SAINTS

she was starting to feel uncomfortable, the meds were not holding her for long, her heart rate was getting thready, her belly was filling with gas that she just could not get past the obstruction. the vet said she would probably not last the night and there was a good chance that she would hit a pain crises.

colic is such an innoculous word…babies get it and they survive…but colic in horses is different. once any part of the bowel twists, it becomes life threatening. the vets told me old horses usually die of colic and i have heard horror stories of colicky horses dying in agony…i am grateful that we caught sparky’s in time to keep her well medicated thru it all….our sparkles was 30 years old.

ahh sparkles, sparky, my little pony, the little pig pen….solid as a rock, gentle as any creature could possibly be. best friends with gideon and czar but leary of grumpy lahonnie. every night she was so eager to get into the barn…she trotted in like some show pony, not the grubby pony with the messed up hair that she really was.
even when cathy was finished grooming, sparky was still a mess…she was like phyllis dillar of the little horse set.

we are all so going to miss you, what a terrible loss. the little stray pony left a huge hole in our family…rest in peace sweet girl.

they had to call the vet out again late this afternoon, she was trying to go down again. i came home..the vet tried to re-tube her but her stomach has not cleared the electrolyes and mineral oil he put in this morning. he said it is looking like a small bowel colic…not good news. he gave her more medication and left us with a sedative if she needs, but if she goes down again he said it is probably the end.
i have his cell phone number just in case.
mo and laura have left. i will watch her over the next couple of hours and colleen will take over for me when i run into maple ridge to drop off my work cell phone and pager.

thx for the pics nicole….we needed something to take our minds off of worry for a moment or two.

Sparkles is still colicking. Maureen just had the vet come out again and Sparkles got some more drugs.
Carol is home for a bit. Please keep good thoughts going for Sparkles, the vet is really worried she might not make it.

Not being insensitive to the urgent matter at SAINTS, but Carol is making me post pictures.
Barking Babies is a dog store in Yaletown, that has continued to spoil us at SAINTS.
At Christmas they had a fundraiser and asked their customers to bring a gift for saints. I picked up the boxes last week and Reggie helped me unpack them and I (with Jenn’s help) dressed up some of the SAINTS dogs.

Buddy, the new, giant JRT

Reggie at the start of the unpacking in his old ratty sweater

Reggie’s new amazing tracksuit, with appropriate skull and crossbones

All the amazing gifts, thank you Barking Babies customers

Reggie checking out all the goods

Lucky quickly stole a rabbit to chew on, plus she nibbled on two of the beds without me seeing her.

Dusty found a tennis ball

Daphne in an amazing sequin number

Squirt in a monkey sweater, wishing he hadn’t barked at me!

Molly, sleeping so peacefully

And just for fun:
My two donkeys

the vet has been out. she has been tubed and given a lot of meds. now it is walk, rest, walk, rest…wait and see. i have to leave for work soon…mo has her on watch for the next while…colleen takes over after that, laura will come as needed… i am hoping to get off of work early and take the evening and night shift with her.
wish us luck, with her last colic we almost lost her, the vets said her recovery was a miracle…..we are wanting more of the same.

i don’t really like afternoon shifts, i am generally either physically or emotionally or mentally tired from doing whatever i did before i leave for work. AND i don’t like coming home late at night to quickly mop floors, give meds and fall into bed…the evenings are my one to one or one to ten with the animals time.

oh well just today’s shift to go then 2 days off and home.

we have a probable new incoming tomorrow (besides squeaky and hymi.) i say probable because kody is coming on trial with a not really confirmed in my mind history of human, cat and dog aggression….can’t tell if he is really dangerous or if he is just a big jerk. he is with another rescue who emailed and asked if he could come. at 14 and a half years old, the dog is more then their current foster home can handle and they are reluctantly considering euthanization…..he is another uncooperative, biting and bossy cattledog. oh yay….sounds just like max except he is blue instead of red.

anyway…i will try him..if he is as bad as max he can stay, but if he is any worse he will have to go back and they can carry the responsibility for whatever happens from there. cowardly of me i know but i just cannot deal right now with taking the life of an unsafe at saints little twirp.

at least it gives him one last shot somewhere where tolerance for common cattledog antics is pretty damn high….i hope he is not as bad as i think he could be….i saw his picture….he is a very cute little guy, easy to fall in love with.

