SAINTS

one thing just leads to another. i started with the cement..that led to scrubbing the front door…which made me see the siding, then the windows and finally the muddy mess i made of the gravel with all the water from the hose…oh my freaking god…will it never end???

luckily laura and lana came up and while lana tuned up the inside windows, laura hauled over some gravel and fixed my new swamp pit…it looks quite nice out there right now…or as nice as it can look until the grass grows in again.

so now i am farting around inside…i have the back cats areas, the kitchen and laundry area the way i like BUT i just about electricuted myself when i turned on the back cats TV. someone remind me when everything is done tomorrow to haul that out and pull over another donated one cuz that TV shocks the crap out of you when you turn it on. scary.

i am pretty much going to kill jesse who won’t shut the hell up. he is going to be barking for hours til i finally make it into my bedroom to do it up. i keep telling him i have a headache but he is barking so much he can’t hear me. he is NOT my favorite dog tonight altho i might like him again if he’d just go to sleep.

anyway…since i am on a break, i thought i would tell you my really sad story. this has been bugging me all day and while i am cleaning, i am trying to figure out if i can do something about it or not. i still haven’t decided.

so today i am working and driving to and fro to see clients. and i see a very skinny, dirty, sketchy unneutered dog running in a circle in the road with 4 people trying to catch him…. i stop. it appears that he is owned by the two asian women…and he is obviously afraid of them. the other two are neighbors who chased him out of their yard and are mad because he is loose again….he usually is chained.

that dog is not letting anyone near him…his tail is tucked, his head is low and his owners said he will bite if anyone, including them, grab him. but he is a VERY good guard dog.

i asked how long they had had him…seven years. i asked why he isn’t neutered..they said the people they got him from said that he was. there is another chained and intact dog that they had since a puppy in the yard so i am assuming they know he is not neutered either. but he is cleaner, healthier, and friendlier cuz i went over and met him.
i asked them why their dog was so afraid, they said it was because their property floods all the time and he is afraid of the flooding and the rain…it wasn’t flooding or raining today. the angry neighbor said it is because they beat the crap out of the dog and the owner said they do not. the neighbor said they heard it all the time. the owner said that was her friend who used to live there that used to beat his dog but he is gone now. i asked her if the SPCA ever came, she said lots of times but the dog is ok….and by current law, she is right.
i asked her how she was going to catch her dog…she said she couldn’t but he would come home when he was hungry. the dog was now off in the bush doing his thing and ignoring all the humans standing around.

anyway…i had to leave…i couldn’t catch that dog, you’d need a catch pole and 20 people with nets.

i was nice and friendly and helpful and non judgemental because i am thinking i might be going back there when that dog is on his chain again cuz i need him on a chain to switch him to a leash.  but i know this is not a really great idea. i should not be thinking of offering her money to buy that dog…but i am.

last thing i need is a sketchy, biting, abused and freaked out 10 year old dog….really, really bad idea carol.
anyway… that’s my story and why i am sad tonight.

and now i better get back to cleaning and thinking.

i didn’t get to any of the outside clean ups yesterday…but the shop/suite/bathroom/mp room/ex-kitten areas are all done. taking the recycling in was huge because garbage was mixed up with recycling and many of the bins had no blue bags so i had to bag everything. that sucked in the rain. and we were short staffed again yesterday which didn’t help.
when i get home tonight..the crunch is on….TG arrives on wed with a load of dogs to meet their new families. “the national” is filming on wed too. yvette is bringing us a new addition…maggie is a little terminal cancer dog who is coming here for tender loving, palliative care (TLPC). thursday we have a high school group visiting and friday, a diabetic dog is arriving from alberta. he is a multi-poo and he is a favor to beagle-paws rescue that helped me with finding blind packer a great beagle home.

i was again in bed and asleep by 9 pm last night…i don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. the dark, sleeping hours when the dogs are all peacefully resting is my most productive working on extra things time, the daily stuff is all done by then and if i want, i can do the extra things.

i think i was maybe feeling sad about toby, i really am going to miss him.

well…this room has been de-pooped and de-pee’d and so has the kitchen…i skipped out of my bedroom real quick cuz i wasn’t awake enough to deal with that….but i guess i am now…sigh.

