It’s a good thing I injected myself with dog penicillin this morning, I tell Donna, it will help with the tuberculosis.
The great thing about Donna is that she pays absolutely no attention to my odd bouts of rampant hypochondria. A few weeks back when we were returning The Potato to the lakeside she took a corner too fast and I, riding in the bed of the truck with The Potato, was thrown hard into a bar in back of the cab. For hours afterwards I bitched about my shoulder. Despite my repeated bitching that it was sprained, she never acknowledged what I was saying. She just talked about The Potato, the clinic, the fifteen million other projects she was working on. It wasn’t sprained, incidentally - just an ugly bruise.
I don’t know if she’s amazingly single minded, doesn’t listen, or just has an awful lot of experience with volunteers who turn into crazy hypochondriacs when confronted with tropical third world countries with over-the-counter antibiotics.
We are on a Spud Hunt. It’s Semana Santa, the holy week, the biggest vacation week of the year for Nicas and we are driving down a very crowded lakeside trying to find The Potato. Not to bring him back in, just to check on him, give him some food and water and some meds I’ve secreted in hot dogs.
For the record I did not inject myself with dog penicillin - I pricked myself with the needle while drawing up the drug for a feral cat neuter Toni and Nick were doing. And I don’t have tuberculosis. We just had this bizarre detour that involved taking a guy who just drank Clorox to the hospital along with a cop who came along for the ride. It was one of those incredibly odd only-in-the-life-of-Donna things - you go looking for a dog and the cops flag you down to drive a guy to the hospital. At the hospital they had a big poster about tuberculosis thus convincing myself that the chest cold I cannot shake is actually tuberculosis and not the result of insomnia issues, an iffy diet, a refusal to take care of myself - let myself rest and get over it.
Donna is talking about the who guy who drank Clorox. How the hell do you do that by accident? She asks me. As a woman who just injected myself with dog penicillin even I don’t have irony enough to make a snarky comment about a guy drinking Clorox. Who turned out to be fine, incidentally. While we were driving to the hospital Clorox Guy was making calls from his cell phone.
We go by the restaurant where the night caretaker occasionally feeds The Potato. Lo and behold, there he is, lying under a tree. And surprisingly he looks great. Or if not great at least better. Great is a long ways off for The Potato. But his face is fuzzy, as are his paws - he’s actually growing fur. And the crust is starting to come off of him. His feet seem less swollen. All the drugs we pumped into him during his brief clinic stay as well as the antibiotic laced hot dogs we’ve given to the night caretaker seem to be doing something.
The fur on his face to me, though, is the real story. I have never been so glad to see peach fuzz in my life. Now along with the four forlorn hairs sticking up off his shoulder he has the beginnings of actual fur - fur.
There is a little girl and boy sitting on the outbuilding next to The Potato’s tree. The little girl - maybe about seven - is staring at me. When I look up at her she doesn’t look away. She meets my eye, smiles shyly. While we hand The Potato his medicated meat and fill his food bowl she continues to look at me.
The owner of the restaurant comes over. My daughter - he tells Donna - has been feeding him. She makes sure he has food. You should give her a little reward.
The little girl looks away.
Donna goes back to her car for something and I go talk to her. Como se llama? I ask her. Daniella, she tells me. Something about her strikes me. Yes, she’s a beautiful little kid but her humanity, her compassion kills me. No one wants anything to do with this ugly scaly thing and she’s been tending to him. Sometimes, like with Corissa, there is amazing courage in compassion. This is not only a sarna dog but the grossest of the sarna dogs, a pariah. And little Daniella is not afraid or repulsed.
Me llamo Finn, I tell her. Feen, she says. Si, Finn. Mucho gusto Danielle. The man introduces the little boy, Luis, and himself. Donna comes back. You should grow up to be a veterinarian, she tells Daniella. We have a veterinarian coming to our clinic. You come and watch for a day, help out.
