SAINTS

lynn went to mission pound today and adopted “starbuck” an ancient, crippled dog who had been sitting in that pound waiting for someone to see him and care enough to take him home. he waited for 14 months. bless you lynn. and starbuck, i can’t wait to meet you, welcome home buddy, everything will be alright now, lynn will keep you safe. 

i went into maple ridge to find the biggest, hugest dog crate available so we could transport ellie to the vet for her surgery on friday and i found it.

the vet came out and finished vaccinating all the barn guys.

colleen, greg, and eva were here for all the various things that needed doing.

a really nice couple of ladies came out from vancouver in the driving snow to meet and possibly adopt one of our cats. so i said hello and invited them in to meet everyone..and then all hell broke loose.

lynn came to take copper to the park, but he was out in the field so lynn went to get him but copper was gone, he had dug his way under the reinforced fence. so all of us went looking for him and none of us found him til he slipped back thru the hole on his own. then he ran to the fence and screamed his head off because he saw lynn and wanted to go for his walk. excuse my language but that beagle is a fat little bastard.

then all of a sudden colleen noticed that ellie was pale and shivering. i went out there and she was sick. i thought it was a reaction to the vaccines so i phoned the vet right away. he said it might be or it might be malignant hypothermic stress reaction so to cover both i needed to get an anti inflamatory medication and some high sugar content into her because if she went hypoglycemic, she was going to die. well, she wouldn’t eat anything. we tried apples and bread and grahamn wafers, apple sauce and pig pellets too. but i did manage to syringe the medicine in her mouth, so at least one base was covered. she spiked a high fever and went to her bed and refused to open her eyes. we wrapped her in blankets and gave her a hot water bottle and i phoned back the vet cuz i was freaking, and i sat by her side and rubbed her and cried and then i thought to call janice. she gave me the number of the biggest pig rescuer guru known to man down in pennsylvania so i called him and he was really nice and helpful and told me some other things i could try but he also told me that pigs die really fast. and then the vet came out cuz they knew i was freaking and ellie was still laying covered in fleeces. he took her temperature which was still really high but the meds had started to work, cuz then she got up and had a drink and ate all the hot dog buns so i am pretty sure the crises was over. whew!

those poor nice ladies went home without a cat cuz i was just too distracted to concentrate, but they were so nice that they are coming back. thank god for understanding people. and thank god for colleen, greg, janice, eva, the vets and that really nice man in pennsylvania!

ok ellie, i just officially recognized that i love you so quit scaring me.

not funny ha ha, but wierd. oh…well it is funny ha ha too cuz living with animals can be hilarious at times. but this morning i am thinking about the weirdness. in business the bottom line is profit and power and meeting the needs of the consumer. donald trump doesn’t care if people like him, all he cares about is he successful and what was the profit margin and did he build a new building today.

 in rescue, which is supposed to be altruistic, it should be about meeting  the  needs of the ones that you rescue and doing it well. but it is not. everyone knows, it is not about money, (except you need it to do the work) but any money raised is to be directly spent back on the animals. and when you show a profit on your year end balance sheet it is because those profits were spent on improving lives ( like in building improvements in animal living areas) and while everyone says we all work so hard to help and this is for the animals, it is not really true.

 i know this because if it was true, people who come here and see with their own eyes that the animals here are loved and well cared for, their environments are clean and species appropriate, their medical needs are attended to, then saints is doing what it said it would do. if people come here and feel that the animals are loved and respected and even if they cause some issues or problems like rocky does with the cats, or trevor does with the sheep, or cole and copper do for me….we accept them and we still carry on and try to work it out better so everyone is happy here too.

but rescue is not about those things, cuz if it was, i wouldn’t sometimes feel so unsafe. i wouldn’t feel sometimes like i am walking a tight rope that with one false step would destroy the all work that i do. i wouldn’t feel that sometimes it is not about the animals at all, because they are happy and safe. but when i worry about what will cause harm to them and to saints where they happen to live, it will be myself or unhappy people outside because i am absolutely useless at figuring out the human species and including me.

and i realized this morning that i have been lying to myself. i can’t possibly see inside the animals as well as i think i do. because if i could, i could see into myself and the rest of my species too. and i can’t. and if can’t see into myself or my very own species, i know i can’t possibly see into another. so i sometimes feel unsafe in my home and this place that i love because i built it based on a lie. and that really scares me.

and i think that is why rescue is such a funny life because it is the one life that you can work hard, and live it really well, be successful in terms of what you get done and for whom, you can meet all of your goals and still fail. i think that is not funny ha ha, i think that is funny as in scarey wierd. and i think that is the downside of being human. animals don’t have these issues, they look at life as good or bad and they just keep living it the best that they can. but in rescue, you can live a really good life and it can still be a bad one too. it gives me a headache.

