SAINTS

so i’m bored – home sick with a cold, drinking a hot toddy and watching hockey.
I searched the website stats:
Here are keyphrases used on search engines that brought people to the saints website.
there are a few that i couldn’t retype here in order to keep our site PG. (be very concerned about the weirdos in society…)

-pee pants
-manure pile smoke
-setting an indoor picnic party
-cat butt stuck in fridge magnet
-all is well tonight
-raymond out of honey
-cat hasn t pooped
-definition of panda disability
-crippled dog sanctuaries
-dog wakes me at 3 a.m. to eat
-taco bedtime story
-the scary horse lady that lives in colton
-car urine in gyproc (I didn’t know cars could pee??)
-coaxing cocker spaniels out from under houses
-how much does pippa the donkey weigh

and my two favourites:
-picture of distressed woman
-invisible poop

puking. it hit me about 30 minutes ago and sitting with ones head hovering over the biffy is just asking to activate barf mode.

so…what is new?

raymond is home from the vets..he is sore but he is wagging his tail and happy to be home. no more surgeries for him. his blood pressure dropped and his oxygen saturation bottomed out and he will not be going under anaesthetic ever again.

percy was pissed cuz before the hay guy came, i tricked him to the other side of the gate. when he saw that beautiful, shiny red truck pull in thru the open gate, and he was unable to get to either one…he bawled his head off, not a happy little cow.

ellie was mad at bedtime tonight…i was a bit slow in dinner prep and her royal person was getting wet.

spritely took her opportunity for a beauty mud bath when i shut her and the others out of the upper areas with percy. she is literally covered head to toe and quite pleased with her new fashionable grunge look.

stan from TG joined tyra and lexie and i on our last vet run of today, they are both having arthritic issues and now have a treatment plan in place. sadly, old mrs johnny b. suffered a massive stroke and seizured on the ferry last night and she died in stan’s arms before they reached the mainland. rest in peace sweetheart, i am sorry we never had a chance to meet. my condolences to all of TG.

i think that is most of the news from today…honestly, i feel so icky, i am not really sure.

well we got thru the necessary steps today. tomorrow’s include the regular stuff plus the dump run, paying some bills and stocking up on a few things.

raymond did well with his surgery and will be home tomorrow.

the shaw folks REALLY enjoyed their visit…they got 3 hours of filming in for a 2 1/2 minute segment. they said normally they don’t film so much but there is just so many neat critters to film doing such great things. the animals had lots of fun and that was what really was important…they like being stars! (personally, i don’t, so hopefully they can just cut out the interview parts and let viewers enjoy watching the animals have fun. i said they had enough film to do a documentary!

percy LOVES the camera…i don’t know how many shots there were of him zeroing in on the camera…he slides on over, up goes his nose, and out comes his tongue to lick the lens. apparently the camera is his friend (or he thinks it tastes good) phoebe and tyra had a wrestling match over the plank in the pond, tyra got hurt yet again. gosh she just can’t keep pretending she is invincible and young (and neither can i either!) ronnie demonstrated the flexibility of the acrobatic americats by climbing up the wire and hanging upside down. but he might not make the final cut cuz at his very cutest moment he decided the camera was not HIS friend and hissed and told it to go away! dexter and ellie were the featured animals today and both of them enjoyed being special except when they got bored and decided to wander to find something more interesting to do…like eat reporters shoe laces or snack on a pile of horse poop. anyway they were great folks, the true animal respecting kind and loved our guys. it should air on shaw cable “express” tuesday march 12th.

i am a bit bagged, it has been a long day, i think i need a handful of tender loving poodle cuddles….i know a few who will be happy to indulge me tonight.

the vets did an ultra-sound on her after hours and it looked like her abdomen was full of cancer. the plan was to phone me this morning re: ? euth?. i guess smokey made her own decision.

rest in peace smokey, i am glad you did not die outside but i do wish we could have gotten a bit further down the happiness road for you.

wanna know how i do this?

just one step at a time…

step one..home from work

step two..barn guys to bed

step three…dinner with eva (this step damn well just about killed me…she tried to burn me inside out with curry!)

step four….clean MP room and put away this weeks donations

step five…watch idol and organize cat/small dog room during commercials

step six…laundry and linen shelves

step seven…organize kitchen and clear off the counters and give all the cats a bedtime treat of milk and hand out the meds
step eight…30 minute nap with fussy tired poodles

step nine..(this is where i am right now) organize entrance way while goofing around with the pitbull
step ten…put my clean laundry away without pissing off boo (this has been waiting for almost a week)

and then go to bed.

10 little baby steps, with even a few moments built in for me and them…i will be asleep by 3, and up at 6…and we will finish tomorrows steps 1-10 by 10 am before the shaw people arrive!

it’s easy…you just have to count to 10 a few times and you have accomplished alot.

raymond is in for his surgery, he is having his anal glands excised tomorrow. i think he will feel like a whole new dog (after he recovers!)

smokey is at the vets…i just have a weird feeling about her…her appetite is not quite as keen, she is maybe a bit lethargic …i don’t know…sick? depressed? anyway, the vet called tonight and thinks it is well worth the effort to xray her lungs and abdomen…one is noisy, and the other is thickened…might as well have a look see just in case something is hiding around the corner. when she comes home, i have already decided that she is moving out to the MP room. it is too chaotic for her in here, she needs a more peaceful place to live. i talked to frodo about this…i think he will cooperate as long as i promise to move cody and dex out of there. they can still visit, but no more sleep overs for dogs in there. that is fair…thx frodo, smokey won’t cramp your style.

