I was procrastinating a little about writing about my day yesterday at the dog refuge. I was pondering my blog all day. I know I want to share some recipes. I want to write about The Cocos and their story. I want to ponder my idea for a new vegan restaurant here in Oaxaca. But in spite of all that great material and fun ideas, my mind kept coming back to my day yesterday.
We started out at 8:30 hauling more than 60 kilos of meat into the van. We have two butchers who donate meat scraps and bones to the refuge each week. We use these with bags of rice and a 25 kilo bag of kibble and make the dogs a soup. The meat adds protein content and in theory lets us use less kibble. I'll be doing a fundraiser for a freezer in June, after we get through the next adoption event and the sterilization clinic and vaccinations done in the next two weeks.
On the way we stopped for Allison, she is the VP of Puppies. She had stacks of cardboard for the puppies to chew on and lie on and pee on, and they did not disappoint her. She has been working with us for a few months and is getting used to the rhythm of the Refuge. She is learning that we can love the puppies, but not too strong because they are fragile little things in a tough environment and often die. We had one little one this week that was not well and will likely pass over the bridge before we go back in a few days. I make soup for the puppies the night before, boiling big beef bones and soaking kibble in it overnight. Puppy mush.
We also stopped to buy ice to keep the meat for an extra day, some bleach, a rake, and up to the wood yard for some wood to continue to reinforce the fences.
Arriving at the refuge around 9:40, we haul in meat, puppy soup, bags of kibble, the rake, the bleach, and my "dog refuge bag", which holds an assortment of medications, leashes, collars, muzzles, syringes, wet wipes, gloves. I suppose what one might expect to be in a bag for a dog refuge.
We go to help Allison to get organized with the puppies. In spite of us telling Tia Migue that the puppies should not be in her rooms, they are. I find this frustrating because the floor is dirt and not clean, which just means the puppies get sick and die. In spite of my saying this about 20 times, there is no change, so I don't waste my breath any longer. I observe which little ones were in there, and I send up a little prayer and then I expect the worst.
In going to the back where the puppies are, we find a new arrival. Luna. She is terrified. She has three puppies with her. I am never sure really how they arrive. I suspect Tia Migue goes to get them. In God's honest truth, I would have rescued Luna. I have been doing this type of work, fostering and now in Oaxaca working at the refuge, for years now, and every now and again, there is a case that is more than I can harden my heart against. So Luna and I had a talk. As I washed her wounds from her neck where someone had tied her up with some sort of wire that cut into her skin, I told her she would be OK. As I washed the open wounds on her little head and wondered if the scarring and lack of fur was a burn or if it was mange, I said a little prayer. As I gave Allison parasite medication and antibiotics to mix into a big bowl of food for Luna, I asked for forgiveness for hating in my heart the person who did this to this poor girl. Her puppies will likely die, but I gave them parasite medication and we fed them puppy soup and cuddled them and played with them.
We also gave a name to a puppy that Tia MIgue had brought in last week on Tuesday, Penelope. She has a bad back injury which I was not sure she could recover from. She is very lovely, so we had a talk on Tuesday. I offered to put her down, but if she wanted to give life a try, she needed to be walking by Saturday. So, I went over and picked her up on Saturday, this little Penelope, and stood her up and whispered to her, "Like this, little one." She is so skinny my small hands cradled her ribs, but she had a good appetite and one of Luna's puppies was snuggling with her.She can make it if she wants, little Penelope. She walked around the pen when Allison was in with her, and I smiled. She is a good dog, that little one.
I could hear Carlos working and so left Allison to move on to heavy work. We have found that the safety doors we put in have swelled with the rain and are now not closing well, and what are supposed to be "heavy duty hinges" are shit, and we'll need to investigate a different hinge. So maddening. We put hours of work into hanging doors (my most hated renovation work) and to see these "heavy duty hinges" broken makes me want to write a strongly worded letter to the manufacturer. Just say on the packaging "not for ongoing use of any kind. Good for doors you will open once or twice a year".
While we were working I could hear this mewing. So I walked over to the corner of the refuge by the door and sure enough, mewing. I was TERRIFIED that there were kittens that someone had dumped, but no, after moving two dog houses, we discovered two premature puppies. How was this possible?? Only the new dogs that had come in recently were not fixed and they had not had time to go into heat. Not only do these two premature puppies mean I have a bitch that is not sterilized, it means I also have an unsterilized male waltzing about. Tia Migue did not help or care, other than to say that it was the female that I had worked with that had mange for a year. She is terrified of me, but I managed to lure her in with food to give her medication for the mange. About 2 years ago, an entire team of us went out and worked to try to sterilize every single dog that was there at the refuge. She was missed. I was upset. We cornered the female and in spite of trying to put her in a kennel, she was having none of it and at best we cornered her and put the two babies in with her in a dog house. She killed the two little ones, and escaped again. It is normal for the mother dog to kill the babies if they are not healthy, but it doesn't make it any easier to bear witness to.
