......puppy breath

I really didn’t want to leave the bed this morning. My Golden puppy, Thistle, was cuddled up with me when I woke up, just being too darn cute. I woke up and she had her arm outstretched, slightly bent, almost caressing my face with her paw. Her nose was all but touching mine and I think it was her warm breath that awoke me.

I think dogs and cats are gifts for us to appreciate. I’m not going to get into a dog/cat comparison. I know there are people out there that are dog people and those that are cat people. I don’t discriminate.  I was first a cat person out of sheer necessity because coming from a broken home, we lived in apartments for many years and could only have cats. Once my mom and step-dad began to purchase homes, we started mixing cats and dogs and eventually went to just dogs. Well, Mom went a little overboard, I think at the moment she has 9 dogs, but that’s a whole ‘nother story! She has become part of that strange species we call “breeders” and “show people”. I think it has something to do with me moving 2000 miles away.  She says she wishes she’d had dogs before me now, she’d have had a better handle on how to raise me. I’m not sure how to take that.  Would she have put me on a leash? In a kennel? Shown me in a ring? Let me poop on the floor? Never mind,  best to leave that one alone…

Anyway, I don’t quite trust people who don’t appreciate and treat animals well.  They love you no matter what, don’t they? I love them so much that I went to school in San Diego and learned veterinary skills and became a registered vet tech. Made great money there and saved a lot of animals. I felt like I was stealing almost when it came time to get my paycheck, I loved it so much! Then, it just got too expensive to afford to live there and I went back to drab, dreary Maryland only to find that they were recruiting kids out of the high schools and training them on the fly to be techs and the only way I could survive as a tech was to work Emergency vet (read midnite to 6 am).  It was horrible. Remember, it’s Baltimore….I was seeing german shepards being brought in that had been shot because a guy was mad at  his girlfriend and took it out on the dog; I saw cats eaten alive by maggots….It was more than this bleeding heart could hold! That’s when I went back to school and became a people nurse instead of an animal nurse.

We started up a lot of Emergency Management stuff here in Buffalo and I got handed the Disaster Animal Response Team  (DART) to head up.  Marilyn Connelly, our Homeland Security Officer, gave me the honors.  I am thrilled to be doing this.  We have had some intense training on how to set up a disaster shelter for pets and their humans in the event of natural disasters here in Buffalo.  We even had an extremely close call this past summer when we were at 600% of moisture on the mountain. There was a real danger of flooding in the low lying areas, looked like Clear Creek might crest way above flood stage, we were checking gauges daily and I was getting emails from Marilyn daily.  My team found a spot at the fairgrounds to set up housing for both the animals and the people (it’s high ground there) and there’s the logistics of keeping cats and dogs separated (you have to remember in a crisis, the animals are nervous, too), keeping everyone warm and dry, etc. Luckily, this was summer, so warmth wasn’t much of an issue except for the small dogs who are always cold.  Anyway, we got very lucky and the snow melt was slow and we averted a flood.  Marilyn did an amazing job of coordinating not just my team but the whole county throughout the emergency. By the way, my job is just supervision, my health does not allow me to do much physical work anymore, but I have some great folks working with me…Bobbie Walseth, Jerry Tolman, Mary Hicks, Todd Morrison, Elaine Walker, just to name a few. We even have official badges…yes, for this we need stinking badges…

Back to Thistle, wow, how did I get so off track? She is quite different from our last Golden, Tumbleweed.  But why should that surprise me? Children are all different, right? Tumbleweed was a slacker, she liked to lay around a lot. She hated water, can you believe it? She would only go outside to do her business and always wanted to just be with me, companionable. Even as a puppy, she was pretty mellow.  Thistle, on the other hand, requires a lot of walking, running, playing and general exercise.  If we don’t get in a good, brisk bout of exercise, she is a whirling destructive dervish in the house. Even after a good walk, if I’m doing my chores, she’s constantly got a toy in her mouth, bumping the back of my knee with it as I walk, urging me to play! She’s so strong, I’ve had to get her a harness to control her when we walk.  She fears nothing, either.  She’ll walk right up to a huge mule deer if I let her.  She touched noses with my friend Marchel’s horse, Rhodao, when she was pretty darn young.  And she’s obviously a birder.  She can sit quietly when she wants to.  She wants to when she sees a big fat turtle dove! She almost stops in mid stride and you can see her start to tremble and almost see the little wheels turning in that smart little head…. She hasn’t caught one yet, thank goodness.  I am enamored of birds, too.

Anyway, she has found a place in my heart and captured it for all time. I hope she’s with us for a long, long time.  Animals are such a gift.  We have so many lessons to learn from them…forgiveness, unconditional love, relaxation,….I hope you have one in your life to make you happy, whether it be a dog, cat, horse, whatever floats your boat….just something other than human that you have a mutual admiration and respect with!

“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to. “~Alfred A. Montford