Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

THURSDAY MARCH 18 2004

NOON UPDATE:

Another plea to rescue a straydog

      A woman called last evening saying she'd been feeding a nursing mother dog who's been hanging around her neighborhood. The woman hadn't seen any puppies so she didn't know if the mother dog had her pups hidden somewhere or if they were all gone. The woman assumed we could drive right up to Dallas and pick up this starving mother and pups (if we could find them) and we would then all live happily ever after.

      I told her that Straydog was way over its limit of dogs right now and that adoptions were slow. I had to explain to her that 15,000 homeless dogs and cats are euthanized each and every day in this country. She had never realized the stray dog (and stray cat) situation was so dire. The tone in her voice became like the tone in my voice, and we both were silent for a moment, and I could tell she was crying. From what I had just told her she could see the probable fate of this nursing mother and her hidden litter. The woman finally said, "God bless you for all that you do," and she hung up.

I held my hands over my face for a while and thought about Pat

      In the last conversation I had with Pat on the morning of May 31, 2003, less than two hours before she suffered her first aneurysm, she told me she wanted to stop doing rescue work because she was having to turn down so many dogs and we were having to spend more and more money all the time as we continued to grow and grow and grow, and it seemed we weren't getting anywhere and that there was not even a remote possibility of an end in sight.

      Pat had been feeling very bad as time was progressing because of having to spend most of every day responding to emails and writing thank-you letters to contributors, which she enjoyed doing and which she knew was absolutely necessary to be able to keep our ever-growing shelter afloat. But Pat told me she wanted to go back to doing the caregiving herself as she had done from the beginning starting back in 1992 through 1998. She wanted to once again spend all day every day outside with the dogs instead of having to sit most of every day in front of a computer trying to raise money to pay our helpers to take care of the dogs that she wanted to take care of.

      Pat told me on that last morning that she wanted Straydog to go back to being basically a sanctuary for the older, most probably unadoptable dogs. She was in a state of extreme frustration (as was I) due to our inability to make any headway to get ourselves out of our totally futile situation--our Straydog Fund constantly dwindling, and more and more new rescues constantly being added to our waiting list as more and more dog rescuers heard about Straydog and called and emailed and called and emailed, begging us to take the dog they had just rescued.

      Pat said that morning that henceforth she was going to say no to all requests to take in more dogs. I can remember saying to Pat, "You've said that before," and she said, "I mean it this time." She said she wanted us to spend the rest of our lives taking care of the dogs we already had, slowly adopting them out one by one to good homes and hopefully outliving the last of the remaining sanctuary dogs.

      If only we had started this mission when we were 20 years old rather than when we were 50. Maybe in those 30 years we could have won the war on unplanned dog (and cat) pregnancies. And if I had known before I started college what I know now about overpopulation, I would not have become a Spanish teacher; I would have become a veterinarian and would have dedicated my entire life to performing free spay and neuter surgeries on dogs and cats, and I would have dedicated my life to convincing people that we must control the dog and cat population through spay and neuter (conception control) rather than euthanasia.

I'll be at Straydog for the duration

      Please don't even think for a moment that I'm considering bailing out. I'm in this war on unplanned dog (and cat) pregnancies, providing descent lives to as many of its refugees as I can, for the duration.

Controlling conception of new puppies and kittens is the only answer

      We have to keep reminding ourselves of this and focus on it. The big effort must be focused on conception control.

FIVE P.M. UPDATE:

Puppies Holly and Grace have fun with water

      This morning Caregiver John pointed out to me that Holly had learned by biting to turn the hose valve from off to a drip in order to get a drink.

      Later we put a kiddie pool in their kennel, and Holly jumped right in to retrieve a ball. Grace stayed out of the water. It may take her a couple of days to get brave enough to jump in.

Teddy Bear gets his meds

      When we went in his kennel, Teddy was nowhere to be found. He knows when meds are coming and hides in his dog house inside his shelter, but with a little coaxing he came out and literally took his medicine from Juana.