SAINTS

so he is freaking over the fireworks and hiding behind the open book shelf that holds the tv…when all of a sudden the cable goes out…along with the very loud volume which is somewhat disguising the booming outside.

and why is the cable out? because cole has chewed thru the cable line…gee cole, i never thought of turning off fireworks that way…hate to tell you tho…it didn’t work.

everyone is going to love raymond!

raymond is from CAC…too old, too wrecked, too sick for adoption in a very busy shelter that is once again too full. ray may very well have been on the bad end of a very hard choice today. he is suffering from renal insufficiency, eye and skin infections, starvation, anemia, and massively infected prostate glands. his teeth are all broken and worn from a life time of probably gnawing away on a chain.

anyway, once again, thx to trina who does not allow the CAC dogs to die without a fight for a second chance…he is here….he is absolutely lovely and despite my fears of another incoming unneutered and unknown dog who is much too sick and thin to even consider doing surgery on yet…he is very contentedly laying on a bed next to the crate i expected to have to confine him in…. with all of the cats and the smallest, frailest dogs.

he looks to be a chow and either a basenji or maybe collie cross…he looks alot like a softer francis but is even more skeletal.

he is an absolute doll. welcome raymond, we will all love you, how could we possibly not?

ah…. the circle of life…luke passes from a very good life that had it’s start in rescue and raymond has just begun that wonderful journey, let’s hope his journey is as blessed.

cody moved into her very own home and i wish you guys could have been there. she leaped out of the car and went happily waddling right into the back yard and said “i am home” then she beetled her butt straight into the house and quickly checked out her new abode before grabbing her new little brothers bone and laying down for a good chew.

there were no moments of worry, no moments of don’t leave me…just simply, “oh thanks, this is just what i need.”

thx to our trina and her family for giving cody her chance for a life that just got blessed  too.

i suffered from those freaking hot flashes all night and my foot was throbbing cuz i dropped a chair on it while i was rearranging the big dog room (i am not happy with it yet so i have to re-do it tonight!)

but i had a good evening…i saw sheila and leila’s new foster dog and she is lovely and i fed patrick enough cookies to make him puke (i hope he didn’t!)

clyde was a hoot, his new toy is one of the raised dog beds which he flipped and murdered most of the night. cleo and copper are taking turns enjoying my brand-new old chair which even i haven’t gotten to sit it yet. both of them say it is wonderful (i got it for less then 20 bucks at the second hand store and i swear to god you guys, THAT IS MY FREAKING CHAIR!)

all of them enjoyed my banging around in there with them altho tally hates it when i start moving furniture around. still he was happy that i was in there with them so he forgave me for turning his world upside down.

i told copper if he pisses on that chair, i will kill him…(it is cloth, not vinyl or leather,,,sigh, i must have been insane when i bought it)…BUT it is red and it is soft and huge with a giant matching footstool and it has cow skulls on it so i like it alot….i guess, maybe it sounds a horror?

oh well, it probably won’t last here very long anyway but i did want one soft comfy chair and for 20 bucks, it was well worth the risk. i am going to sit in that sucker and put my feet up tonight!

who arrive on friday….saints welcomes sanjaya, charlie, tiki, the rock, albus,mosley,misfit, alladin, red, ronnie, sunrise and merlin…all boys except misfit..she will be the queen and she is lovely….if anyone wants to see them, they are listed on the best friends petfinder site….all the pahrump cats are listed with NYC’s and our guys have little green hearts too.

most of them look quite sad in their photo’s (except misfit and charlie)…and i hope to change that sadness for the others really quick.

i cannot even image the hardship endured by 650 uncared for cats.

i can’t wait to meet them, i hope they really like their new room! i am a bit disappointed that scorpion was not one of the cats coming…gosh he looks like a pissed off at everyone cat and i was kinda hoping he might come, but was also afraid he really might…so i didn’t ask for anyone in particular…i thought to let fate and others decide who become our newest saints.

rescue just makes me laugh. apparently we now have exclusive message board clubs where only the elite need to apply. honestly folks, elitest anything just promotes lack of accountibilty, lack of transparency and lack of consequences for saying whatever you want. personally i don’t quite get how lacking in so many things makes anyone in the least bit elite but then i am not an elitest so i am probably missing something important about this.

