P.A.S.S
Post Adoption Sadness Syndrome. Is it a thing with rescue dog workers?
Post Adoption Sadness Syndrome
Is it a thing? It should be. There's a similar thread to all dog rescue workers. I don't know any in my town of course but I'd bet with some digging, all of us (overwhelmingly women) would have some childhood trauma, some loyalty issues, some deep somatic sadness that needs to be released.
Animals are mirrors. Famously horses and Whisperers but dogs, so obviously, tear at our collective hearts. Abandoned dogs and street dogs in Mexico have always fascinated me. Mostly happy especially the beach dogs. People say they're afraid of feral dogs but I've never seen a true feral dog be aggressive. Fearful yes. To be aggressive to other humans you have to have human experience and abuse. Or rabies. If you're just walking down the road and minding your own business, a dog coming at you with mal intent is rare. Anyone who's been bitten in the face by a dog has been kissing it in my experience. You have to be very low and very close to have that happen. I do not kiss my dogs. Or stick my face in their face. I pull sticks out of their throats and look for broken teeth when their breath stinks but I don't humanize them. The dogs at this rescue are not MY dogs. They are the Sanctuary Dogs and ready to be adopted into a family so why do I get so worried and sad when someone finally adopts one or two?
For obvious reasons, because a couple have returned to the gate after being adopted and abandoned again. Once was just a slip away and visit (Debbie) and the other was because they moved out and said they'd be back and even the neighbor lied for them and said oh, no I'm feeding Nicky! (Niles) and of course he was here. Every. Day. So I have not great faith in this town's people. But if I keep that mindset I'll never attract the one or two in town who will love a dog and keep them safe. When they don't even want to know their names or care about their vax papers or the tick preventative schedule I sort of feel flat. But it was the husband and their teen or older son. They're pretty low on the emotional excitement level in public.
So the family who took Niles and Frasier yesterday aren't likely going to put them in sweaters and go to buy them PupCups. As if this town had a drive thru. Or anyplace. What ARE they going to do with them? Harvest their organs? I go there ever since I saw that the beach I'm near is Cannibal Beach. And from all the bones I find there. And she works at the butcher counter. (I'm trying not to listen to so much True Crime, honestly)
I've felt lately that I'm in this negative timeline loop. Feeling stuck, trying a lot of things that just don't move fluidly forward letting me know it's just not the right fit (always) is because I haven't learned a lesson and to ensure nothing loops back around. I never feel at home, so with homeless dogs as my teachers---is it too obvious?
I want them to find good homes but what "good" means to me and someone else or even the dogs...is very different. Dusty for example despite having a nice warm bed and good foods all day long and bones and care and combing and walks -is suicidal if he can't be with the carne asada guy and running the streets with that place as his ground zero on Main Street. We all have our happy place. I had a tryst with a Guatemalan indigenous guy once (or twice) and he used to sleep one or two nights on the wood floor instead of the bed so he didn't get too "comfortable". Nunca sabes he'd say. (You never know) I used to take it personally until I saw what they call a "mattress" in Latin America.
As someone who has chased comfort (unsuccessfully) my whole life, and made a long career out of doing it for others in hospitality, maybe I don't know what comfort is. This last year has taught me How To Be Uncomfortable for sure. As I type in my tiny child's plastic chair layered with old tshirts and a pillow in my ski vest because it's unusually cold in the desert this year and there's no heat. And I still haven't found a chair and the yoga ball is too small. The space heater doesn't really do much but raise my electric bill my 800% so I put on another pair of socks. Showering is nothing but a way to chill me to the bone. So I boil water and bird bath it. As I put feelers out to move back to the Yucatan the tropical heat pendulum will swing deep.
Is it hubris to think that those two desert dogs found under a cactus on the highway can't survive with those people who work at the local grocer, hold down a fishing job, have kids, ties to the community, know how to drive a boat, have grandkids---that they won't take care of those two scrappy dogs? If they feed them they'll be happy as clams, the bar is low with Niles and Frasier.
So my lesson is that I'm not the General Manager of the Universe. Again. I've done my best and have to let it go and Trust. Trust. Ugh, that's another chapter.
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