Slowly I am awoken from my sleep, it is pitch black... It takes me a few seconds to register that the music I was enjoying in my dream is still playing... A few seconds later I realize that it actually isn't music at all but at least fifty some-odd dogs howling in this beautiful harmony. Then the tone deaf ones join in and it just becomes a whole lot of racket. I check my watch 0030. I do some quick math and think well at least I must have got a solid four and half, maybe even five hours of sleep. The dogs continue their joyful ruckus while I toss and turn for the next two hours. Last time I checked my watch it was 0215 all was silent and I must have finally fallen back into my dreams.
What the hell was that... I wake with a start, something is definitely in the room and it is not Lisa-Clare she is fast asleep on top of my stomach. Useless cat, I realize, and maybe even it is more that I hope it is Timothy. I remind myself how cute and adorable his fuzzy little grey face and that he isn't going to hurt me.
I think mice are rather nice,
Their tails are long, their faces small,
They haven't any chins at all.
Their ears are pink, their teeth are white,
They run about the house at night.
They nibble things they shouldn't touch,
And no one seems to like them much,
But, I think mice are rather nice.
-Rose Fyleman
I learned this poem back in the speech arts & drama days and recite it to myself as I still have it committed to memory. Mice don't carry diseases, right? In the next room I hear the other cat Mouzer... well I mean I tell myself it's the other cat but it could be the rats...
The other room is home to mass amounts of dog food. I locked Mouzer in there because it seems he did not feel the need to chase mice or rats at all when he could hide on one of chairs on this side of the casita. It is 0330 and the dogs have started up their song again.
I must have fallen back asleep because there is a cat at my face trying to get under the covers. Without having to look at my watch I know it is 0500. The coldest time of the day. The dogs are still sound asleep and this pesky cat is clawing at the sheet next to my face occasionally clawing me until I lift the blankets so she can curl up near my stomach and dig her claws in there. Now the big debate, do I just wake up or try to get thirty more minutes of sleep. I'm exhausted like.
My alarm is set for 0600 I don't know why. At 0530 the dogs are awake, yapping away loud as can be. I think to myself I really should "close" that window at night so they aren't so loud in the morning, like it would make a difference. I know it won't because it was closed my first couple nights here before I cleaned off the window sill. I also remind myself the reason the window is open is because the entire casita smells like a litter box despite my best efforts. In fact it is starting to stink less which worries me that I am just used to it and maybe I also smell like a litter box?
Grumbling that I should have got to bed earlier I climb out of my nice warm bed to put the kettle on. I have fruit already expertly butchered with an un-serrated dinner knife (my biggest personal feat to date butchering that pineapple with a dull dinner knife) and plain yogurt in the fridge but its so cold I put on some oatmeal. I managed to find some gluten free oats but it turns out more like gruel and I can't help thinking to myself, "please, sir, I want some more". Granted I found some Nesquik in the cupboards and it is rather delicious in the gruel with some banana.
It takes almost as long for the water to boil as for me to go through my morning routine but I'm so tired after brushing my teeth I crawl back into the warmth of my bed and listen to the dogs barking their cute little heads off. Eventually the kettle starts whistling and I tell Tompers today is going to be at least a two coffee kind of day as I rescue him from Lisa-Clare's claws. Every time I turn my back she is all over the poor guy. Like why doesn't she attack Timothy like she is intent on doing to poor defenceless Tompers.
The guys are feeding the dogs now and the barking becomes mixed with the "big-meanies" stealing food from the slow eaters in a mix of yelps and aggressive barks. Breaks my heart and I want to go out there and set them straight! How rude like, at lunch time I will rescue the poor picked on skinny ones from their crates and give them an extra bowl of food and some of the fancy treats I brought.
