Back to dogs.

Ember

when last we met, that i wasn't on some tear about my cell phone or my frustration with the fact that i've suddenly gotten old and still haven't done anything with my life, the pups were just learning to stand and walk, dragging their little tails on the floor for balance.  i meant to take piles of photos but of course i was pretty much too exhausted, what with all the energy that aging consumes. this is all i have:

Ember and Raleigh

Raleligh

Momdog Corabelle

perspective

socializing the puppies is on my agenda this week, so i've been taking them out on the lawn to meet the pack.  i've kept the interactions brief till now, partly because Corabelle gets very agitated when i take them and partly just to insure that each meeting is a positive one - getting them the heck outa there before max and ellie start to get jealous.  this was the first day i actually let one of them run around with us while the other stayed back with mom to keep her distracted.

Raleigh toddled along behind me, wagging his little tail, pausing as each of the pack came over to check him out.  pretty soon the rottencockers got bored and ran off but uber mom maggie was rapt.  she sniffed.  she licked the pup's head. nudged his belly with her nose.  then she lay down and used a curled paw to pull him toward her.  he obliged briefly before waddling away.  finally she dropped, belly up, legs spread, head back in an apparently irresistible invitation.  Raleigh climbed onto her neck, falling from side to side and struggling back.  he licked her mouth, bit her cheek.   eyes softly closed, she remained still.

i don't know if all mom dogs respond that way to random puppies.  i have my doubts, but maybe.  maggie's pups were adopted away back in June so perhaps her memories are fresh enough to influence her behavior toward these little ones.  but i think there's more to it than that.  i think that like people, dogs are individual and distinct.  some are born to run and play, to hunt or herd or protect. some are more people oriented and some just want to be with other dogs.  there are those born more needy and others, like our maggie, more nurturing. she was in a state of unmistakable bliss with a puppy flopping around, slobbering on her face.

when he got tired and refused to walk, i carried Raleigh back to the pen with Maggie close alongside, jumping up from time to time, touching noses with him. i understood she wanted him back.  from the depths of my heart, i understood.

Medicare looms

in my future.  oy.  i mean like this week, i officially become a crone.

that's not a bad thing, though from time to time when i'm surprised by my own reflection, it's a shocker.  man.  i look like i've taken a beating.  somehow, i'm never prepared for the reality.

so this is the big plateau.  the point in life where you look around and assess.
and i have to say, things haven't turned out like i expected.  i'm not a ballerina or a veterinarian.  i'm not happily married (or unhappily for that matter, thanks be to heaven).  i'm not zen.  i haven't achieved enlightenment or dedicated my life to a noble cause.  i've just muddled.  that feels disappointing.  but here's the thing...i have learned some stuff and it's mostly about values.  there's beauty in letting go of what i wanted, so that i can appreciate what i have.

i apparently will not change the world, save the wolves or the polar bears or democracy from some sad fate, no matter who's elected next.  what's playing out on the planet environmentally, economically and politically is an overwhelming drama that i can't fix.  i'm not indifferent or disconnected but even as i do the small things that i can to affect change, i'm not expecting that my answer is the only one or the most perfect choice or that any one other person has the combination of vision and power to correct our course.

Bill Gates recently sponsored a competition to find the next great innovation in toilet design.  that's kind of quirky, i thought.  but as i followed the story, i came to appreciate the implications.  you'd be surprised at the number of folks around the world working on the question of disposal and at the variety of their solutions. the innovations ranged from improved latrine systems to complicated sewage treatment models.  the big cash prize went to the solar powered electric toilet that cleans the water and composts waste.  perhaps the greatest thing about it is that if that design or some of the others can be made affordable, they could change things globally.  solve sanitation and health issues in disadvantaged countries as well as  right here at home, where we've yet to feel the full impact of a wide-spread, disastrous drought.

not any one person has the combination of vision and power to correct our global course.  there's no use dividing into tribes and warring against each other, passing the hot potato from hand to hand.  nobody wins when we're divided, wasting our energies on whose team will get the flag rather than on the real question, which is no longer how can we make life better but how can we sustain it, in the face of diminishing resources and crumbling economies, world wide.  we can't afford to waste any more time on the vanity of our own reflections.  what's called for is the letting go of ideologies for the sake of cooperation and mutual support around reasonable solutions to real life issues.  let's take care of all of us, not just some.