Luis could be a veterinarian too, his father insists. Yes, Donna agrees. But the real story here is this beautiful, compassionate little girl.
The Potato finishes his food and toddles off. Donna goes to get more to leave with Daniella. Only half tonight, she tells her. We’ll be back in the morning with more medicine for him. Daniella listens to Donna so seriously, nodding her head.
We go to leave and I come back for my water bottle - I left it there. As I’m coming back I see Daniella carefully carrying a bucket of water over to the food tray we left for The Potato. She empties out the old water, refills it with the new water.
Mucho gusto, Daniella, I say again as I leave. Her father smiles, no, no no, mucho gusto por todos. Si, por todos, I say. But Daniella is smiling shyly at the ground, proud to have been noticed, picked out as special by Donna and I.
What a good kid.
Poltergeist Part II - The Real Bad Ass.
I didn’t even hear the trap hit last night. I set it, went to bed. When I get up in the morning I half remember and go to check it. It seems to have moved a few feet from the alcove but is still covered. I lift up the towel and immediately a paw swipes at me, hisses, growls.
We got a feisty one.
It’s a gray and white cat, rangy, male, with some old fight wounds. In some spots the fur on it’s face is rubbed off - probably the result of trying to get out of the cage. Apparently in it's fight to get out of the trap it actually managed to move the whole 15 lb contraption. And it is pissed, furious in a way the other cat wasn’t. When I try to move the cage it makes frenetic attempts to get at my hand, slams it’s head into the wire walls, frantic to get out. It looks like a housecat, it’s the same species as anyone’s housecat but this thing is a wild animal, cornered and desperate.
There is no way I’m getting this one in a cab. Someone will get bitten. Or several people will with me being first in line.
I call Toni and Nick. Got another one. Not going to be able to get this one in a cab or carry it the six blocks to the clinic. They agree to come over with their bicycles and we’ll try to figure something out. Nick balances it on his crossbar and walks, pushing the bike. In the cage the cat cowers, eyes huge, ears pinned.
They do a sedative shot through the cage but this one doesn’t want to go down. Too much adrenaline. Toni hits it again. A few minutes later it gets wobbly, pliant. They put it on gas.
Five minutes of surgery and kitty is ready to go. Toni carefully puts antibiotic cream on some of the fight wounds, treating it as respectfully as if it was an owned cat. We put it back in the cage, take it to an upper level kennel outside, drape the door with a sheet for shade and privacy and let it recover.
When I go back that night it is awake, wide eyed, furious at the universe. Donna comes and picks me up and we drive it back to my house, re-release it in the courtyard. It’s still drunk from the drugs and it staggers around the garden, cowers behind some trees. My roommate and his friends come in. I point it out. Don’t try to pat the kitty, I tell them. It’s the devil. When it sobers up it will find it’s way back up to the rooftops.
A few hours later I hear a few muffled thumps coming from the roof. Satan Kitty has found it’s way back up there again. Over the next few days we catch glimpses of some new roof cats in the kitchen - an a long haired black one, an eerie eyed grey cat lurking on the stairwell. Neither the rough older one we did or the original black and white poltergeist is seen again. Apparently we’ve been crossed off their list of places to go through the garbage and other ones are moving in to claim the territory.
Time to bust out the trap again.
Some Updates
My friend Kristen arrived with a new cat trap and a box full of toys and leashes. All the clinic dogs now look stylin’. Quixote and Freda immediately fell upon the tug of war toy and had a blast.
Quixote left this morning for his new home outside of Rivas with a Peace Corps volunteer. Apparently he loves his new people and was psyched to begin life as an actual house dog. Godspeed, Quixote. We left the toy for Frida but I’m sure someone there will have a coke bottle to throw for him. He was a goofy bastard but I’ll miss him.