I dress myself in the same dirty pooh covered clothes and make my way down to the clinica for 0700. It is freezing out but I know shortly I'll be running around a mountain with dogs on a lead and it will be too warm. I try to remember not to touch my pants. They are disgusting like. The first time I washed them I couldn't believe the colour of the water I had soaked them in and after a liberal dousing of soap, thorough scrubbing, and a half dozen rinses the water coming off them was still muddy. This was two days after a washing and they looked worse than before. Poopy paw prints everywhere mixed with dust prints and these weird seed things. I don't even know how to begin to explain them, but they LOVE my lulu's.
On my way down I stop and say hi to the two dogs in their own little pen, the one's name is Toño. I give him his thyroid medication on the weekend in a hot dog. I didn't realize he could even walk cause the first time I threw the hot dog at him he didn't move to catch it and I had to retrieve it and try again. I throw like a girl but come on buddy! Apparently when he came to AWARE he couldn't walk and has lost thirty some odd pounds. Maybe it was sixty, don't quote me. His pen make is this wiggly little fella that took a few days before he was excited to see me in the mornings. Then I walk past the huskies, always taking an extra second for Rifka with the two different coloured eyes and the fluffiest coat in the world. Little did I know then on my second to last day me and two other people would have to hold her down and try and change her bandage on the stitches on her front paw while she tried to eat me. In fact after I helped the vet drug her for the stitches she turned on me, even tried to eat me when I tried to get her out for the epic fail of bandage changing. Maybe I just looked extra delicious that day in the sweater I borrowed from Xenii. Anyway, on the other side of their area is a pen full of girls, they are so adorable as they stare down at me from above and softly bark a little hello to me as I say Buenos Dias chicas on my way by. I believe this area was originally meant to be a quarantine area paid for by a donor, however over population turned it into two pens.
As I start up the hill to the clinic "huskers" (as I have named him, don't tell Xenii. They don't really like us volunteers renaming all the dogs), a beauty of a husky with one bad leg and something happened to her ear so its got this super cute fluffy fringe, see me first and starts the bark-a-thon at the clinic area that doesn't stop until I've said hello to everyone. When "the girls" were in the front pens they would literally be climbing on top of each other trying to lick my hand through the fence. By this time all the pups inside the clinica would be going mad like.
You sort of have to brace yourself for the smell when you open the door to the clinic, which the dogs have turned into their personal bathroom over night. In fact some of those dogs even come in from outside in the middle of the day and go on the floor. *face palm* All those dogs also create a fair amount of warmth so you get enveloped in this warm humid stench. There is literally pooh everywhere so if you aren't careful you step in it which causes your foot to slide and for a moment you think oh my god if I fall on this floor I'm going to be covered in excrement. Minnie & Mouse the little black puppies I call poopy-puppy-paws are literally covered in pooh, again, and I just bathed them yesterday. Espanta the psychopath is barking her head off and frothing at the mouth. She kicks her front paw when she barks and has splattered her poop literally all over her crate. I do a quick survey of who hasn't made a disaster of their crates, they will be rewarded by being the first ones I take out after their breakfast.
I realize Loki, the little toy poodle with fleas and the best disposition, has been standing with his filthy paws on my leg for want of attention and Mohawk, who originally I called "Lord of the Flies" but now call Piggly-Wiggly I'm sure you can imagine what that guy looks like, is rubbing his face all over my leg, wiggling his bum. I reach down and pet the little hair that he has, tell little Lokes how nice it is to be greeted like this in the morning. I always have a few treats in my back pocket and give them each a piece.
Then I begin the task of taking out the dogs, none of them seem to get along so its one at a time down to grassy area at the bottom of the hill 100 meters or so from the clinic to do their business. My first two weeks there we had twenty three dogs in the clinic, then I moved "the girls" and made a puppy pen out front freeing up a lot of the crates in the clinic. Some of the dogs got to go back to their original homes as they were only in the clinic with war wounds from fighting with other dogs which had healed. Most of these were inflicted by Espanta one night when their was a full moon, which is why she always sleeps in the clinica now. The day all the movement happenedI felt such a sense of accomplishment. We had virtually cleaned the clinic out and I did a thorough scrub down of all the now vacant crates and pens. I was so thrilled.
