Spanish Street Dogs; the other Waifs and Strays.

Sophie had her spay op on Tuesday and came through it very well. She is the smallest dog in the housepack and Summer and I were a bit concerned about her but as it turns out our worries were groundless. Now, two days later, she is back to her normal stroppy self.

She had been to the vets a few times before for routine vaccinations and microchipping and normally enters the surgery like an old hand; Tuesday however was different; we had a good car trip down to Santa Fe where our vet has his surgery she was standing on her back legs most of the way, gazing out of the windows and remonstrating with anything or anyone she happened to see and was as happy as a lark until I parked up. What a change... she started shaking and trembling, all bravado gone. She flatly refused to get out of the car and I had to lift her out. She immediately tried to bury herself in my jacket and i realised then just how scared she really was. I got back into the car and sat her on my lap but she buried herself in my jacket again. We sat outside the surgery for a full quarter of an hour before she finally stopped trembling and poked her head out from the inside of my jacket. Quite what she expected to see I don't know... but having frightened herself so much she was in desperate need of a pee and clearly now wanted out of the car.

I put her lead on and led her off away from the surgery to a spot a few yards away which most visiting dogs tend to christed before or after visiting the vet. Sophie then took a long pee and when she had finished I took her for a walk around the block so as to approach the surgery from a different angle. This time she was ok and danced into the surgery like Muhammed Ali ready to take on all-comers. The vet was waiting for us, he had seen me sitting in the car with her, so I explained what had happened. Needless to say he had seen it all before.

He took Sophie from me and checked her over then said that she seemed calm enough so the op could go ahead. He suggested I collect her at around 5pm by which time she would be mostly out of the clutches of the anaesthetic. I watched as he carried her off to the little op theatre and then I left.

It was a long day... I arrived back at the vets just before 5pm. Sophie it seemed had been puking on and off for a couple of hours and was curled up on a towel in one of the recovery crates. She didnt want to come out and was obviously feeling quite poorly. She puked again as I went to retrieve her from the crate so I cleaned her mouth, then slipped her lead on and took her outside into the fresh air. That seemed to be what she wanted; well, that and a pee, so once again we went over to the little area where she did what was needed. I took her around the block again and she seemed happy enough, so I put her into the car and went back inside to settle up.

The trip home was uneventful, so I took Sophie for another little walk just to get rid of any remaining after anaesthetic symptoms. When I finally took her back into the house, we were met as always by the rest of the pack; she immediately went on the defensive and barked and bullied her way inside then, having found her normal place on the chair she curled up and went to sleep. Later that evening at bedtime I gave her half a painkiller tablet (doggy ' brufen). She installed herself next to me and again went to sleep. She didn't budge from her spot until morning. Since then she has been getting back to normal; she has decided that my lap is her choice of chilling out place. I'm happy to report that she is more or less back to normal, she is staying away from the antics of the rest of the pack; its as if she knows that the line of neat stitches down her tummy needs protection. These stitches come out on the 1st December.

So thats it...all the girls are now spayed and Fred's been snipped. Starting next month we will get Suzy and Pippa and Fred started on their routine vaccinations and microchips, steps towards getting their passports issued. Once that's out of the way it will be time for the rst of the gang to get their shots renewed. All this on top of the normal food bills... it ain't cheap... thanks again to the Little Pod Foundation for footing the vets bill for Suzy and Pippa's ops.

On Monday night my internet connection died; well it didnt so much die as was brutally murdered... Sophie during one of her evening chasing sessions with the rest of the pack, jumped up onto the desk where my computer station is situated and pushed over a freshly brewed mug of coffee all over the router. The router didnt react well... neither did the keyboard of Summer's computer work station, it too was flooded.

I phoned Telefonica to request a new router they told me that I would be off line 'til Wednesday when a techie would come to the house to instal a new router. OK; I can live with that, no great problem. Summers keyboard was also completely trashed soo I had to buy a new one.

In a normal household having a tradesman visit isn't too much of a problem; when the house has been converted to a two bedroomed kennel however its a different matter! The Telefonica guy that looks after our area is scared of dogs... bit of a problem then in that we have 9 of the buggers and nowhere to put them when anyone calls.

Sure enough yesterday at around 5pm Telefonica man arrives amidst 'mucho ruido' from the pack... barking loudly they are enough to ward off any unwelcome visitors. I poked my head out of the living room window and asked him to hang on whilst I sorted out the dogs. The two blackies Spike and Scruffy I confined to their crate, Sophie and Pippa (Sophies Mum) into another crate, Sox, Suzy and Fred bundled into the bathroom and Izzy and Leo shut up in the royal Quarters (our bedroom). Out of sight they might be but definitely not out of earshot... Spike and Scruffy barking and shouting, likewise Pippa and Sophie, wolf like-howls from Izzy and Leo upstairs and somewhat noise suppressed protests from the bathroom gang!