let's build a better toilet.

no cell phone...

it's been three full days without one and the experience has some things in common with going on retreat.  i'm not talking, texting and checking email through the day, though if you ask my awesome friends, they'd say i never do that, anyway.  i'm scolded, regularly and appropriately, for my response delays.

hermetic by nature, i also have a very high klutz quotient so verbal communication can get stressful.  it takes a lot of mental energy for me to make words come out of my mouth.  that's why i walk dogs.  they don't require a lot of talking.  that's why i write.  i can blurt all over the page and then take it back before anybody knows.

one time i got an owl stuck on my finger.  it's a long story but for my purposes here, i'll just say that first of all, i don't recommend it and secondly, that on the way to the hospital, bird on hand, i called the insurance company for permission to go to the ER.  that was 10 years ago and i could call them today and whoever answered the phone would ask, in a tone of voice i recognize from childhood, what is it this time?  they say to me, remember when you got the owl stuck on your finger?  like i could forget.  like, when are these people going to retire?

see?  right there's a call i sort of wish i'd never made...something i said that i'm wishing i never had...haunting me a decade later.

so it makes sense that i have a love/hate relationship with my cell phone.  the hate part plays out in the variety and frequency with which i regularly lose and destroy them.   i've slammed them in car doors, dropped and run over them and we all know they don't float.  i've found them in the freezer, the chicken shed and next to the melons at the grocery store.  i need a child-proof, inflatable phone on a stretchy cord.

or maybe i need a keeper.  someone to follow me around with my phone and my car keys and my glasses.  and my wallet.  but not my pen.

i never lose my pen.

awesome friends...

i got 'em.   not that i deserve them.

i'm reluctant to share something complimentary about myself.  you might think i'm gettin' the big head.  but i'm moved to do it because of what this says so eloquently about the gift of giving.

DogDays,

I'm happy to see you are sticking with the shelter .

I commented on you general glow at lunch last week .

It's still hard to pin point [ the glow ] , but it went deeper than  
your healthy tan .

There must be something that comes alive in all of us when we help  
others .

Some all healing alinement of  our very essence must happen that makes  
things right .

So right that even though everything  is not perfect it's still right .

Such is the power of helping all things great & small .

I think you clearly made the right choice .

Let your little light shine  let it shine  let it shine  let it  
shine  !!

S

Thank you, S, for this beautiful gift.

raleigh and ember

are the new puppies' names (courtesy of a friend and loyal reader).  his for sir walter, the adventurer and hers for the way she stays burrowed into the warmth of the bed.  cora lets me pick them up now and she lets me know when it's time to put them down.  she really is a good mom.

i've never had the chance to observe newborn pups, till now.  Maggie's were fat little doggies when i brought them home...swirling around my feet and biting my shoes as i tried to move, so i have to confess, i was expecting something different.  i guess i thought like, ok, 2-3 days and they'd be running around.  but they're 12 days old and this evening i saw raleigh learning to stand, in that wobbly way that babies do.  taking a single step and flopping onto his belly.  long periods of rest between one attempt and the next.  ember, meanwhile, was on her back in the bed.  when i disturbed her, she opened her eyes, closed them and started to squirm, putting her paws up to her mouth.  watching them, ember content to be a baby and her brother, wanting to grow up and get going right this red hot minute, i'm flooded with memories of the infants i've been blessed to know and how they've been distinguished and individual, from their earliest moments.  it's enchanting to see the way each new life arrives on earth as a particular spirit, with its own particular way of being.  i'm reminded, again, how various we are.  how wonderous in our variety.

                                                   **********

in other news, i went back to the shelter today, determined to walk dogs and keep my head down.  but of course, because i was determined, it didn't happen that way.  i wound up working with potential adopters.  showing dogs as much as walking them.  

