Finishing Up

I got all of my hours in today!  It was a pretty relaxed day.  It rained torrentially in the morning, and Natalie initially didn’t want her dogs to be walked in the rain.  Considering it was supposed to rain all day, she told us to walk all of the dogs quickly, and then dry them off really well when they came back in to prevent them from getting sick.  We did this, and then spent most of the day cleaning and playing with the dogs indoors.  I spent most of the day holding a blue pit bull puppy that is very sick.  As a result of overbreeding, it is both deaf and blind, as well as having some significant mental retardation.  It has been very ill, and continues to drop in body temperature, her gums turning white, to the extent that they think they will lose her.  As soon as they hook her up with an IV, however, she perks right back up and is fine.  She continues to forget how to eat, though.  She will eat fine one day, then the next she will have literally no grasp of the concept how to eat the food they give her.  They try to train her with a bottle, but sometimes she can’t even comprehend how to swallow the milk formula they feed her.  Other days she bites the nipple off the end of the bottle, and whether or not she will remember how to use the bottle the next day is never entirely certain.  She walks with a strange gait, severely emaciated her legs and back mildly deformed, as she turns only in left-handed circles, walking on top of other dogs as she does.  She just slept in my arms all day as the veterinarian discussed with Natalie the idea that it may be more humane to just let the puppy go the next time it gets sick.

Another dog came in, a Great Dane mix named Spot, who was fostered to a home recently.  The dog was abandoned in a small cage in a house that the owner moved out of.  Also severely emaciated, the dog has recently begin to have violent bouts of diarrhea, with what the owner described as including “explosions of blood.”  The dog licked its blood stained hinds as the doctor discussed a diagnosis, eventually settling on hookworm and ruling out parvovirus.  Considering the owners had a six month old puppy at home, not yet fully vaccinated, the doctor suggested they bleach all the areas where Spot had used the bathroom to prevent the puppy from getting sick, just in case he did have parvovirus.  Hookworm is like any other intestinal worm, except for the fact that it actually latches onto the interior of the intestine, clinging there and absorbing all the nutrients that pass through and not passing with bowel movements.  This would explain both Spot’s continuing emaciation despite being fed, as well as the bloody bowel movements.

On a cuter note, the shelter retrieved a large group of Chihuahuas from a hoarder, a few of which were pregnant.  One of the mothers, Chiquita, is now responsible for caring for the three four-week-old puppies.  The puppies are cute, but we weren’t permitted to play with them unless Chiquita was out walking, as she would become very protective of them, freaking out whenever somebody removed one from the cage.  Considering I was the one who was in charge of walking Chiquita whenever she seemed to have the urge to go outside, I was never able to play with the puppies.  But Natalie signed my paperwork, and I drove home, and am preparing to deal with my dogs remains and other family business in the next day.

Death in the Family

Well, my dog died this morning at 7:00 in our family room.  After his recent relapse, he was doing so much better, and we all thought he was going to be able to hold out until I was home for summer break.  This morning, however, my parents said he was really sluggish, and his breathing became labored.  After about an hour of heavy breathing, he just passed away, at the age of fourteen.  I really want to go home tonight to deal with getting his body cremated and such, but I still have eleven service hours I need to get in before the end of the weekend.

Natalie’s didn’t close until 7:00 tonight, so after my 4:30-5:45 class, I headed there and see if I could work Friday and Saturday.  I get out of class tomorrow at 2:20, so after I return my rented Mirco-Fridge to University Residences, as the only time they will take it back is tomorrow between 2:00 and 4:00, I will head to the shelter, hopefully arriving around 3:00 and working until she closes at 5:00.  She said that sounded fine, and I explained that I wanted apologize in person for my absence the previous weekend.  She said that it was fine, that I was a volunteer, so I didn’t have to come every weekend.  I told her that I still wanted to apologize, because I knew they were never sure how many volunteers they would get on any particular day, and considering I had been a regular most Saturdays for the past month or so now, I felt bad about my unannounced absence.  I explained my situation and the context in which I had to go home, and offered that as an explanation for why I couldn’t be there.  She said it was fine, and expressed her condolences.  I plan to work tomorrow, then work from 8:00 in the morning until close at 5:00 on Saturday, then quickly head back to my dorm to shower and pack before beginning the four hour drive back home.

My Old Dog

Well, another weekend where things go grossly NOT according to plan, as is on par for my life.  I have written on here previously about my dog’s current condition, but for those who haven’t read that particular post, I will suffice to say that he was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer.  After having his spleen removed, which was essentially just one large, malignant tumor by the time they reached it, his life expectancy ranged anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.  Essentially, the cancer will begin to spawn tumors starting in the lining of his blood vessels, and metastases from there.  Eventually, one of the tumors will hemorrhage badly enough that he will bleed to death, either relatively slowly or very quickly.  My parents and I have decided not to open him up again or have any more extensive testing done, as it won’t change the outcome of his condition, and will only make him more uncomfortable in the short term.

