Today was a dog refuge day. As I packed frozen meat scraps and a HUGE cooler full of meat scraps into the car on top of the three 25 kilo bags I picked up last evening, my "dog refuge bag" which has a variety of medicines, dog collars, syringes, can openers and spoons, my hat and ziplock bags, stopped off at the cheapest grocery store to buy bags of rice and the basic groceries for Tia Migue, popped in to the animal supply store to get 6 more bags of food, a bag of puppy kibble and 3 cans of soft food, I was thinking I needed to blog about my foster dogs, The Cocos.
After unloading all of the stuff from the car, securing the frozen meat to be cooked tomorrow and looking in dismay at the adorable new all female black puppies, we were headed back to feed the puppies and Carlos took this picture.
Then he said, "Maybe you could smile?"
The reason I was not smiling is that I was feeling a little overwhelmed, a little depressed, a little useless.
I have been working at the dog refuge for likely two years now on a more consistent basis, and although most days when I come home, I feel like in spite of all the tough stuff, that I do good work, in general. But the work is hard, and today I felt that hardness just a little more keenly than other days.
The rainy season has begun. Notice how dirty I am in the picture? Rainy season. Yeah! Tia Migue, whose is responsible for the refuge, won't put the dogs towards the back of the property and insists on keeping about 30 dogs in front with her, which means that when we arrive, hauling 25 kilo bags of food, trying not to slip on the mud, we have 30 dogs trying to jump high enough to lick our faces. They jump, and their muddy paws fling dog-poop-mud into the air, onto our clothes, and most likely at least a spec gets in your mouth.
Let me be very, very clear. I don't want COVID-19. But I want dog-poop-mud in my mouth actually LESS than I want COVID-19. I did not think there was really anything I wanted less than COVID-19. Today, standing amidst my gaggle of fur friends, I realized a really bad case of flu (and potential death) might be OK if it meant I never ever got dog-poop-mud in my mouth.
After unloading all of the stuff from the car, securing the frozen meat to be cooked tomorrow and looking in dismay at the adorable new all female black puppies, we were headed back to feed the puppies and Carlos took this picture.
Then he said, "Maybe you could smile?"
The reason I was not smiling is that I was feeling a little overwhelmed, a little depressed, a little useless.
I have been working at the dog refuge for likely two years now on a more consistent basis, and although most days when I come home, I feel like in spite of all the tough stuff, that I do good work, in general. But the work is hard, and today I felt that hardness just a little more keenly than other days.
The rainy season has begun. Notice how dirty I am in the picture? Rainy season. Yeah! Tia Migue, whose is responsible for the refuge, won't put the dogs towards the back of the property and insists on keeping about 30 dogs in front with her, which means that when we arrive, hauling 25 kilo bags of food, trying not to slip on the mud, we have 30 dogs trying to jump high enough to lick our faces. They jump, and their muddy paws fling dog-poop-mud into the air, onto our clothes, and most likely at least a spec gets in your mouth.
Let me be very, very clear. I don't want COVID-19. But I want dog-poop-mud in my mouth actually LESS than I want COVID-19. I did not think there was really anything I wanted less than COVID-19. Today, standing amidst my gaggle of fur friends, I realized a really bad case of flu (and potential death) might be OK if it meant I never ever got dog-poop-mud in my mouth.
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