what is it one of our vets said? no sick dog deserves to die without a trial of pred?…for kody we’ll say, no old ass of a dog deserves to die without a trial at saints.

i think he is coming tomorrow…my days off ought to be fun…fingers crossed that kody’s gun is not really loaded and he is just good at pushing others around.

deep morning (mourning) sigh…..it is hard losing a bedroom dog and a kitchen/computer room dog both in the very same day….the entire house feels empty without max and donny…..altho i do have to say that lucas is quite enjoying no longer being treated like some kind of a house cow….he can actually move without a crazed and half blind cattledog yapping at his flanks.

and i just do not get how some “rescues” can have a 10 day return policy listed on their “adoption” contacts (even london drugs’ return policy is better!), can refuse to take their animals back and basically just cut them off… poof… after they have sold them for cash.

is there no emotional investment in what they do? are there no real connections made with the animals..get them in, get them out, bing, bang, boom.

donny was such a soft and easy dog, even tho medically he was complex. max was as prickly and spikey as they come but he had a charissma that drew you in like a magnet.

i cannot imagine not caring deeply for any of our guys here at saints. four years after daphne left here, i was as eager to have her back as if it had only been a few hours

even when phoebe’s last adoptive home hit the wall and she was flying back to BC..i was on pins and needles until i had her back safe again.

i think people who claim to do rescue but really are just flogging a cute and fuzzy product with a heartbeat to make money…are despicable. how can you not become emotionally attached?..even if you flipped them so fast you only had them for a few hours.?…how could you not remember the responsibility you had for them?

there have been dogs and cats that i have never laid eyes on, but we paid a vet bill and then sometime down the road, they needed to come to saints for one reason or another. i never hesitiated for even one second, it never occurred to me to say we had no room. once that animal needed our help for anything…that animal could have ALL of our help in an instant again. by committing to pay that vet bill for some unknown animal…we made a forever promise to him or her.

so when i think of donny and max and i am sorry that they finished their lives in a homeless senior animal shelter..i have to admit that the one thing they had…was 100% caring and committment. not too many animals actually get that, not in the real world and not in some parts of the world of not quite rescue.

i am sad tonight, i lost 2 worthy friends of mine today.. and i am sadder that rescued animals are really not always rescued. i am sad that they have once again found themselves in the hands of exploiters and profiteers who use them and then toss them out after grabbing whatever cash that they can.

i am glad donny and max were old and wrecked, i am glad they were of no interest to others. before saints they both may have been facing untimely death, but they were not facing more human dishonesty and delusions.

please…if you are not a rescue, please don’t call yourself one. call yourself a homefinder, a broker, a middleman…call yourself a businessman, call yourself whatever you want, but don’t lie and say you are rescue when you know that rescue is not even close to what you do.

donny and max were rescues..of that they could be proud. it meant that they were loved and cared for. it meant they had more value then any amount of dollars…it meant, that to us, they were everything.

donny had a good and comfortable night..he is still sleeping.

laura came and checked on everyone for me last night while i was at work. she said max looked unwell and was drooling. i asked her to give him some gravol which she did. by the time i got home, he was a bit better.

as soon as i got up this morning, i could smell blood. i found max asleep on a thick blanket with a couple of watery, mucousy, bloody puddles of vomit near him. there was not enough blood that i should have smelled it, but max himself smells like blood.

he did get up to see me, but he is quite weak.

i am taking him into the vet with donny. we are going to totally screw up the clinic’s morning and the vet may want to put me down along with my friends but he is a nice and compassionate guy so he will eventually forgive me.

this is the trouble with dogs with so much stubborn life spirit…how long can you afford to wait before there is no denying that death is not just close…it is standing right there.

tough day at saints, i have not even left my computer chair and already my eyes are leaking.

donny’s eye has ruptured. i called the vet..he said that’s it, we should probably put him down. he offerred to meet me at the clinic but since donny doesn’t give a shit that his eye has ruptured and is way more interested in whatever pills are hidden in his beloved pill pockets and what the diabetics just got to eat..i see no reason to drag our poor vet out at midnight. the vet said it is not painful and if i can handle fluid pouring out of his poor eye, it is ok to wait til morning to end his life. i will meet him at the clinic first thing in the morning. he said i can give him a big dose of pain meds just in case cuz it will make me more comfortable.