one of the vets reminded me yesterday that our bill is getting pretty high again…shit that just started me adding everyone up in my head, coming up with an approx. new total of $15,000 and started my worry cycle all over again.

i gotta stop doing sick and senior (and incontinent) animals….lately it just feels like it is all just too much for me.

i feel like this alot lately….i guess it is time to come up with a new plan…quitting isn’t a good option for the animals (altho it might be for me) i guess i better look at other things.

clean up…tune up…tighten up….and see if i can get this floundering animal ark into less worrisome waters.

i so suck at being the captain of this rescue ship.

where is noah when you need him?

the other day i heard on the radio that some rich man, paid some rich recording artist 1.4 million dollars to sing at his 16 year old daughters birthday party….sadly, for the first time in my entire life i felt that pointless and self-defeating green envy thing.

while it is an utter useless waste of money….. why do i even care?…its not my money…(but i wanted it to be.)

shame on me.

i took him into the vet to help him go. he was doing ok but i am back to work tomorrow and just did not want to risk him needing me and me not being here.

21 years is a long time for any cat to live. toby was one of our greatest cats of all time…mr. “reach out and touch someone” will be deeply missed.

we love you toby.

toby is doing well with the nearing the end of his life….he is still moving around a bit…up for a drink of water, out to choose a different place to curl up. his breathing is easy and regular, i see no discomfort in him yet. he is currently in the hallway which gives me the opportunity to lay down a soft bed near him so he can use it if he would like. no pressure toby, it is up to you..but that bed looks pretty comfy.

tyra is off..not sure what is up with her. tyra is a highly sensitive girl so i am not sure if it is physical or emotional, but something is bugging her.

someone has a vet appointment today…i might want to shift toby or tyra into that spot…i just have to remember who i made the appointment for before i decide who needs it the most..or maybe i will just call the clinic and see what else they have available if we need.

it is amazing how much cleaner a room looks when you scrub the goobers off the walls.

i didn’t get a lot done last night…just ran laundry thru both the house and the shop machines, scrubbed a wall or two, kept an eye on tyra and tobes, cleaned up the medical room and freaked out over the serena/clara identity thing.

today i am leaving the whole place to the staff and working on areas that never get cleaned…like the outside cement, the stupid crap laying around in most of the yards (like old tableclothes?, buckets??, peices of dead toys??? and various other weird things), the closet,  the shop bathroom (it is close to disgusting) and maybe a window or a shelf area here and there. the easiest way to get things done well is to think in cleaning small peices til it simply becomes the whole freaking thing.
i have to work on tuesday but then i have 5 days off so with a few late nighters, i should be able to catch up on stuff.

and i need to get the lime down so i can fertilize and then re-seed 3 acres destroyed by tons of snow and a bunch of busy feet.

and the last bit of news is les..i think he is losing too much weight too fast…he is down 12 pounds in 3 weeks. i am not sure how fast the weight is supposed to come off when you treat the thyroid disease, but that seems too rapid and drastic a weight loss so i phoned and left a message with the vet to ask if i should be worried.

here is an interesting thing. not sure what we are going to do about it but..life at saints is never dull to say the least.

sooooo…it is 11:15 pm and i am in the back room vigorously scrubbing harrison’s nasal discharge off the wall (gosh that stuff would hold the space shuttle together) and serena pops out of her hidey hole to say hello.

well…hello serena…i thought you and renee jr were adopted today…apparently there was a case of mistaken identity and clara went home instead?

hmmm..i wonder how serena feels about this…i wonder how her new family will feel…i wonder what is going to go thru clara’s mind if she comes back.

i bet she is right pissed off.

clara is not serena..serena is younger, softer and sweeter. clara is a spikey old broad, tough as nails and not afraid to show it either. but they do look an awful lot alike. i can’t imagine renee and clara living in any kind of friendship which is what we were hoping with renee and serena.

BUT..i was not here on either occasion when the family made their choice…so maybe they did fall in love with clara but somehow i highly doubt it.

hmmmm…it’s late, i am tired….maybe i better go look again.

ooops…my great mistake.  i just picked clara up and she growled and bit me.

ignore my message mo…your sister has the right cat….clara the hag is still residing at saints.

cleanliness may or may not be next to godliness..but it sure as hell IS next to saintliness, at least around here.
keeping this place odor free while not rocket science…is a bit of an art.

the animals and i don’t want to live in stink and we don’t want visitors to need a gas mask either.