that is twice this week that i heard the rumplings of discontent at the exclusivity of rescue…hmmm…two messages all in the same week about two totally different exclusions…i better look around here closely to make sure we are exclusive free. always clean up one’s own back yard first before looking over the neighbors fence!

i want the people who help and visit us, i want the volunteers who dedicate their time here,  to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the animals in our care, i want them to feel pride and comittment at their inclusion in rescue…isn’t that how rescuers are born? i am pretty sure that’s how i made my debut!

inclusivity doesn’t mean that everyone has equal knowledge and experience…it means that everyone has equal opportunity to learn and share and grow. my next project just might be an inclusive rescue club where everyone is welcome….trust me folks, mostly what we have to say, if it can’t be said openly, has no value at all. and hah, hah…that must mean that since i suffer from blogging diarrhea…i have lots of valuable things to say!

(you can always twist a negative into a positive if you try!)

cody is moving into foster care on wednsday. she will be moving in with trina’s family and i know she is going to just be so happy there…yay trina!!!! yay cody!!!!

(this is WAAAYYY better than the plan i came up with!)

last night i was crushed by it. today i am better because i figured a way to try to dig out of this particular pile. sometimes there is no way out, but today there is.

the thing about rescue, unique to especially here…is this is the last whistle stop along a very long road. there is no where else for them to go. it is here or it is dead and that means we all have to deal with it or someone has to die.

last night if i had had a vet visiting with a bottle of euthanol, clyde may very well of bitten the dust. and that just would have been another load of shitty guilt to carry, but i would have done it. cuz that little puke-oid is pushing the envelope of weighing one guilt against several others.

i have felt cody’s unhappiness for the past several days. and she is quiet and contained about it but it is screaming out of her. she has been living in the big dog room, which is better for her. the beds are bigger and more accessible, the dogs are less chaotic and there is more space. but she is a dog who needs to be next to her human, so i have been trying to keep her with me as much as i can. so when i am finished all the running in and out of the day, i make her a soft bed in the kitchen and the cat room and let her hang around with me. i thought it was working fine…not.

last night after my bath, she wanted back in the big dog room, toot sweet. so i let her back in there and went to get her meds. i went in there to see her and as my hand touched her face, i saw blood on my finger tips. that freaking clyde had been chewing her ear when i wasn’t looking….and  she laid there and let him do it.

any of the other dogs would have made a noise of complaint and most of them would put that little beast right back in his place. but cody is a victim and sometimes victims just accept being hurt. i sat there and cried with her because i brought them both here where neither one of them belong. and right now there is no where else for either of them to go.

and that is the guilt in rescue, you take them because you have to or they are going to end up as dead and you try to make everyone happy but sometimes you can’t or sometimes you can, but it takes some time to find the right way. and it is not just that clyde is a prick and cody just happens to be a victim, there is cleo to watch like a hawk, and carly who i have to figure out soon, and tang who likes to torment a 20 year old stripe and eva who put a ton of meds up where she likes to sleep (which i promise i will move when i get home tonight stripe), and dixie who wants me to leave the room before she will come in from the cold porch at night. it is packer who can’t see them all jumping around him and happens to always get himself right in the middle of everyone trying to say hello. there is  ruby who sometimes can’t find a dry bed (this would be buddy’s gross little trick) and tyra and lexie and mugsy who just want to spend more time with me, anywhere is fine, just let them follow me where ever i am.

anyone who thinks that rescue is a wonderful thing to do, needs to understand that it is a juggling act with alot of balls in the air. except you are not really juggling balls, you have animals with feelings and issues flying around up there in top speed….and the second you screw up or miss something and the second that one of them hits the ground, the resounding thump stops your heart dead in it’s tracks and you freeze in horror at what you just stupidly did. then you try to pick them up as quick as you can, get them up there safely again, AND without dropping any of the others on their head while you are at it. sigh…it is a bit of an art.

anyway, sometime during the night, i percolated a plan. both of them are here now and that is not likely to change. and as much as i wanted to kill clyde last night, he can’t help who he is. and i have an equal responsibility to both of them here…clyde may be a puke and cody a victim but i committed equally to caring for both.

i told cody i can fix this and just give me a chance to figure it out. all i need is my up and coming days off with some extra time to get it done. and i promise that she will be happier and she will feel safer and she will get to be with me more and without clyde anywhere near too.

and i am sorry that i have dropped her on her head, but i won’t let it happen again.

ah yes…rescue does truly suck. but it will get better once i get this stuff done.

