I’ve been a bad blogger. Or at least a less active one. So many updates and all I can blame it on is that my camera sucks and I hate to post blogs with no pictures.
First of all, Godspeed Freda. After more than three months at the clinic Freda finally found a great home. She left last Monday to go live with a family that wanted a quiet, calm dog that was good with their toddler. She met them and was a champ with the kid, as she always is. We had a night of suspense - she did her ‘I don’t want to be any problem to anyone’ shy thing when they came to meet her and they decided to go look at some other dogs and maybe puppies.
The next day they called and asked when they could come get her. The whole family showed up and Freda, dressed in a new collar and leash walked out the clinic gates for the first time since before I got here. I know the family that took her and apparently she’s doing well as I knew she would be. Even still I miss her quietness, her intellegent, alert eyes, her sweetness.
And Minnow leaves to go back to the Corn Islands on Tuesday. Huger, hairier, and more of a hell raiser than before. It will be so quiet without her though it will be nice to know whatever flip flops I wear to work will remain intact.
On June 26th Porsha flies to the States. I might cry when she leaves. Even though I know I’ll probably see her again - she’ll be living an hour away from me - my cynical, fourteen-years-in-animal-shelters self might bust out a tear or two when the fat girl goes to the airport.
In theory this would have wiped out our population. Unthinkable. No clinic dogs?
Yes, we have the Corn Islands trip next week, a clinic this weekend and lots to do but no orphans? No resident patients?
Funny How Things Never Work Out Like That.
We got a call last week from the person watching Bohemian Paradise while Lucy was out of town. One of the dogs she feeds had shown up in horrible shape, lied down and couldn’t get back up. The guy, who was incredibly nice and runs Lucy’s other hotel in Costa Rica, carried the dog inside - it was literally a monsoon out and he was out in the rain. This dog looked like death, was soaking wet and was covered in fleas. If there is a god, bless him for that guy ignoring all of that and carrying him inside to safety.
When Donna and I got there we recognized the dog immediately - he’s been on the streets forever, usually over by the Parque. He, like Teddy, is a known entity. One of the restaurants fed him on a regular basis and but it closed a while back. For him to be ranging so far out of his usual territory indicates he was literally starving up there. None of us had seen him in a while and we were shocked by the condition he was in - bones over skin.
Literally. Nothing but.
Oh and he’s ancient. And potentially deaf as a stump.
I have to admit that I held off taking pictures of him or blogging on him for a while because, well, I was sure he wasn’t going to make it. He could barely stand, even to eat, he would fall down and need to be hauled back up, he spent all his time holed up in a kennel and he had more fleas on him than I have ever seen on an animal in my life. But he ate whatever we put in front of him. We treated the flea issue.
Nick and Toni named him Lobo.
Then they put him on antibiotics. And he took those and ate. And then one day I came to work and there he was, standing at the gate with Porsha and Minnow, wagging his tail and waiting for dinner. Instead of sitting in his kennel waiting to have food put in front of him and then picked up and carried out to the yard, he was motoring around on his own.
The old man is going to make it.
Today we had a clinic - over thirty animals sterilized, some sick animals looked at, a couple of dogs with cancer treated. We locked up the other resident dogs in an upstairs area but Lobo stayed in the clinic, snoozed between the surgery tables. At the end of the day they neutered him. Everyone was a little concerned - he’s so old, he’s still skinny. But there are a lot of venereal tumors in dogs here so neutering was necessary not only for the sake of doing it but also to make sure he wasn’t cancerous. Of all the dogs we did today, he came back up from the anesthesia the quickest. Within a half hour he was wandering around looking for food, seeing what was going on.
Despite his amazing ability to hang on, though, one thing is for certain: despite having lived his entire life on the streets Lobo can never be returned to them. He has no teeth. He is deaf. He is ancient. And from the state he was found in, he is no longer able to fend for himself out there. Even in a home it’s uncertain how much time he really has left. It’s almost impossible to age street dogs- they tend to age quickly from malnutrition and hard living. Their teeth get tore up pretty young from eating whatever they can. But he definitely is old.
Unlike most lifetime street dogs he is friendly, he likes clinic life, he’s pretty happy where he is. He doesn’t seem to want to go back out. Unfortunately finding a placement for him is highly unlikely. At Donna’s other school, Quinto Chavallos, they have a number of animals that are unadoptable for one reason or another but good with the kids and live there. It’s a cool place - sort of a peaceable kingdom with kids, dogs, cats, all hanging out together. In all likelihood Lobo will, once recovered, live out his days at Quinto Chavallos. 
But Wait, There’s More.
A few days later Nick and Toni have to go to Managua for Peace Corps stuff. As they walk by a landfill a skinny little kitten runs out and starts mewling at them. They pat it, walk off. It’s a sad little thing but they’re in Managua for a few days. What can you do? There’s food at the landfill. It’s a life.
And then the kitten starts following them. And then the kitten winds up in their hotel room for the night. The next day Nick hops on a bus back to Granada with the kitten in a box, drops it off at the clinic and hops another bus back to Managua to finish their Peace Corps stuff.
Now we have a kitten, too. And not a very Nicaraguan kitten, either - a sweet, friendly, sickly, tiny little kitten.
So now we have the pup from the barrio (see my last entry), Lobo, and the kitten.
But It’s Never Just That Easy.
On her way to the clinic today Donna finds another puppy - a sad little black, mange encrusted puppy, bigger than our barrio puppy but not much. Into the truck it goes. And of course it’s too young to be released. And it doesn’t belong to anybody, it’s just another street baby.
Thus entirely blowing the everyone-has-a-place-to-be theory. Lobo will go to Quinto Chavallos, si. Or at least it’s very likely. But as for the mange puppies and the kitten? We now have a nursery/nursing home. A bunch of sick babies and a batty, sweet, deaf old man who occasionally just sits down and randomly barks at nothing.
Welcome to Casa Lupita, newbies. Enjoy your stay - maybe not a five star resort but at least all your meals and meds are included. Once you get better, then we’ll figure out what the hell to do with you all.
****A note on funky timing and pictures: I actually started this blog entry days ago - Freda has been in her new home for more than a week by now, methinks. But a bunch of other stuff happened - the barrio trip, a very, very busy spay/neuter clinic, et al and this sat on my computer, half finished and forlorn. Thus half of it is last week, half is this week. Go figure. It wasn't confusing before, it's only confusing now because I mentioned it.
Pics: First: La Freda. Second: Lobo after a few days of food and meds. Third: The Managua Landfill kitten devours anything you put in front of it.
Last side note - and me without my camera. Sherman came to the spay/neuter clinic today. And he is the size of a small car with big ears and looks nothing - nothing - at all like the cute little puppy. He's still adorable, he's just in his gawky adolescent phase. I'll bring my camera to the spay/neuter clinic tomorrow but well, I missed getting his pic. You can really only neuter a dog once. ****
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