in the meantime i will stuff that food seeking sweet cocker with any kind of food that he would like tonight.

this so sucks, i was feeling a bit hopeful that maybe donny might in the end be alright.

i love you donny-boy…you are a very great little old guy.

the mp guys have had way too much exercise lately (some days they are getting MANY walks every day)….champ can’t get up from his bed tonight, doris is virtually comatose, lucky will not get up for anyone any more if they have a leash in hand and dusty is so stressed out from too many walks by too many people to too many places for her blind dog coping skills to handle that she is aggressively taking out her stress on the other guys…tonight, no one is having any fun.

this is my fault..i used to have a no off site walks for anyone policy…our guys are not “regular dogs”…they have debilitating chronic and terminal diseases, they have profound physical disabilities and they aren’t all that bright either. dogs will walk as far as they possibly can with no thought at all that once they are tired and sore and decide to stop that they have the exact same distance again to walk back….it literally can kill them at worst (old dogs can die instantly from over exertion strokes or heart attacks) or at the very least, make them very sore and need a lot of pain meds and rest to recover….too much of a good thing for an old, sick or disabled dog is apparently not so good after all….i KNEW i had that rule for a reason!

so here is the plan…ALL off site dog walks are currently on hold. only myself, the staff, or laura and maggie can walk any of the dogs (this is because i have only had a chance to talk with these folks at length on the limitations of each individual dogs exercise allowence.)

i will sometime in the next week, design a very specific and individual dog walking plan for each dog allowed to go for walks. and i will connect with anyone who actually walks them to make sure we all are clear.

there will be no new dog walkers allowed into the dog walking program…only the current people (after i have the care plans done and they meet with me to go over them) who now walk dogs will be able to continue. any new volunteers who ask to do dog walks will be told that our dog walking program is very specific and limited due to their health issues and currently full….but hey…we could use help with poop scooping and laundry..the dogs are more than happy to hang out with folks doing that too!!!

not everyone reads the blog…so please, all volunteers make sure you pass this on to anyone who needs to know and if you see anyone going for a walk with anyone except myself, the staff or laura and maggie..please let them know all dog walks temporarily are on hold until i get each dog’s individual walking program written out.
thx

squeakers has had a REALLY tough time of it…we agreed to take him a few weeks back as a last resort. apparently the squeaky wheel is calling the shots….both he and his best friend in the world are coming to saints…..self actualizing cats…good thing their rescuer human can hear them.

Hi Carol
> Well it appears I have a big problem regarding Squeaky and
> Hymi…why do things have to get so darn complicated???
> Hymi went to her new home the other day, and today I’m having to
> pick her up and return to my vet’s office as she has basically
> “shut down”. She has been in hiding, has not eaten, drank
> or pooped since she arrived. She is completely depressed.
> Squeaky is still at the vets, he now is not eating the same, not
> sleeping as he was and spends his day at the kennel door
> meowing. God it’s heartbreaking. Carol they have
> been together for about 15 years, and I don’t know if Hymi is
> going to survive the loss of Squeaky. We should know today
> what happens as we are going to put them back together to see if
> they come around. I will let you know what happens.

Hey Carol
I just got in from the vets. Well all I can say is you should change their names to Claire and Edwin…the reunion can only be described by this song, perhaps you know it by Kathy Mattea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHzMGM9qyZw

It was heartwarming and incredible to see. Their problem was missing each other. As soon as they had said their hello’s we put food in the kennel and they both ate immediately like there was no tomorrow.

Today there are angels at work and you are one…thank you for offering to take them both.

Just to let you know, she had dental surgery beginning of last week and the extraction sites did look a little inflamed so my vet is giving her a shot of Convenia.

I confirm with the airlines on Sunday as the cargo company has to get permission to ship two cats in the same crate, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem. The flight info is still the same.

If you let me know your vet office I will have all their records forwarded on so you can see what we’ve done to date. I will also send on their microchip info to you with a letter transferring guardianship.

Best

i so love stories where lowly, helpless, sick, little cats make the whole god darn world jump thru hoops to keep them happy.

welcome to saints squeaky and hymie..you got the whole idea down pat…looking forward to meeting you both on monday, don’t worry too much on the plane ride, you will have a deluxe suite together, forever, upon your arrival.