 

So I’ve been told I’m falling behind on adding new photos. so here they are. There’s loads. Going through them all made me miss Michael, he was so wonderful.
Please enjoy laughing at Carol chasing Ellie around playing dress up the pig. There are loads of photos of Jeanette and Percy because they look so cute together.

We have two wonderful fundraisers in November being put on by some supporters:
The first:
the Kobe retrospective 1998 – 2005
Charity Art Show to benefit SAINTS
This is a one night showing of pieces honouring the late Akita Kobe and Theo. There will be refreshments, and limited edition commemorative-print tote bags for sale. Everything raised will go to SAINTS
Saturday, November 10, 2007 Time: 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: HEADQUARTER – 1232 BURRARD ST (and Davie)

The tote bags will also be available at SAINTS (I think), but I will post more info on that later.

The second fundraiser is:
Vancouver hairstylists are having a hair ‘cut-athon’ (for humans!) to raise money for SAINTS

The ‘cut-athon’ will be at Zootz Hair Studio at 2108 West 4th Ave., Vancouver on Sunday 11th November from 10am to 5pm.

Come with clean hair, get a professional haircut, make a donation to S.A.I.N.T.S.. Don’t need a haircut? Come give us a donation in cash or kind anyway!

Info at saintssupporters@gmail.com or call 604 990 6665.

that i used to work with in a different shelter. she said…and i quote ” every time i see you, you look more and more beautiful”

wasn’t that a nice thing to hear…and she wasn’t lying even tho beautiful is pretty far away from me. she was seeing inside me and remembered what i used to be.

which was bone weary tired of the politics in rescue, every second of every day.

and i am still bone weary tired but it is not the same. mostly gone now is the politics and the fighting and the ego-battles that surround rescue every day. now except for a few bad days (when i stupidly peek to see what is happening outside our gate,) i am tired from working my ass off and that is a cleaner, fresher tired. it doesn’t leave you feeling dirty and afraid.

this is the real beauty of being way out in gawd-knows-where and creating a fortress of goodness with a very high gate. everyone is welcome to come here, but the ones who stay, have never ending and  overflowing pockets of goodness and kindness that they freely sprinkle around our guys.

i felt beautiful inside me today because of where i happen to live, surrounded by good and pure hearted beings who always are real and honest, even on the bad days.

cole is forever a cop, even when he is sweet and seeking a cuddle. and copper is a selfish brat even when he is being good. swinger doesn’t change and everyone knows it, he doesn’t pretend to be someone’s friend and then bite them in the butt and chicklet is forever our sybil, even when she is having a nap cuz we just have to wait for her to wake up.

do you know how refreshing and safe it is to live in a place like this? and every volunteer who is here right now is exactly the same in all the best ways.

we are who we are, we know where we are weak and where we are strong and we all know each other and accept us as we are and that is a very good thing.

several years ago i walked away from the bullshit world where what was said was what mattered the most, even if it happened to be untrue. and i walked into a world where words mean next to nothing and actions mean the world. i walked about a month after my daughter said i looked dead. it was the very best walk i have ever taken and i regret not a single step.

i still get tired because the work is hard and i still get frustrated by the untruths out there, but i never get tired of holding hook or sweet pea in my arms and seeing ellie and pete smile right back at me. i never get tired of the stories the volunteers tell me of their adventures while they were here. i never get tired of seeing someone else’s hand, gently stroke a saintly face. and tired just flies away from me when i see phoebe sitting with her special friends and knowing right down to the tip of my toes that they love her as much as she loves them too.

rescue is about the animals and everyone in rescue knows and says this is true. but it is not and it never has been because mostly we say what we ourselves want to hear and what we want to believe. and i am no different in this regard, it is a faulty human trait.

and i believe that there is a goodness that surrounds me and all of the people who volunteer here…a small part of it comes from the best parts inside ourselves…and all the rest comes right from the hearts that we save.

that is what i think my friend saw today, my happiness at being part of saints.