50 some odd animals (and a good portion with incontinence issues) all free roaming in the same building can pose a bit of a challenge. the bad smell has been building for weeks now…today it is just too much.
so here are some of the things i have learned.

half assed doesn’t cut it…do it right or don’t do it at all so someone else (like me) will do it instead. no one wants to re-do what just got done…it is a waste of everyone’s time.
1. to make a room SMELL NICE, you have to remove the things that SMELL GROSS.
if each area has all of the wet soiled linen removed and put into the washer and replaced with fresh and clean, if all floors (even corners and under stuff) are well swept and washed WELL with CLEAN, hot, soapy bleach water, and other surfaces washed down too, if all litter boxes are scooped out and clean litter replaced and all garbages are tied up and emptied and taken out to the dumpster and bleach buckets are then emptied of the dirty foul water and replaced with bleachy clean…voila! there is nothing left in here to stink.

2. it is the finishing touches that make the room LOOK nice…tidy off the clutter, polish up the mirror, wipe down the dirty paw prints from walls and furnature and shelves and desks. straighten the clean blankets on the beds and make sure the food and water bowls shine.

3. it is easier to MAINTAIN and keep nice by doing it everyday then it is to find the time to rip it all apart and do everything when it is big and bad. that just means a bunch of unpaid all nighters for me

it is not just that the animals deserve to live in cleanliness…i do too. and visitors will not have such a great visit here if they can’t breathe thru the disgusting fumes.

staff get paid to do a good job for the animals. volunteers (myself included) donate our valuable time to do a job well for the animals too. all of us want to provide good value for what we do.
we all have to pull up our socks here and do a better job because this is just not good enough.

if it smells…there is filth…if there is filth…there are germs, if there are germs the animals will become unwell and NONE of us want the animals here to not be well.

so new motto for saints…as far as cleanliness goes…good enough is not good enough…our saints deserve better than that. saints need to live in pure and squeaky clean.
i am going on a cleaning binge tonight to get us up to happy snuff…as i move along and onwards over the next week, lets everyone make it their responsibility to KEEP it up to happy snuff or honestly, i am going to have an out of control odor instigated melt down.

pee-ewwwwww is to be about to PERMANENTLY be replaced with..mmmmm..it smells nice in here.

he spent part of it up on the chair but is now curled up in a corner under the couch again. i believe cats esp. seek the coolest places they can find when they are serious about getting ready to die. as they lower their body temperature to achieve a hypothermic state, they slip into a quiet coma for a peaceful death. natures euthanasia.

anyone checking on him today just has to pull quietly forward the right side corner of the back cushion to peek to see how he is. try not to disturb him as it will increase his heart rate…blood flow…body temperature and reverse what instinct is helping him to achieve.

i wish i was home all day today, but i will try to get off early.

laura and lana did barn bed time last night. they installed a new gate in the office doorway so lucky is more a part of things and not so isolated. and then they had pizza with cole, jack and cleo before sending them over to the big dog room for a movie night.

the plan for the movie was marty and the FeLV cats… the rock, mama T etc…rotating thru them so they got a chance for a cuddle on the couch one on one for awhile. the only one i said not to try was murray..he can be a bit nervous and might bolt if he got scared.

we have to wait for laura and lana to tell us how the cats enjoyed their special movie date.

while they were busy…i took the opportunity of less nightly chores to put out clean bleachy buckets, re-wash the floors, catch up on the laundry, have a bath and change my bed…again i fell asleep early…just after 9 and had a clean, nice sleep. i checked on toby halfway thru and he was comfortable up in the chair.

it was a good and peaceful night here….that was a treat.

he’s 21 years old and pretty frail now. a couple of days ago he moved into the back cat rooms, i think he wanted less distractions and more peace for the first time since he came here. he just refused his nightly milk that he so looks forward to each day. he has gone in under the couch so i can’t bug him too much, he just wants to sleep in peace. i think he is gearing up to go away.