Anyway, my parents took him into the veterinarian earlier this week, because he was acting as if he was in a lot of pain again.  His red blood cell count was down again, almost as low as it was when he went into surgery.  The doctor explained that sometimes the smaller tumors in his abdomen can hemorrhage and then clot off, so he would either bleed out and die in the next few days or clot off and continue to recover.  There will inevitably be an “event” significant enough that he dies, but without doing more tests, it is impossible to say how close to that point he is at.  Needless to say, they prescribed him some non-anti-coagulant painkillers, so he has been pretty out of it.

When my parents delivered this news to me on Friday evening, I dropped everything and rushed home.  I had already said my “goodbyes” the last time I was home over spring break, when we knew his long-term outlook wasn’t very good, but I didn’t want him to die before I could come home for the summer, not having seen me in a month or more.  I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go home to spend some time with him.  I totally forgot about volunteering at the shelter until late in the day Saturday, so I am going to stop by in person this week to apologize for my absence.  I am willing to deal with whatever consequences I must for not letting her know that I was leaving in advance, but these consequences will be well worth it considering the circumstances.

Alarm Failure

This weekend was pretty chill, I spent more hours at the shelter than I did most of other more recent weekends.  Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake when I set my alarm for PM instead of AM, so it was actually about 9:15 by the time I made it into the shelter on Saturday morning.  Natalie took a few of the dogs with her to a promotional event around ten o’clock, and was not set to return until half past three, at which point I was told there was no more work to be done and that I could leave.

Most of the people volunteering at the shelter are there on account of court ordered service hours they are required to fulfill.  One of the dogs actually jumped up on the desk in the office and ripped up one of the guy’s paperwork from the judge where Natalie signs off, confirming the number of hours he works each week.  I don’t want to tell any of the stories the people told me about why they got in trouble, as I feel this would violate their privacy and their trust in me.  I do have to say, however, that all of the stories I’ve heard thus far are REALLY interesting!

A bunch of people came in looking to adopt and foster dogs this weekend!  Pablo, the Chihuahua puppy that was confiscated from a dorm room on campus found a foster home, and I saw my first-semester Spanish TA when she came in with her roommate to get their puppy vaccinated, a black Dachshund which they got from Natalie’s Second Chance.  Two kids, probably about twelve or thirteen years old, were kicked off the premises because they were tormenting the dogs in their cages next door to the office.  Then, at the end of the day, a man who came in to look at dogs actually kicked one of the dogs.  I didn’t see it, but apparently one of the dogs ran towards him, very clearly wanting to play and greet him, and he apparently kicked it pretty forcefully.  Everybody freaked out, and the man left, and the dog seemed to be fine.  So, despite some unfortunate happenings, it was overall a very good weekend!

Sloppy Work

This week I was actually able to work at the shelter for four hours on Saturday morning.  I suppose I could have stayed all day, but at around twelve o’clock, they ran out of things for us to do.  Seeing as my friend and I were tired and hungry, we left to grab some lunch and head back to the dorms to get to work on homework.  My friend is going to be volunteering with me at the shelter for the next few weekends, as he severely miscalculated how many service hours he would have done after participating in Relay for Life.

As far as the volunteering is concerned, this week was relatively uneventful. There were a lot of volunteers, and we each walked a few dogs while their cages were being cleaned.  Once again, all the dogs I walked had diarrhea, and we are still required to pick up all waste from the dogs in order to avoid the shelter being fined by the city.  Armed with only plastic grocery bags, I used the bag as a glove as I scooped up the watery mess.  I like to tell myself that bacteria are unable to permeate the hair-thin plastic separating my fingers from fecal matter, but picking up diarrhea feels pretty awful regardless of this consideration.  It’s not like I have an issue picking up poop; I always pickup after my dog whenever I walk him, and I held a volunteer position where work was comprised primarily of picking up poop.  After cleaning up a heap of cheetah diarrhea at the zoo one summer, I thought I had seen everything; that nothing could ever gross me out ever again.  Nonetheless, I still have to hold my breath and lean away when picking up the steamy heaps left for me by the dogs at Natalie’s Second Chance.

 Moving away from talking about poop, a new dog was dropped off at the shelter!  A black, female Rottweiler, her owners dropped her off saying that they were moving and could not take her with them, casually mentioning that they had bred her for two litters of puppies.  Natalie scrambled to find room to house the massive dog and set up to have the dog fixed and her apparent flaking-skin condition addressed.  Another man wandered in, and, visibly intoxicated, was told he could not be at the shelter.  He apologized and left, although it seemed that he knew the people who worked there and had some history with them.  The day went on, and I continued to play with my favorite dog, a Chihuahua puppy named Pablo who was confiscated from some girls’ dorm room on Purdue’s campus.