Then the puppies arrived, someone threw them in a dumpster. The poor little dears. Two girls and Pip-Squeak half the size of his sisters and all cute as puppies are. Little Pip makes the cutest sound when he barks, its more a squeak than a bark really. The next day as Liz was leaving there was the little princess tied with some sort of nylon string to one of the posts in the driveway. Liz pulled a 15 centimetre worm from her bum before carrying her down to the clinic. *vomit* The next day these people brought in a momma dog who was abandoned and had not managed to keep any of her pups alive. Then the dog fight with Rifka and bam just like that the clinica is full again. Makes one wonder what we would have done if the clinica had not just been emptied into outside pens.
It typically takes me until 0930 to get the clinica all sorted out with the help of a paid employee who cleans most of their crates while I am walking them. I make my way back up to the casita for the third possibly fourth coffee of the day and to wash the floor. Somehow it is a disaster everyday. By 1000 I'm back down by the clinica to take the front pens for their walk. The girls and I had our routine so I knew I only needed to put a couple of them on lead for the adventure down the mountain to their play pen where we would hang out and I would get slobbered all over and climbed on for fifteen minutes or so before making our way back up the mountain.
Being nearly lunch time which is when they let "The Killers" out as I fondly call the big meanies that will attack any dog that is out of its crate, and one day attacked poor Fiona & Chubs (I call them my ferocious beasts, they are cute as buttons with these crazy blue eyes and wouldn't hurt a fly, also the only dogs on the property that will sit for a treat) as we came up the hill to the driveway because I was not aware they were out at 3pm. Poor Fi got out of her collar and chased back down the trail we had just came up while I tried to rescue Chubs from the other two dogs yelling my head off and trying to stay between them (you know exactly what you aren't supposed to do). Poor Chubs was so distraught about where Fi might be and we ran around the mountain twice trying to find her. She had made her way back to the Clinica thankfully uninjured. I felt so bad I got them special treats and spent a few minutes making sure they were in fact okay. But anyway back to my day... I had to get my skinny little bullied pups fed. Greta became my favourite of all the dogs, and I'm trying my best to convince my Spanish teacher to adopt her. She has the most beautiful soul and eats her food slowly and wants pets and extra attention from me as well. I never have to put her on a lead to take her out and feed her she just comes out and sits and waits for me to put her bowl of food down. The meanies in her crate will dominate her when I return her so I bring a couple handfuls of food to distract them from her at least while returning her to their pen. Same story with the pup from pen 7 except she is a little ball of energy and I have to put her on a lead and carry her back to her pen because she refuses to walk back there on her own accord. I don't blame her, the big dogs in her crate are jerks.
After lunch I make my way back down to the clinica for "the changing of the guards" the meanies left to run free for an hour over lunch go back in their pen and the free-run clinica dogs are let out and I start all over again taking the dogs out only after lunch we go for a walk in the woods. The better behaved the dog the longer the walk. I highly doubt they ever realized this. I would run the big dogs to get out as much energy as possible and also to see how fast we could do the quarter mile route on the mountain. My record was just under three minutes.
At 1530 the paid employee would come to the clinica to feed the dogs and I'd be done for the day. Even though I had eaten lunch at 1200 I find myself famished as I put together dinner. By 1700 I'm either just sitting down to eat or half way through cooking when Xenii shows up for our evening chat, usually about all the birds and Alfred Hitchcock. I figured out just a couple days ago this is when "The Killers" get put away for the night. The sun is well setting by 1800 and its too dark to wash dishes outside so I climb into bed with a book and Tompers and read until 1900 at which time I turn out the lights and find myself in complete darkness. Sleep comes quickly, until the song starts in my dream... and it starts all over again.