We went back to work, moving the dog houses back and wrapping the fencing to the wood framing we had installed. As we were inspecting one of the shitty hinges, we watched a dog scale the fence. I will try to get this event on video, because it is truly frustrating. But there she was, this little fluffy cute girl, up and over. Just in case the 5 dogs in the area on the other side of the fence had better snacks.
We decided to leave the next part of the fence for our next visit, and took some time to talk about what we were going to do with one of the doors that a dog had gotten their head stuck in and Don Felix (Tia Migue's partner) had cut the fencing to get him out. Now another repair.
We packed up the van, tidied the wood for next visit and I went back to tell Allison we were getting ready to go and decided to sit a little with Marveila, she was abandoned to the refuge about three weeks ago. She is beautiful and once fixed I will try to find her a home. She is the future of the Refuge. She is a breed of some sort, and I am sure she was a cute adorable puppy that someone decided now that she was 70 pounds they "didn't have the space for her". She sat beside me and I scratched behind her ears and showed her a little love.
As I was headed out, I heard Tia call me. A man had showed up on a motorcycle with two dogs in a large sugar sack. He had taken/adopted them from the refuge, but the dogs had eaten a neighbour's chicken and the neighbour had threatened to poison the dogs. Could we take them back? I looked at the squirming bag. Saying "No" meant I was condemning them to either being dumped in a ditch tied in that bag, or if the man was soft enough to take them back home, the chicken lady would poison them. I took them bag. I carried these two dogs back to where we could isolate them and we took them out of the bag and cut off the rope that the man had tied around their necks and we all stood there looking at each other. They were two little unsocialized dogs and they are now here. Two more to fix, to chase, to maybe be adoptable but after how much work?
Getting organized again to go, a "vet" arrives with maybe his grandson. He is an older man that I guess Tia Migue asked to look at Panda's eye. Panda had a tumor in his eye, and I was going to ask Dra Sonia to remove it on Saturday, but I guess Tia wanted it done sooner. He had come to give Panda a shot of antibiotics. Panda is not only the largest male dog at the refuge, he is also a biter. He bit Carlos. Only time either of us has gotten bit. This "vet" arrives with nothing other than his syringe. No muzzle, no collar, no leash. And fear. Panda is a good dog, he just has boundary issues. Carlos goes to the van and gets a choke chain, a leash and then. after I see how afraid the "vet" is, the muzzle. I put the choke chain on Panda, then the muzzle, Carlos holds the leash from the other side of the door, and the vet manages the injection as I hold Panda's head. I left my equipment there, as this guy was supposed to come back every three days. I expect it will be gone when I go back.
It's now 2:20. We head back to the city. When I arrive home, Ralph says, "How was your day?".
"It was varied.", I say. How else to describe 4 and a half hours?
We started out at 8:30 hauling more than 60 kilos of meat into the van. We have two butchers who donate meat scraps and bones to the refuge each week. We use these with bags of rice and a 25 kilo bag of kibble and make the dogs a soup. The meat adds protein content and in theory lets us use less kibble. I'll be doing a fundraiser for a freezer in June, after we get through the next adoption event and the sterilization clinic and vaccinations done in the next two weeks.
On the way we stopped for Allison, she is the VP of Puppies. She had stacks of cardboard for the puppies to chew on and lie on and pee on, and they did not disappoint her. She has been working with us for a few months and is getting used to the rhythm of the Refuge. She is learning that we can love the puppies, but not too strong because they are fragile little things in a tough environment and often die. We had one little one this week that was not well and will likely pass over the bridge before we go back in a few days. I make soup for the puppies the night before, boiling big beef bones and soaking kibble in it overnight. Puppy mush.
We also stopped to buy ice to keep the meat for an extra day, some bleach, a rake, and up to the wood yard for some wood to continue to reinforce the fences.
Arriving at the refuge around 9:40, we haul in meat, puppy soup, bags of kibble, the rake, the bleach, and my "dog refuge bag", which holds an assortment of medications, leashes, collars, muzzles, syringes, wet wipes, gloves. I suppose what one might expect to be in a bag for a dog refuge.
We go to help Allison to get organized with the puppies. In spite of us telling Tia Migue that the puppies should not be in her rooms, they are. I find this frustrating because the floor is dirt and not clean, which just means the puppies get sick and die. In spite of my saying this about 20 times, there is no change, so I don't waste my breath any longer. I observe which little ones were in there, and I send up a little prayer and then I expect the worst.
In going to the back where the puppies are, we find a new arrival. Luna. She is terrified. She has three puppies with her. I am never sure really how they arrive. I suspect Tia Migue goes to get them. In God's honest truth, I would have rescued Luna. I have been doing this type of work, fostering and now in Oaxaca working at the refuge, for years now, and every now and again, there is a case that is more than I can harden my heart against. So Luna and I had a talk. As I washed her wounds from her neck where someone had tied her up with some sort of wire that cut into her skin, I told her she would be OK. As I washed the open wounds on her little head and wondered if the scarring and lack of fur was a burn or if it was mange, I said a little prayer. As I gave Allison parasite medication and antibiotics to mix into a big bowl of food for Luna, I asked for forgiveness for hating in my heart the person who did this to this poor girl. Her puppies will likely die, but I gave them parasite medication and we fed them puppy soup and cuddled them and played with them.
