefined and all the other things the world had told us not to be. I slept when they slept, ate when they ate, even went outside to go to the bathroom when they did…We were a pack.”
One particular online comment stung. “She’s in over her head!” Her comment to the dogs was, “But at least we’re in.” The strength and resilience Brianna developed included the instinct for self-protection, self-preservation and trusting her gut to signs of potential danger. She describes a spontaneous trip to Mexico with her paddleboard and the dogs. A beach encounter with a man pretending to fish raised the hackles on both her and all four dogs. “Being a woman on your own is a fine line to walk…a juggling act of how to use the things that can be both helpful and dangerous.” You’ll have to read the book to learn the result of that story, as well as the choice of title. Never leave the dogs behind.