Telefonica man comments on the number of dogs and the noise level and I let him know that they all are rescues or former abandonados at which point he becomes a bit more understanding. Anyway he checked out our old router and its power supply and confirmed that both were U/S so he fitted a new one did the config thing and then went off, happy I think to be clear of the kennel!

guess that'a about all for now will leave you with a pic that I found 'out there'  not one of our dogs and a bit cutesy but ...

bye for now...

Been a while since the last post so here goes...

There's Always Room for One More

I see by his coat
he must be a stray,
the untidy look
gives him away.
He's lost his will
and is so thin
hasn't eaten, since
God knows when.
I know as I coax him
through the door,
There's always room for one more.

The other night
in the freezing rain,
That little female came again.
Matted and soaked
crying in need,
lost and alone
with babies to feed.
Her pleading eyes
I couldn't ignore,
There's always room for one more.

There's a new face
on the docks today,
hungry but clean.
to our dismay,
I stroked her head
Her body ripples
when she got up
I saw she was crippled
she started to go, but
fell on the floor.
There's always room for one more.

There's the poor doggy
standing in the rain,
I've tried to entice him
Time and again.
One ears lopsided
the other's been torn,
Blind in one eye
lost and forlorn.
He's coming now, so
I'll open the door.
There's always room for one more.

These stories are true,
As I've said before,
There's always room for one more.

11,  November.

Our village has but one shop, a liitle place that sells most of the stuff one is likely to need in the way of food and general domestic needs. Everyday we have a range of travelling shops roll through the village, the bread man (two of them!), the egg man, the fish man and two or three different fruit and veg people. Yesterday while I was out exercising the pack seniors, Izzy, Leo, Sox Suzy and Fred, the veg man called out to me; In his right hand he had a very small black and tan female puppy. She looked to be perhaps six or seven weeks old. He yammered away at machine-gun speed Andaluce which was completely lost on me but it was clear that he wanted me to take the puppy from him. Well with five dogs in tow and another four waiting in the house for their turn, I couldn't do anything there and then and in any case I had just returned from the Vets after arranging to have Sophie spayed. (She is pregnant by the way; I said that I would have problems monitoring her 24/7 for the two full weeks of her season).

More expense... 100€ to be split, by special arrangement into two instalments, to coincide with incoming pension payments.

I explained to the veg man in my best Spanglish, that I couldn't take on any more responsibilities... "No tengo espacio, no tengo dinero, no tengo asistencia, no tengo ayuda..."  At this point we were interrupted by a prospective customer so I turned away and continued with the walk. When we returned, the van had gone but sitting on a low wall was the puppy, looking very sorry for herself. Still unable to do anything about her, I cursed the veg man for abandoning a near helpless puppy, but it occurred to me that perhaps he hadn't abandoned her in the first place, but had maybe just been calling my attention to her presence at the roadside knowing that among the villagers we are known as the mad English couple that rescue abandonados.

Either way, I still had the rest of the pack to see to plus a whole raft of other time consuming tasks to attend to. The pup was still there sitting on the wall when I took the others out for their walks, but by the time I was able to return to check out this latest abandonado, she had disappeared. I would like to think that someone has taken her in, but I really don't know...

Some time ago when I was trying to win over the hearts and minds of Suzy and her siblings and her Mum, two of the regular interruptors were a pair of black Spaniels, obviously brothers. They used to turn up at the cave at feeding time and join in the fray. One of the Spaniels disappeared at about the same time as Suzy's mum and siblings, but the other one is still around some eight months later. He is in a sorry state... he's obviously getting enough to eat either by foraging or begging or via the actions of one or more villagers. He is very reclusive though, and like Suzy was at first, he won't come near when the rest of the house pack are around, prefering instead to follow some distance behind. Like all black Spaniels he is long coated, but his coat is matted and hanging in clumps, his back end is a total mess of matted fur and his ears too need some serious attention. The clumps and matting wont be brushed or teased out, they need cutting out. He could do with a visit to a vet and a grooming studio, but thats not going to happen unless and until he accepts human handling; he is a true street dog. Lovely dog though...

I get the impression that he would like to be friends with the pack but there is a degree of colour prejudice within the house pack... Izzy and Leo just hate black dogs; it's nothing new, they have always been that way, even back in England  the presence of a black dog would immediately put them on a war footing. Strange too that Leo is that way inclined because his coat is black over silver... Given that the house pack has two yappy snappy, very active black dogs among its number makes for some confrontational meetings. Izzy and Leo's way of coping has been to set up their own Royal quarters in our bedroom; the rest of the pack are  welcome to visit, but definitely not Spike and Scruffy. S & S just want to be friends but Izzy and Leo are having none of it; if the two blackies do stray upstairs they are instantly warned off.

Anyway... I guess that's it for the moment. Sophie goes to the vet on Tuesday morning for a termination and spay. More later....