Rescue Journal

last thoughts

Alison  ·  Mar. 3, 2007

i have spent most of the evening trying to work on clarifying roles, responsibility, defining mandates and purposes for the existence of saints and i give up.this is not my role. my role is to provide quality of life, value, meaningful purpose and recognition of all of these things for the animals within our care. and i do that in part thru this blog when i tell their stories.

so here are my stories for today (ellie's saga will have to wait because the funny parts were about janice and me and the vet staff's venture into farm pig surgery and tonight is about the others)

old, crippled dex with his malignant and terminal cancer has spent most of the day today being a dog. he has played with his tennis ball and problem solved it's loss underneath the beds and counters by ensuring that we, his caregivers, retrieved them as needed. he has broken into the cookie bucket for the fourth time today and helped himself to as many cookies as he wanted, he has shoved his head between my knees for that moment of human warmth and contact whenever he felt the need. he has attempted to rip open the garbage and slept in comfort on his thick warm bed. today, dex in his illness and and old age, lived his day as he was meant to. dex is a lab and he doesn't attempt to define or analyze this, he just lives it every moment that he can.

petunia is perturbed by janice's continued dedication to her well being. janice told me point blank that tunie was cold and needed a bigger and thicker bed and hay just was not good enough. she needed straw, it is softer and more insulating and she needed lots of it. and janice said we were not coming back to saints without a bale. so we went and bought one. we came home and janice made tunie's bed the way a pig needed to have a bed. tunie was not impressed with janice's good intentions, every time janice has come to visit, she has cut tunie's hooves and today she started messing around with her bed. so tunie left. she went and stood in the donkeys stall and waited for janice to go away and bug some other long suffering pig. when the bed was done, i called tunie to come and see it. she said "no" but i kept calling her and offering her treats so she finally decided she might as well look. and she looked. she stood there and stared at her bed. i couldn't tell if she liked it or if she was mad. i actually think she was resigned to a long day of moving all that crap right back out of there. janice and i left to go and get ellie. when we got back, janice went flying in the barn to see if tunie had moved it all out again. as we passed spritely's stall, we saw several mouthfuls of straw had been carefully carried and set in there. when we looked in on our tunie she was buried deep down in a thick pile of straw and fast asleep, she told me to buzz off. and i know damn well that pig was pissed earlier and had started to move it all out of there but got tired after a few trips and needed a nap. once she hit that soft thick bed, she thought...ahhhh, not so bad. when i went into feed her tonight she didn't even bother to get out of bed, she just grumbled something about turning off the light on my way out. tunie, we are pretty lucky janice is looking out for you!

hannah banana has a job interview next week down in vancouver. a small exclusive hotel has contacted us about a possible adoption of hannah as the official hotel welcoming committee, they want a senior homeless dog so they can promote the adoption of senior animals. she will have her own bed behind the desk when she feels like being social and her own room for when she wants some peace and quiet. it is an interesting proposition and not one we have considered before. hannah might like being an ambassador for senior homeless dogs in such a nice and public place...we will look into the pro's and con's and see if it is the answer to hannah's dreams.

well another busy day is finished and another is coming up tomorrow, i guess i better get to bed.

Comments

Melanie

Not yet. Getting a litte snow today. But it sure is better then the -30s we had when we first moved. I am sure the weather in BC is much better. Do the local pounds call you if they are looking for a senior dog? I suppose now it has been awhile so there is no chance of a family looking for Dex. But I guess you never know.

Carol

well mel...dex wouldn't have made it to saints if you had not stopped to help him. i am still surprized that no one called the pound looking for him, he such a great dog. boggles my brain.
how is the weather back east? is it spring yet?

Melanie

AWWWW DEX! I am so happy that you are providing a wondeful, safe haven for him. You are giving Dex a chance at life that he would otherwise not have. I know that he is safe and happy. You give Dex a chance that no other person would give.....a chance at living. Not just living, but living where he is cared for and loved. You give Dex what I could not give him, land to run on, a pond to swim in, medical care. As hard as it was to send Dex to his forever home after only having him for a little over a week, I rest in the knowledge that he is not walking alone on the street, hungry and crippled.

He even has his humans trained to fetch a ball for him......haha. Thank you everyone at SAINTS for taking such good care of Dex! Thank you for all the hard work you all do!