 

 

he just woke up, and i was on the phone and watched him slide off his bed to the floor. he has been sleeping since his last run. he can’t weight bear on that bad back leg. ohhhh dex, too much of a good thing can hurt…i gave him some extra pain meds and i made him a softer bed on the floor cuz he can’t get back up on his raised one. i hope it is just sore muscles and nothing to do with that tumour and i really hope he feels better by morning.

 

i had a power nap before putting the barn guys to bed. the dogs had one while i was out there so we skipped the evening run. i think the three runs they already had today satisfied them.

carl was in a nasty mood, he was spitting at jenny and not letting her in the barn. he decided that was a bad idea when i came flying out of the barn on my crutches.

 ellie’s schooling really helped tonight. she came up from the bottom field when i called, went into the back yard when asked so i could get the big guys in first. and then came into her stall like a good girl when i finally set up and ready for that. she is a very smart pig.

tunie-fish also was a very good girl, she moved into her stall the first time i asked. cathie had cut up some extra carrots and apples for her dinner so she was pretty pleased.

carl settled down and came in politely without me asking, but gosh that barn is too full, they are packed, stacked and racked in there. the sooner we get ellie’s new home built and the donkeys go to their real home, the better. i think they will all feel much better with a little more space.

ok, i am tired, i crutched all over god’s green acre several times today. corey came out from shaw cable and that should be airing next tuesday on channel 4 at 6 and 1030 pm. i hoped he liked the place and he got some pretty interesting shots, like carl laying on and hugging kissy and purring while he was there. carl is neutered, so i am pretty sure it was llama affection but gosh, i am not actually sure. dexter was a riot, he carried his 5 pound log everywhere that he went, and ellie just thought she was part of the dog family and hung out with everyone else.

ellie had her first day of school and leila taught her “here” so she has learned to follow people around when we call her until we run out of apples. once the boring carrots came out she went off to find something more interesting to do. tunie got mad at her and chased her out of the barn and i think tunie felt pretty good about that. i told her that tunie will always be our bestest piggy princess, but ellie can be our best piggy playmate.

there was lot’s of help here today, lynne, nicole, colleen, greg, john and cathie, and it’s a good thing because geez i am tired and i really could use a nap.

the best thing of all was nicole brought out some phony soybean bacon. it was good! so now i can make my fake bacon mcmuffins and i am a pretty happy camper cuz i was wondering how long i could live without them and now i don’t have to live without them at all..

we have been discussing the best way to house ellie. what is cost effective, prudent and safe. and of course i have my own issues with how i want a pig here to be housed. i want her living in a warm, dry house that is large enough for her comfort. i want her yard to big enough for her to feel ok in if she has to be confined. i want a covered area for shade and protection from wet weather and i want it to open up by gate into a soon to be safely pig escape proof riding ring, and from there with supervision to freedom to roam on the rest of the propety for specific periods of time. i want her not to be able to root under the fences and set the animals free, and i really i want the siding on the buildings non accessible so she doesn’t start ripping it off, and i don’t want her to have complete freedom to excavate the entire fields and lawns at will either. and to give her all this will be expensive, especially if at some point we find her a home. so do we build it as both she and the rest of us need it, because she may well not find the kind of home that i want for her and if she doesn’t, we better have the kind of home i do want for her, right here. sigh…i think we better build it the way both she and saints need it, if she finds herself a home, i am sure someone else will come along who can use it here later too. i have always said the care we provide is not based on dollars, it is based on what they actually need. cuz that is what we commit to when we say we will care for them here.

ok…i figured it out.