We also gave a name to a puppy that Tia MIgue had brought in last week on Tuesday, Penelope. She has a bad back injury which I was not sure she could recover from. She is very lovely, so we had a talk on Tuesday. I offered to put her down, but if she wanted to give life a try, she needed to be walking by Saturday. So, I went over and picked her up on Saturday, this little Penelope, and stood her up and whispered to her, "Like this, little one." She is so skinny my small hands cradled her ribs, but she had a good appetite and one of Luna's puppies was snuggling with her.She can make it if she wants, little Penelope. She walked around the pen when Allison was in with her, and I smiled. She is a good dog, that little one.
I could hear Carlos working and so left Allison to move on to heavy work. We have found that the safety doors we put in have swelled with the rain and are now not closing well, and what are supposed to be "heavy duty hinges" are shit, and we'll need to investigate a different hinge. So maddening. We put hours of work into hanging doors (my most hated renovation work) and to see these "heavy duty hinges" broken makes me want to write a strongly worded letter to the manufacturer. Just say on the packaging "not for ongoing use of any kind. Good for doors you will open once or twice a year".
While we were working I could hear this mewing. So I walked over to the corner of the refuge by the door and sure enough, mewing. I was TERRIFIED that there were kittens that someone had dumped, but no, after moving two dog houses, we discovered two premature puppies. How was this possible?? Only the new dogs that had come in recently were not fixed and they had not had time to go into heat. Not only do these two premature puppies mean I have a bitch that is not sterilized, it means I also have an unsterilized male waltzing about. Tia Migue did not help or care, other than to say that it was the female that I had worked with that had mange for a year. She is terrified of me, but I managed to lure her in with food to give her medication for the mange. About 2 years ago, an entire team of us went out and worked to try to sterilize every single dog that was there at the refuge. She was missed. I was upset. We cornered the female and in spite of trying to put her in a kennel, she was having none of it and at best we cornered her and put the two babies in with her in a dog house. She killed the two little ones, and escaped again. It is normal for the mother dog to kill the babies if they are not healthy, but it doesn't make it any easier to bear witness to.
We went back to work, moving the dog houses back and wrapping the fencing to the wood framing we had installed. As we were inspecting one of the shitty hinges, we watched a dog scale the fence. I will try to get this event on video, because it is truly frustrating. But there she was, this little fluffy cute girl, up and over. Just in case the 5 dogs in the area on the other side of the fence had better snacks.
We decided to leave the next part of the fence for our next visit, and took some time to talk about what we were going to do with one of the doors that a dog had gotten their head stuck in and Don Felix (Tia Migue's partner) had cut the fencing to get him out. Now another repair.
We packed up the van, tidied the wood for next visit and I went back to tell Allison we were getting ready to go and decided to sit a little with Marveila, she was abandoned to the refuge about three weeks ago. She is beautiful and once fixed I will try to find her a home. She is the future of the Refuge. She is a breed of some sort, and I am sure she was a cute adorable puppy that someone decided now that she was 70 pounds they "didn't have the space for her". She sat beside me and I scratched behind her ears and showed her a little love.
As I was headed out, I heard Tia call me. A man had showed up on a motorcycle with two dogs in a large sugar sack. He had taken/adopted them from the refuge, but the dogs had eaten a neighbour's chicken and the neighbour had threatened to poison the dogs. Could we take them back? I looked at the squirming bag. Saying "No" meant I was condemning them to either being dumped in a ditch tied in that bag, or if the man was soft enough to take them back home, the chicken lady would poison them. I took them bag. I carried these two dogs back to where we could isolate them and we took them out of the bag and cut off the rope that the man had tied around their necks and we all stood there looking at each other. They were two little unsocialized dogs and they are now here. Two more to fix, to chase, to maybe be adoptable but after how much work?
Getting organized again to go, a "vet" arrives with maybe his grandson. He is an older man that I guess Tia Migue asked to look at Panda's eye. Panda had a tumor in his eye, and I was going to ask Dra Sonia to remove it on Saturday, but I guess Tia wanted it done sooner. He had come to give Panda a shot of antibiotics. Panda is not only the largest male dog at the refuge, he is also a biter. He bit Carlos. Only time either of us has gotten bit. This "vet" arrives with nothing other than his syringe. No muzzle, no collar, no leash. And fear. Panda is a good dog, he just has boundary issues. Carlos goes to the van and gets a choke chain, a leash and then. after I see how afraid the "vet" is, the muzzle. I put the choke chain on Panda, then the muzzle, Carlos holds the leash from the other side of the door, and the vet manages the injection as I hold Panda's head. I left my equipment there, as this guy was supposed to come back every three days. I expect it will be gone when I go back.
It's now 2:20. We head back to the city. When I arrive home, Ralph says, "How was your day?".
"It was varied.", I say. How else to describe 4 and a half hours?
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