shaw cable is coming tomorrow to do a film segment on saints. i will be up late tonight and early tomorrow to get everything done because the crew arrives at 10 am…holy crap! thank god, angelina and rene are here too.

one last new incoming…we are offering sanctuary to one of the senior sherriffs dogs from TG. this is one of the 50 sled dogs left chained to starve in the bush that TG stepped up to the plate and rescued. old mrs. johnny is not rehabbing well…maybe she is too old and too long isolated to fit in the real world…so…she can come here where this world tries to fit her.

i have got to clean out the chicken coops on these 2 days off (ducks really are messy little beasts.) i was proactive and grabbed 400 pounds (sorry, i made a mistake, 8 bags is 400 not 800 pounds) of feed on the way home tonight so i can stock and clean up the feed areas..AND i better remember to order a load of hay tomorrow too!

i woke up at midnight and can’t get back to sleep. there are too many poodles and pugs on my bed and then phoebe popped up and stared out the window. what was she looking at so intently? did she see a rat in the backyard?

sigh, now i am worrying about the rats again which i have been pretending do not really exist. and since i am awake and doing nothing but laying there trying to sleep, i just automatically switch over to worry.

why can’t i happily count my blessings, instead of trying to count how many rats might possibly be living underneath the chicken coop?

i swear in the sleepless darkness of night that there is a whole freaking army under there. and why don’t i just finally do something about it instead of just wishing they’d all go away (or become magically sterile)

i actually haven’t seen any since mugsy killed those last ones but i know those little buggers are out there….just waiting ( and having alot of sex and babies while they are waiting too)

what an utterly stupid and useless way to waste a good nights sleep.

for the very first time. it wasn’t much, and it was in the confines and safety of his crate…but he rolled, and rubbed and he boxed, bit, and  goofed with my good naturedly annoying hand and he won every single encounter. he is strong, he is brave, he is fun and very, very funny.

and i was even smart enough to quit while he was way ahead.

good boy!

the goddess of ignorant bliss.

it doesn’t matter what we devote our lives to…the very first steps will be enshrouded in fog.

i remember being a new grad nurse and thinking i knew it all…hey man, i scored almost 600 on my registration exams! 20 years later, i am a much better nurse, now i know that i actually know very little…but i know where to find what i need.
i remember my first steps into rescue…sheesh…i had all the answers. until i learned that the answers, not only are endless but none of them actually apply to current need.

i remember each time i took on a new species…first dogs…then cats (i wasn’t kidding when i said that i did not have a clue about FIV or FeLV)…then bunnies, guineas, and our very first sheep. her name was eunice…(i got to learn how to stick my arm thru her chest wall, follow the tract along her ribcage, right up to my elbow and debride the necrotic tissue in there)

next came the first pot belly pig…wilbur. and then the first horse…gideon…then came chickens and ducks, donkeys, llamas, cows, goats and princess farm pigs.

i have worked thru laminitis, colic, lymphodema, heart disease, neurological paralysis, nutrition and crippling arthritis on farm animals and multi-system failures, cancers, thyroid/adrenal/auto-immune disorders/diseases on companion animals too. i can’t even count the funky surgeries i nursed these guys thru… i bet i am one of the few people (besides janice ) in local rescue who cradled a post-op and critically ill farm pig thru the night. i can give cats enemas, cut the teeth of malocclusive mouths, i can do laser light accupressure on spinal dogs, dysplagic dogs and dogs with paralysed esophagus’s too. i can trim away dead tissue deep inside the cavity wounds, i can do injections now to dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, sheep and pigs and i can sometimes with the ones i do alot, even calculate the dosages. (no llama shots yet tho…i think carl would rather i not learn that) i have bottle fed day old kittens, starving calves and even orphaned raccoons, i can force feed anything, including baby pigeons and i can teach them to fly too, i have fed animals thru feeding tubes and cleaned and dressed the spiked pins and halos surgically holding hips together, and applied collagen to open and exposed ligaments to help them to heal…i even know how to pull a thousand pound cow up to her chest by grabbing her nose and her tail! i have dealt with furry mental illness and animals with personality disorders, eating disorders, drinking disorders, inapppropriate elimination disorders…and just plain disordered disorders.
and what is my point here? well it is two fold. one is to let people know that just because you are new at something, does not mean that you can’t learn (and pretty damn quick too) how to build an extensive and practical knowledge base to help you do whatever it is you need to do.

and to share with you the other things i have learned too…

cows only look innocent.
pigs are smarter than most people.
happy sheep are fat.
horses like to trick humans.
goats use their horns like pry bars, they can pull plywood right off the walls.
all animals can and do talk, we just don’t know how to listen.
chickens know the difference between their regular food in your right hand and the treat in your left.
dogs are game to try anything that you are…but if it is determined to be to their disadvantage, they’ll let you do it alone.
cats want? cats get…cats don’t want? watch out for the pissed off cat.

and even sweet little bunnies can kick your ass.

omg…i cannot escape from taffy. i came home early for a quick shower and want to go to the barn so i can be finished stuff early tonight…and the miniscule dictator won’t let me!

she sits in her bed and squeaks…so i pick her up and cuddle her and then i put her down and she squeaks again, so i pick her up and bam…she knows…squeak and someone comes so now she is squeaking non stop.

she is like a squeaky toy, except she is warm and somewhat fuzzy and she has a brain that figures stuff out pretty damn quick..