A Zippety-Doo-Da Day

As I’m writing this, at my table, looking out the window at the pines, Kaful is nestled at my feet, eyeing up the kitten who already established dominance over the ‘aggressive’ retriever with a timely smack on the nose.

The Brit girls decided this morning, after a cold, dark night at high altitude, surrounded by noisy dogs, that they should seek volunteer opportunities elsewhere. Alexis hadn’t really come prepared for Hound Heights, and looked tired and sorry in the morning. I couldn’t bring myself to persuade her to stay, so I let Xenii and Martin know of their departure. It wasn’t entirely bad for me, as the girls cleaned up before they left and also helped keep a pup alive. And I got the more comfortable sleeping quarters back.

By 7.30 am, the clinic was getting ready to do a neutering session. Elsa, one of the vets, wasn’t happy that we had let the pup eat raw chicken, even when I tried to explain that it’s not just fine for pups but also the only thing he would eat, and that it was high in moisture content, which was very important for the dehydrated little dog. Her rudeness in the face of my explanation wasn’t appreciated, and I told her so; Elsa reacted by storming out of the clinic to tell Xenii that she was quitting. I had to apologise to get her to stay. I didn´t want to; if you gave in to a dog’s demands in this way, you would end up with a big problem on your hands. Which brings us to Kaful again.

I´d exercised Kaful already, and held him while Claudia, the other vet, injected him with the anaesthetic to put him to sleep for his neuter op. He snapped at her as she tried to stroke his head afterwards, but I had bound his muzzle shut already so no harm was done. When I went back to get him for surgery a short time later, I found Martin standing still in Kaful’s pen. 

‘He attacked me when I tried to put his muzzle on!’ Martin explained. I went in and leashed Kaful and decided to lead him to the clinic for another shot before his neuter op. Kaful, seemed to know what was in store and who had asked for it to be done, and, as I went to tie the leash around his muzzle again so I could carry him safely, he lunged at me. I jumped back while pulling his leash skyward, and Kaful’s gnashers snapped just short of letting me know how it´ll feel for him after his op.

A battle of the minds ensued, but not between me and Kaful, but me and Elsa. Despite my suggestion that we use the dog-catching pole to control him, Elsa decided to make a point by trying to show that she would inject Kaful without incident merely by putting a blanket over his head. Luckily, I was able to pull his head back before he could bite her hand. Still she insisted that using the pole would make him more crazy, and again I saved her from getting bitten. For Elsa’s safety and so as not to cause offence by compromising her authority, I wound Kaful’s leash around a tree and pulled his head close to it so he could be injected in a back leg without being able to bite. It worked, and soon I was able to carry the snoozing Kaful into surgery, which went very well.

Dee came again today, as she does every Wednesday, to wash as many of the dogs as she can. She was still gushing with disbelief—and also praise to God—about how effective the natural diet has been on her dog Terry; after many, many months of trying every treatment available, Dee, a missionary, had laid hands on Terry and asked for a miracle. And then, according to Dee, I came into the picture soon after. I was a godsend! It´s nice to be appreciated sometimes, but I was mostly happy that Dee was helping her dog towards a more comfortable life.

I was impressed that Dee had taken the diet seriously and did everything I told her to. I reminded her that she should also be grateful to Dr Ian Billinghurst, as it was he who wrote The Barf Diet, the book that got me started on natural food for pets and turned me so much against commercial pet foods; they are mostly nothing more than food unfit for human consumption, processed to death, and marketed cleverly as ‘scientific’ diets.

 

Here’s the irony, though: the oldest dog in the world, an Australian cattle dog named Bluey, lived to the ripe old age of 29 years and seven months, and he died in 1939—several years before commercial diets started to become popular. Bluey was fed on raw, meaty farm scraps and leftovers. The two oldest dogs currently are also farm dogs and also fed the same. It seems that these ‘scientific’ diets cannot compete with randomly fed meat and table scraps. Think about that.

It makes sense, of course. Our pets have been thriving on our leftovers for many thousands of years. Commercial convenience foods have only been around for about 60 years, and since then, we’ve seen our pets suffering from all kinds of ailments that our grandparents’ scraps-fed animals didn’t: kidney disease, tooth problems, gum problems, bad breath, leaky eyes, dysplasia and arthritis, anal-sac infections … the list goes on. I could write so much about this, so I will, but later, and I’ll tell you about my first dog, Foxie, and how her failing heart and kidneys got me researching diets for critically ill dogs, and how her recovery shocked the heart specialist who examined her every six months.

Anyway, Dee was singing my praises again by the end of the afternoon, bless her, because I leashed ‘the unleashable dogs’ for her so that she could give them their first bath ever. And they all seemed to really enjoy it! Dee lives in Antigua, where I’ll be heading back to for a few days next week, so hopefully I’ll be able to meet and photograph her improving dog, Terry.

As I headed into town, walking down the lane that leads to the main road, with a bright blue sky above, corn fields to my left and fir trees to my right, and hummingbirds silently floating amongst the flowers, I realised what a zippety-doo-da day I was having. I´m enjoying myself here. We all need a bit of zippety with our doo-da at times. :-)