Kudos to my amazing partner who SAVED THE DAY at the Humane Society of the North Bay. I dragged him there to investigate a power outage. Flicking the circuit breakers was not yielding a fix in our reception building, but as soon as we arrived, Shea figured out that there were GFCIs that the staff were unaware of, which he promptly reset. The phones, computers, and power were partially down in that building until he resolved it. It’s nice having someone who can be more of a geek than I am in situations like this. He possesses the patience, talent, and curiosity to tackle a wide range of life challenges, making it a real treat to see how much he can accomplish through DIY projects.
I know we can’t all take in every animal that is brought to us at the shelter, but in an ideal world we’d have a cadre of volunteers to follow up with those whose intake we had to deny for one reason or another, which is usually simply “space.” Of course, my fellow volunteer board members and I wish we had enough people to foster every animal, but barring that, I asked the staff several months ago to start documenting the “denied intakes.” I know it’s more work, but the data has been very useful to see, as usually we would only get reports of the animals we were able to take in. I periodically review the ones that we had to deny and will sometimes email the person who inquired to make sure that the resources we gave them were helpful. More times than not, it was insufficient. I then sometimes start to worry about what the disposition of the animals will be. Well, today was another success story! I found out that two pomchi (Pomeranian-Chihuahua) puppies needed to be rehomed because of a severe allergy in the family, and that they had originally come from an unhoused woman who was unable to take care of them. I always maintain that some unhoused people are fantastic pet parents, but newborn puppies have very special vaccination needs and costs, of course. The people who brought the puppies were wonderful and so grateful that Shea and I would take them at least for now, and we were all grateful that they were Parvo negative, as that can be deadly to puppies. With the herculean effort of the staff at HSNB and some of the board and other volunteers, we were able to process these gorgeous puppies, and at the last minute, one of our regular rescue partners, Underdog, which does nothing but fostering, came through! That was helpful because Shea and I already have 5 dogs at home, including three fosters, which includes a sort of high-maintenance senior right now. However, my heart panged when I heard that they were Pomchi’s because of the relationship I had with my own Pomchi Timber for so many years. That’s an incredible story in and of itself. Shea was so sweet with these babies in their papoose and would have gladly brought them home with us, but fortunately we had another volunteer step up.
Shea and I got up at 5am, although I woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep. We took 3 kittens and 7 dogs, including two of our fosters, to get spayed and neutered at ASS o’clock. In case you’re counting and don’t see enough crates, two of the kittens were in a crate together! I’m glad Shea had the wherewithal to take these pictures while we loaded them in the car on the way back, although this does NOT capture three other dogs that we had on leash/seatbelts, including two fosters and a recent foster, Cookie, who I’m holding in one picture. To try to keep the animals calm, we sang xmas carols, but they were drugged up on the way back, so it probably didn’t help much. It’s exciting to think that all of these animals are now immediately available to be adopted, as this step is mandatory. Some of these animals already have applications in for permanent placement, which is exciting. Like all shelters, I imagine, HSNB is regularly looking for volunteers to bring animals to clinics to get them desexed (yes, that’s a word). I’m so grateful to so many people who have done this as I’ve been able to do a handful of times.
Today, my dad would have been 86. His birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving. He died at 50 due to tobacco-related illness, which decreased his quality of life for years before death, and certainly his health. Statistically, I keep telling everyone he could have still been alive and well at this age, but for Camel’s cigarettes that he was handed as a kid for free outside of a package while growing up in Oahu. The addiction was encouraged in society, and certainly when he himself joined the military. After his quintuple bypass at age 48, it only took him one month to beg my mom to buy him cigarettes that he was too weak to go to the store to purchase for himself. She later told me that she regretfully acquiesced because he was incessant. In my tobacco activism, I really grit my teeth when tobacco retailers (poison-pushing peddlers) complain that if we limit the amount of addictive product that they sell to their community, we are “hurting their retirement.” WHAT ABOUT MY DAD’S RETIREMENT? Do you think dying at 50 is what he planned for, and his mother before him, who died at the same age from her own smoking? I’m not talking about people who died in the 19th century here. This is in the latter half of the 20th century! To say nothing of my cousin Ivan Benenati, who died THIS millennium from osteosarcoma from his smoking when he was only 35!!! EIGHT MILLION people die from tobacco-related illness every year. It is THE MOST PREVENTABLE cause of death, and yet it’s still okay to have product placement in nearly every movie, no matter what the mise-en-scene — EVEN SCIENCE FICTION! How does this continue to be normalized!?!
Today I noticed that I needed to help my foster Jackson. I tried to dig between his toes to see why he was not using one of his front legs as much. I thought maybe he slept on it wrong or had been rough-housing with one of the other dogs, but it persisted throughout the day. I picked out some extra hair and some old burs from under his foot, but I could not find anything new that should have been causing him pain. I saw what looked like a little red spot or scar on the top of one of his toes, but I thought to myself that surely he would not limp because of something on top. Well, after looking at it carefully, I saw a tiny beige splinter sticking straight up out of the top of the toe. I gently brushed over it with my finger. He squirmed, so it was obviously the source of pain. Without moving him, I asked Shea to bring me tweezers. I quickly and forcibly pulled it out. It was a foxtail of some kind and much deeper and longer than I imagined. He let out a loud but short yelp. Blood and pus emanated as it had become infected and swollen, but he almost immediately licked it and lay down to sleep on my lap because he was so relieved. The poor sweetheart hid the pain so well. I’m so glad I was able to feel and see what was causing it, because I would have taken him to the vet if it didn’t get better, of course, but I’m so glad to be able to treat him myself. I’ll also apply some antibiotic cream so it heals faster.
Fosters Cookie, Perry, Jackson, Ella, and our Snoopy and Bonnie are in these photos, so we currently have six dogs at the house while we try to find homes for all of the fosters. We’ll probably get Jackson to Muttville soon, but it was hard for both him and Cookie to remain in the shelter, so I’m glad we were able to make room for them temporarily.
