The Pregnant Street Dog Saga Begins

The dog had been enormously pregnant for as long as anyone could remember. A small, long haired brown dog with floppy ears - maybe some spaniel parentage - it lurked around Parque Central and Calle La Calzadera, eating trash, trying to beg off people eating on the outdoor patios. It was skittish, everyone knew about it and it was one of the big goals when I got here - bring the pregnant dog in.

I failed miserably twice - got close and then had her take off. Every night we couldn’t get her was another night for her to die giving birth under a car.

Tuesday I am working with Carissa, a short term volunteer, a college girl who only has a week. We’re dispensing sarna meds in hot dogs to the market dogs, much to the amusement of the locals who have no idea what the fuck is going on, only they we keep buying hot dogs for scaly monsters.


Two other market dogs we're medicating but cannot bring in.

We stop in an area with benches to rest and lo and behold, there she is, hugely pregnant and rooting through the trash. And me with only a quarter of a hot dog left. I lure her over but don’t try to slip lead her. I throw some cordovas at Carissa. Please, I'll sit with her you go get meat. Meat. I don’t care what, any. Just get us enough meat that I can bribe her once I get a lead on her. She’s probably going to go batshit when I get the lead on her and raw meat might keep her quieter. Carissa takes off into the maze that is Granada’s Mercado Central in search of raw meat. I sit with the dog. For a while she stays with me, then she wanders off. I follow her and lose her around a corner, under one stall in the midst of a billion. Fuck.

Poor Carissa is waiting where she left me, 2 lbs of beef in her hand.

For the rest of the day it’s hide and seek. We see her, get close, and then she’s off again, around a corner, under a bench, gone.

I am killing poor Carissa who is not used to walking for hours in this heat, through the fragrance of the meat market, stuck with the woman who always forgets to eat. She’s exhausted and her blood sugar is about to give out. The girl is a serious trooper but this is a little much to ask on day one from her. Particularly as we're also doing clinic duty on the dogs in care twice a day.

We decide to call it a day. Right as we’re walking towards a café, there’s Preggers. She appears out of nowhere from around a corner. We take off in her direction. I throw some beef at her. She comes over. I give her more, she relaxes and eats. I slip the lead over her head. She tenses for a second. More beef. She relaxes. Slowly we lead her through the market, towards the street.

Occasionally one of the vendors will ask us what we’re doing. Carissa, who speaks Spanish, explains. Instead of the usual amusement I expect everyone’s reaction is the same: Oh good, how nice, God bless you.

She is no one’s dog, no one feeds her or calls her theirs but they don’t want to see her die in childbirth in front of them.

Carissa runs recon as I lead the dog through the market.

By some miracle of shitty timing we find the only two blocks in Granada with no goddamn cabs on them. The dog is being incredibly good and sweet but I can tell she’s exhausted. Carissa manages to flag down a cab. In a miracle of a different kind the driver agrees to take her. No cab will take dogs. None. I'm going to pay out the ass for this kindness but I don't care.

I am trying to haul her enormously pregnant ass into the back of the cab when a horse driver passing stops, gets down, pushes me aside and lifts her into the cab. The stars are aligning for this dog. No one will help with the street dogs - no one.

Karen and Paul, an expatriate couple who have noticed her and tried several times to get her have volunteered their back house for her. We move her in. She has a bag sticking out of her ass - something she ate and can’t pass. I give her some mineral oil.

The next day I take a much deserved day off. She apparently is acting distressed and Donna and Heidi, another woman, take her to the vet in Managua. Very constipated, though she passed the bag, full of parasites but mostly okay. A goddamn miracle considering how she’s been living. She could go at any second , the vet tells them. Any time now.