Shifting sands

what I notice

Pedro won’t come inside.

This old street dog likes his freedom but he also likes a solid meal 2x a day and has been doing so for 4 years. Sleeping on the sofa. Finding a cozy blanket to cozy up on the floor. Getting a bone.

Two days now. Sleeping in dusty sandy road near my car. Doesn’t follow on walks. Won’t come inside the patio. I know what this means.

Usually it means I’m not the lunch lady anymore but I’m about to be the Hospice Nurse. Or the Undertaker.

The older street dogs seem to prefer to wander off and die like Andie did. Pedro is on the fence about his indoor outdoor life. I’m not sure about his dying preference.

He was old when he got here. He could be 13? He could have eaten poison. Or taken the raw fish from goddamnpaco the fish guy who shows up later and drunker with more fillet trash in buckets with knives and goo than I can handle at 10pm.

Last night I shooed Paco off. Pedro followed him. He could be digesting that wormy mass. And to that end, please, stay outside. I do enough laundry as it is. None of it wearable.

I’ve seen him knock over trash cans and take out a dirty diaper or a greasy bag of rotten and eat it whole. Right after a big fancy breakfast and in the middle of a walk. I find digested plastic bags in his poo all the time. How these dogs are alive is something I’ll never get over. I see

Domestic dogs with fancy delivery of organic food and treadmills in the US are getting chemo at 6 years old and limping from memory foam bed to elevated food bowl. Meanwhile, these street dogs are eating bags of actual shit and living with very little comfort or intervention. Mostly because we don’t have comfort or intervention to buy here. I’m both. Saltwater, bone broth and the occasional antibiotic, sleep it off. Some of the dogs on the street look like the zombie apocalypse already.

Seems if they make it past Parvo and the creep with the ice pick, they can survive. The streets are cruelest for females but the ones I spay and release, who live behind taco carts or tiendas with produce trash seem happy to follow the trash truck a couple times a week and sleep on the beach. Or maybe that’s what I tell myself? If I had more room, I’d take them all in. But this 12 number is about capacity for adults. I remember saying that at 7. Okay it’s past capacity but they’ve all got a sleeping space and a private bowl, the only one who gets a little over the Groundhog Day of it all is me.

Walk, launder, feed, walk, prep, shop, rake poo, wash patios, launder, feed, ear clean, walk, feed, shop, lug kibble, launder, comb, tick search, mop, mop, mop

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I try not to take it personally when these dogs start to distance themselves from me when they’re sick. Because I didn’t choose this role as much as it chose me, I adapt to what’s asked of me in the moment. That sort of makes me feel like I haven’t really been making any choices for my life that have anything to do with me and the day I decided to open my self and heart and home up to rescue these animals, that Me took a back seat. It’s like swapping out a breaker on an electrical panel that’s too small. You want the fridge? or the water heater.

I feel Me getting a little fidgety

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