Jill Rants and Raves

Maisy - a short and beautiful life

On May 31st a couple of years ago I wrote a blog about what it was like inside the heart of an animal rescuer - that it isn't quite the same as 'loving animals'. There is an intensity of feeling, and at the same time an ability to disconnect from those we have 'rescued' so that we can move on to the next. Often the animals that are designated 'rescue only' at animal shelters show some small behaviour issue or have a minor medical condition and face euthanasia because cities prefer to spend their animal shelter dollars on enforcement of city leash laws rather than any preventive measures which might staunch this flow of innocent fur into the death houses.

In California shelters the little cage cards tell you what the 'disposition' of this beating heart will be - 'R24' means that the animal has a 24 hour window to get out alive. Maisy was one of those. A gorgeous red cattle dog sitting in her own urine and feces in a dark kennel building. I had seen her photo on Pet Harbour, the website which beams the images of thousands of unwanted and soon to die animals into the homes of animal lovers and rescuers everywhere.

I was driving to Stockton to collect other dogs for an agency who needed some transport for them - these lucky dogs were to come to San Francisco to find forever homes. While I was there, I asked a volunteer if she knew where this particular cattle dog was - all animals are given an 'A' number, which is their control number - but in the busy shelters animals get moved around from kennel to kennel as more arrive, while they are waiting for their dose of pink juice (that's animal control language for the euthanasia drug).

I finally found her - 9 months old, timid in the back of the kennel, snapping at my hands while I slowly approached her in the gloom, the barking in the building echoing off the walls, there were no windows and no way for her to see real light. As I slipped a leash around her neck, she starting spinning and I had to pull her from the kennel. As we emerged from the kennels into the bright hot May gleam of a Central Valley day, she shut her eyes in reaction.

And then as I coaxed, she began to let her tail swing gently from side to side and I started to run slowly with her by my side, just to see if she would resist or come along. Within an hour, Maisy, as she would later be called, was jumping into my car. The other dogs I was picking up were all in crates for the ride, but Maisy sat atop the crates, her head pointed in my direction, her eyes never leaving the back of my head.

But Maisy was not for me. Neither was she an incidental 'rescue'. I had recently found a red cattle dog dead on the freeway and I had stopped to pick her up just in case someone was looking for her at a shelter. And Aida had been talking for so long about finding a red ACD (Australian Cattle Dog) to keep her blue cattle dog Zelda company. So, when I had called her from the shelter, with Maisy, staring at me, she had said 'Bring her'. 6 hours after I got Maisy from Stockton, Maisy was on her way to a beautiful life with Aida and Zelda.

What I wrote in May 2006 was:

"Yesterday, as if in honour of the little red cattle dog dead on the 205, I 'rescued' another little red cattle dog from an animal shelter in the Valley whose date with death was imminent. The building in which this dog was housed - with up to 100 other dogs waiting for what is euphemistically known as the 'due out day' - has no windows and no air, the lights are dim and oftentimes the animals are barely visible in the concrete bunkers. Urine swims in the kennels, and feces grips the pads of the dogs' feet as they run backwards and forwards. There are no descriptions, no names just numbers.

I'm proud to feel this deep, primal sense of responsibility and love. And I love those who feel the same way. What piece are we missing? Or is that we in this subculture, are the ones who have been endowed with an extra gift - a gift of unconditional love."

Maisy became a wonderful and incredible dog. A few months ago, circumstances changed, and Aida found another wonderful home for Maisy. With a family who adored her. But life has a way of bringing us to our knees, and when Aida called me yesterday wailing and in agony to tell me that Maisy had been hit by a car and killed, I found comfort only in the knowledge that unlike the dead dog on the freeway, Maisy was with those who loved her. My wounded heart will recover. Probably sooner than I think.

 

life, near death and the changing of the seasons

Roo Surrounded By Friends, Point Arena, March 23rd, 2008 © Jill Posener

It was easter Sunday two years ago, here in the beautiful woods among the redwoods and madrones, amid the yellow soil and the bluejays, and the house on the ridge that I love so much, that I lost sight of Roo for a moment. And then in an instant her cries pierced a foggy morning, a misty, cold lonely morning, as Mamma, a feral dog I had known and loved for years, grabbed Roo by the throat and carried her into the woods beyond my reach. Roo's small frame hung from the large jaw and her eyes were empty with terror. I felt a searing horror, and a pleading longing 'no' burst out of me with such volume that birds fluttered from trees and my border collie Frank rushed from the house and on a pursuit of Mamma, though he did not know why.