Porsha continues to improve in leaps and bounds, physically. She never had any attitude issues - she’s heartbreakingly submissive with the other dogs and loves people. But to date she’s put on ten pounds and looks almost like a normal dog, give or take some scarring and a missing eye. Dr. Tom will be here this week to spay her and look at the eye, see if we can at least sew it shut or something. She will always have some scars - a cord grew into her neck at some point in her earlier life and she’ll wear that scar for life - but she’s about three weeks away from being a normal dog. A normal homeless dog. Have I mentioned enough that we can ship dogs?
Right before I left on my little jaunt I gave her and Freda baths. Someone in the States really needs to adopt Porsha if for no other reason than she can teach a class for American dogs on How To Handle A Bath With Dignity. The whole time I was scrub-brushing off her dead skin she stood stock still, occasionally wagging her little half tail. No theatrics, no squirming, no fussing.
Freda is lonely without Quixote but doing well, putting on weight. She’s become quite attached to the toy Kristen brought and carries it around with her trying to get one of us to play tug of war with her. Because of her baby she can’t really be treated so she’s lookin’ a little bald but good. Think Bruce Willis as a lactating, sarna infested street dog.
The good news is that the puppy now has it’s eyes open and is walking. The bad news is that it’s some sort of freakish mutant puppy that doubles in size every day. It is ginormous. Huge. Still much beloved, still adorable but porky.
Spud-hunting has become a regular occurrence. Despite her eighteen million other obligations Donna goes out every morning looking for him. While she has not seen him, Daniella has and continues to feed him. Last week when my friend Kristen first arrived we spotted him out by the lakeside, hanging out with a female dog with some sort of back injury. I was able to pat The Potato but couldn’t get near his girlfriend. I was also able to confirm that he is continuing to grow some fur.
I’ll be in El Salvador avoiding potential future deportation when the vet is here but the plan is to bring The Potato in briefly so Dr. Tom can get a look at him and possibly neuter him if he’s well enough. I really doubt the world needs any scaly little Potato Babies. Hopefully he’ll also be able to get a look at the Esso Station dog.
In preparation for the vet’s arrival cat trapping is going into high gear. Additionally signs are posted all over Granada advertising the free sterilization clinic.
Dr. Tom also does a lot with horses so they’ll be a one day clinic for the working horses while he’s here. Apparently a farrier from the states will be in that day as well. So they’ll float teeth, deal with some of the parasites and work on their feet. It’s a tough, tough life for the working horses here. Last year I was here for one of the horse clinics and it was really interesting even if I am crap-terrified of dealing with horses.
There’s a tentative plan for me to have breakfast with a woman in San Salvador during my jaunt up there to do a little recon mission. Apparently she’s interested in doing something similar in the city and wants to talk about logistics. I am probably the least qualified person to do this except a) I’ll be in El Salvador and b) I’m willing to do it. But it’s an exciting idea. Maybe sometime in the future bring up a bunch of cat traps and some equipment and do a blitz there.
Onwards and upwards. And all that crap.
**A few notes on this blog entry - part of it was started prior to me going out of town - the Spudhunt and trapping the second feral occured days before I left. The rest of it I just wrote. I am only in Granada for a few days before taking off again for five more days. Then home to Granada for the forseeable future. But there's a couple more entries I'm working on about stuff that happened either directly before I left or while I was gone or in the few days since I've been back. We saw The Potato again today and he's still getting better. So the next week will be more choppy posting before I get back to the regularly scheduled program.
And the pic at top is for the spay/neuter clinic being held the next few days while Dr. Tom is here. I won't be here for most of it but since I was last here they've trained better surgery assistants than I could ever be. When I was here last year I was the only game in town, surgery assistant wise. Now they've got a bunch of other folks trained and a great system. It's a little sad to be on the sidelines for it but I'm so glad that they're rockin' it out. And I'm better at the mangy-street-dog-and-daily-clinic-and-meds thing anyway seeing as most of my vet tech experience involved killing things.
Horse picture is from my last trip here.
And I am over my chest cold. Or tuberculosis. Or whatever it was.***
No comments:
Post a Comment