everyone please watch him carefully…he can do this on his own if he wants and as long as he stays comfortable but call me at the first sign that maybe he needs help cuz i am at work tomorrow which might be his critical day.

gentle journey toby…we all adore you.

angelina found him when she went to give him his meds. last night i thought he looked much better and had turned the corner to wellness again. sometimes they do that, the final surge of life force energy.

there is only the rock, misfit and mosley left of the original americats.

ronnie besides touching us all because of his sweetness and strength in surviving the horror of pahrump, touched lot of others at Best Friends following the original rescue. he was best buddies with a special cat named “captain jack,” they shared a bed and were always together. captain jack died before ronnie’s move to saints..i know the staff and volunteers at BF were concerned about his grieving.

ronnie did well here. the cats that came with him, all took care of him. he was the youngest and most innocent among them and they kept an eye on him. i know that ronnie has been getting tired lately. tired of the disease itself and losing all of his favorite friends.

he has lost many in the past couple of years. that is alot of grieving.

rest in peace little ronnie, be forever at peace now and may captain jack and merlin and tikki and albus and red and sunshine and aladdin and sanjaya and charley, wrap you warmly and safely within them…i miss you all, wonderful cats.

i fell asleep just after 8 pm last night. there are some consequences to this for me…like a gawd awful mess this morning but at least i did get the meds done before i fell asleep.

i held a brand new, pretty in pink baby for like half an hour yesterday at work. i just sat at my desk and rocked that sleeping babe in my arms and felt utterly at peace. that was a gift. i was worried about grandchildren arriving in the next couple of years with my kids starting the marriage thing and if i would make time for them when they arrived… but now i know that i will.

not sure exactly how…but somehow i will.

right now chyna is desperate for a cuddle. she is sitting and staring at me and blinking both eyes shut tightly at the same time. that is her “cuddle me” signal. unfortunately webster is also desperate and he is parked next to the moniter. he wants up on my shoulders but i am  still too sore and stiff to balance him there while i type.

every time chyna tries to get her upper body up on my lap where she thinks is belongs…webster whacks her on her soft and vulnerable potato like nose.

sigh..sometimes being needed by two opposing forces at the same time sucks.

oh crap…diablo just hobbled over, he hates webster…this will not be fun.

speaking of diablo…i had a call on him yesterday. i think i left the caller dissatisfied…but she wanted an in and out cat and she liked the idea of a three legged cat…well…huston, we have a problem here.  all of our cats are indoor only (except frodo because he is a beast and he is no longer available for adoption anyway) and diablo as a tripod is never stepping foot outside a door. i politely but quickly explained the reasons behind this which i think she didn’t have time to fully comprehend and said, thank you for calling. i had clients to see. i heard her hesitation and the need to discuss this further, but i totally ignored this cuz i was in a hurry.

even tho everything i said was said nicely and politely…i still brushed her off, which is rude and unkind. and i know this but i did it anyway. and today i feel bad for this…it would have been better to go slower and give her time to digest…sucks to have insight.

i really have to sit down and develop a GENERIC pre-adopt form..ours are too specific…old. young, dog, cat, bird, rabbit, horse, barnyard…we have too many and i can never find the one i want on the computer so i just answer the email with call me instead.

and i don’t want ticky box/yes or no answers…i want in depth written dialog so i know who they are and what they want and how much value they place upon this initial effort to procure a lifelong friend.

it would go something like this…

tell us about yourself (who are you, where do you live, what do you spend your days doing, how do you spend your evenings?)

where will an animal fit into your days and your nights?
which animal are you inquiring about  and what is there about him/ or her that brought you to contact us?

what questions do you have about this animal and what would you like to know about possible  adoption?
what experience do you have with current or previous animals (tell us who they are (or were) and where they are now and why.)

let us know what types of animal care issues you are prepared to deal with and what types you would choose to avoid (health, behavioral, emotional)

what resources you would access in dealing with the issues you are comfortable with.

what are your personal limits on dealing with issues…(financial, time, emotional  or physical constraints)

why are you thinking of including this animal in your life at this time?

please take the time to answer these questions to ensure a good match and please include your contact number for follow up.

that gives me enough info to at least get a feel…then i can progress to a phone call or just a plain return email that says not a good match…sorry.