i think the very best gift given to all of us is the ability to navigate thru life mostly blind. when i think about the myraid of things that i just don’t want to know about , the sheer enormanity of it is astounding. the sexually exploited children on our streets,  the homeless, the hungry, the tortured drug addicted that live in our neighborhoods, the ones assualted by violence, or exist only in helplessness. the bludgeoning of baby seals. sometimes i wonder if we don’t close our eyes because if we don’t how could we possibly go on? global warming, air pollution. suicide bombers, the cruelty of factory farming, the genocide of some countries, the horrors of war, omg, the utter horror of the pickton farm…how many more things are there?… just watching a half hour of the news is terrifying.

i keep my eyes closed all of the time, just like i do during a really scarey movie, or one that is so brutal and raw with violence that leaps from the screen right into my chest. i don’t think i could live in this world if i didn’t keep my eyes closed most of the time. but i think if we pick a horror to peek at, we learn to open them up once in awhile. and the more that we look at the thing that hurts us so bad, we start to try to make it better. and maybe like me it is just one tiny thing like a really old, and abandoned or neglected animal, or for someone else,  a child starving for lack of a chance in south africa. i believe that if everyone opens their eyes to just one of the things that scare us, well, then we have a billion eyes looking at something, somewhere. and isn’t that what will finally make a difference?  just a few wide open eyes, each looking at something together to bring some light to the dark places? i don’t know what else will help, but someday it would be nice to live in a world with our eyes wide open without fear.

firstly, there is a very sweet and very, very sad senior rotti at Chilliwack Animal Control that is quickly losing hope. once again they are beyond full and unhappy senior dogs cannot be made to silently suffer in sadness forever. she needs to be rescued and given back her hope and faith and her belief that she is loved. her name is nelly and she needs help.

and i just spoke with janice at heartsonnoses at length and she is desperate from some real concerted committed help. she needs her barn roof fixed and the mud dealt with because it has reached the point when she is struggling not just to care for the animals she rescues but she is struggling against things that could easily be fixed. she can’t store her hay in a leaking barn and she can’t keep killing herself trying to wheel barrow it bale by bale thru the mud. her work load is crushing as it is, she doesn’t need to waste what strength she has because of a leaky roof and a bunch of mud, both of those things are fixable with some help.

janice works from dawn to dusk to give sanctuary to a species that humans have once again, coveted, aquired, exploited and then discarded. janice stands at the line to right that wrong and minimize their pain. no one without pigs will ever understand that these creatures are as thinking and feeling as we are. it is not just dogs and cats and horses that suffer from the selfish thoughtlessness of mankind. it is other species too, especially pigs because we are far to self absorbed to even recognise their wonder.

there are alot of really good people who have given up their lives to make the world a bit better and safer for someone else. janice is one of those people, and the animals in her care need someone to lend her a hand. it takes an army to make this world a better place.

and wouldn’t even come out with us when we went for our walk tonight. she has that “someone is mad at me” look, but no one is mad at her, tyra is a great and lovely dog. i am pulling her out of the dog room tonight and putting her back with me where she belongs. i don’t ever want to see her unhappy especially when i don’t know why. maybe rocky is stressing the dog room too much. i will hang out in there more and see.

but, it was a nice run in the upper field tonight. trev and maudie really had some fun. maudie rolled in more poop than cole and bill ate more than even that. i think that is why bill just lives forever, it has to be the high vegetarian content of his snacks. he is such a great, great dog. i hope he lives happy til he’s 20!

 low and behold, even andy joined us and he stayed brave til the very end til cole decided he’d had enough fun and chased andy back up to the house. come on cole, it takes him weeks to screw up his courage, ease up on the poor little guy. rocky is stone deaf still but it has to do with not listening and julie had to go and fetch him back. i won’t be able to take him out on my own, but at least i can get him out a couple of evenings a week when someone is here. dexter got stuck on the pond side of the fence, he could not believe i wasn’t going down there. but i was alone with all of the dogs so the upper field is safer. when julie came down she helped him back to the side the rest of us were on. the fencing is done and cole scouted the perimeter and i think he was ticked that we wrecked his fun. lexie as always was my very best shadow, but maude checked on me frequently too. the sooner we get back to normal again the better because we just have no schedule anymore and it sucks.

some days it is too snowy or wet or slippery for crutching, some days i am too tired or it has gotten too dark too fast. but tonight it was perfect except it was without tyra and that just didn’t feel right at all.

anyway she is currently de-stuffing a ton of stuffies in the kitchen so i think she is over whatever upset her now.