Mr Banks got adopted by one of the volunteers (yay!!)and one of the puppies by the folks i'd been helping.  i'm in love with a new dog named Yogi.  He looks like a little 10 lb german shepherd and he is desperately good.  i hope someone wonderful chooses him before i have to take him home.

love stories, success stories, happy dogs...it was a satisfying day.  it felt good to be back.

the white hot burning question

of whether or not i can continue with my work at the shelter has sort of answered itself.

i haven't been able to go in, the past few days and won't be able to for several more, for personal reasons, and i think that's just as well.  it had been a tough week and i was worn out.  being away gives me the opportunity to miss it.  to feel the space its absence leaves in my life.  to think about what i've been doing the past few months.

from my first day there, i just rolled up my proverbial sleeves and got to work.  i didn't make a plan to go back each day.  i just went.  i think that's how i know it's right for me.  there was no deciding.  i don't keep track of my hours and i'm only capable of simple math but i know that it's been a big commitment.  i've given it a significant chunk of my time.  i refer to it as "going to work" because it's more than a diversion.  it's a reason for getting out of bed and a chance to feel good about doing so.

i hope some things change at the shelter...but i'll be going back, even if they don't.  once again i'm aware that i'm helping animals in need and that one of them is me.

i'm considering

and i'm deciding if i can continue my work at the shelter.

as the pace has picked up with more lookers, more adoptions, the system is faltering even as the volunteer numbers are slowly increasing and life for the dogs, in particular, is getting better.   i've been helping out, when things are really busy, showing animals, talking about their particular quirks and graces, taking them outside to spend time with prospective adoptors.  i'm not a particularly appealing hostess.  i'm usually dripping sweat and i always smell like some combination of wet dog and the stuff i shovel between walks.  but i know most of the dogs pretty well and i'm not shy about telling folks what they're getting into in terms of the adjustments and commitments they'll face.  i'll speak up if i don't think they're making a good choice for their particular circumstance.

a month ago, a woman came in to choose a dog.  she fell in love with a big, beautiful, energetic white hound.  she said she would be responsible for its care but that it would live with her elderly mother, as her companion.  you see the problem.  i was emphatically unsupportive and tried to steer her toward smaller, older, quieter choices but she would not be dissuaded.  yesterday the dog was rudely and unceremoniously returned...like it was her fault that she was too big, needed too much attention.

disturbing as that is, it's not the issue at hand.  i was just telling you about it to demonstrate what a hard-a i can be.  how incredibly effective.

what may drive me away is that i can't trust the system.  when i show animals i'm answering adoption questions and i'm repeating to folks what i've been told about how it works.  except recently it hasn't been working.  filling out an application on an animal is supposed to give you 48 hours to decide.  if you haven't paid the adoption fee or signed the contract within that time, you lose your place in line and if there's a second application, that one has 48 hours, and so on.  if it's a particularly appealing animal, there can be multiple apps in the back-up position.

so what's happening is that i'm showing animals and spending time with people and answering those questions and encouraging them, if they're serious but need to bring back a child or spouse or their household pet for approval, to go ahead and apply and take advantage of that 48 hour grace period.  and several times in the last couple weeks, those folks have returned to find that somebody's jumped the line and taken home the animal they'd expected was theirs.  there have been some grievously disappointed families...folks who returned within hours to cement their adoption or worse yet, went home and read about the adoption on line.

in each case, the explanation i was given couldn't hold water.  either some folks were being given priority or there's a sink hole in the process.  mistakes happen. i'm not one to expect perfection.  what's totally unacceptable is that when there was an opportunity to correct one of these errors, the decision was made to do nothing.  not even a delay, to assess the circumstances.

a friend of mine came in to see a particular kitten she'd looked at online and i happened to be there at the time so i got to introduce them.  it was love.  this particular little kitten was like an answered prayer for her.  she had no doubts about it but simply wanted to give her husband the courtesy of a phone call before she brought it home and he was mid-flight, somewhere over the atlantic. hers was the first application.  sad story short, as she was making the call and shopping for cat beds, someone else adopted the cat.  now here's the part that makes me angry.  the folks in charge knew what had happened before closing that evening and chose to do nothing about it.  they sent the cat, the next morning, to be spayed and declawed as per the agreement with the usurping owner.  good God.

my friend and i each made a separate appeal the next morning, for them to intervene before it was too late.  we were each denied with the boiler-plate line that there's nothing we can do because the other person had a signed contract.  the most they did was to call and ask if that happy shopper would give up her claim and nope.  she wouldn't.

i feel personally betrayed.  i feel personally responsible because i've unwittingly but repeatedly misrepresented the truth to people and caused them heartache and all i'm getting from the folks in charge is a shrugging apology.  oh, well.  so sorry but rules is rules.  except when they're not.

i don't know what to do.