In those few minutes when I thought I had killed Roo with my carelessness, I watched helplessly, racing through underbrush, and over embankments, sliding down the rain slicked trails as the larger dog would stop ahead of me and drop Roo, only to gnaw at her legs or stomach and then pick her up and run some more, Roo's limbs drooping by her sides. She made no more sounds.

Frank kept me on the right track. Suddenly we emerged into a clearing, Mamma looked back at me almost adoringly, as if to say, 'look, look what I did'. I ran harder then and screaming at her to back off kicked her in the side just as she bent over to retrieve her prey once more. I reached for Roo and without thinking tried to pick her up. Her eyes flashed fear and her jaw snapped open and shut on my hands puncturing them over and over. I took off my sweater and wrapped her, lifting her to me, as her head dropped to one side. I flailed then, sobbing and saying her name again and again.

I was alone, it was easter Sunday and the blood from my tiny dog spread over a grey sweatshirt on which I can still see, after dozens of washings, the palest of brown as a reminder of her agony, and mine.

It was the kindness of people whom I didn't know well, that saved Roo's life. The woman who was able to reach the vet during his easter family dinner, the vet who did what he could but who warned me that she might not survive, that she must go to an emergency vet in Santa Rosa, a two hour drive down the fog draped coastal road, and the emergency staff who took her from me when we arrived, leaving me with blood seeping through clothes and empty arms, Roo already in a state of disengagement from the world, and me.

I left Roo there and drove back to the house on the ridge in the woods and to the rest of my pack and looked at Mamma and her mate Yogi, now back in their locked enclosure and decided they had to die. Not out of vengeance, but because I could not ever let them run free again after this attack. Roo survived. The two dogs died.

Today, sitting at the same computer I had sat at starting that dark day, the world could not be a more different place. That day a melancholy settled into my brain and leaked into my soul and it has taken almost two years to exorcise it. I, who am filled with the sheer joy of living, exuberant in the way the days begin with light, enamored of the visions I see dancing around in my head, and excited by the way in which simple things exalt the art of living - I was lost in a tunnel. No air, or light and no sure knowledge of it ever coming to an end.

I'm not sure what brought me to the door through which I was able to burst out of the tunnel - the zone, I describe it to the therapist I have depended on for two years. I remember the night of the day I had the two dogs killed, I called Jody and a dear friend Sarah, and they both called me back hourly until I was able to fall asleep, exhausted by my horror and self loathing. That was a night so black, so dense, I knew it was the beginning of a terrible journey.

Today, the fog sits somewhere across the ridge, Roo is lying on a chair with sun streaming in through a window, glistening in her rich thick coat of fur. She never seems to look at me or this place, even the spot on the trail where her blood mingled with dirt and leaves, with anything but a grin of life affirming pleasure.
Depression is, I'm glad to say, a companion whose claws left scars. The memory of that journey makes me even more alert to life and it's unexpected joys.

the prince and the pee

Ooops, I lied. This is not about lesbian sex. I came home from a movie on Saturday night - the turgid There Will be Blood - and found that Oscar, the senior wiener in my home of lurve and devotion, had pee'd on the bed. This is a regrettable first for him. He has, I admit, been driving me nuts this winter, making what seem to me to be arbitrary decisions to pee indoors sometimes. At best the puddles are right by the open back door, as if he had every intention of taking his ten pound self outdoors but was beaten back by the California sprinkling we call rain. At worst, a river of piss runs down one of the gently sloping wood floors in my 100 year old house. I have been ready to throttle his little neck. And he knows it. He looks at me with brown menacing eyes and says 'I freakin' dare you Jill. I'll have Animal Services down here so fast you ....you ....well ....I just will'.
Oscar, as some of you know is somewhere around the 18 year old mark. This gives him enormous leeway. But the indoor pee thing. Wow, that just pisses me off.

But just last weekend, I went on a hike in the hills with Susie and the dogs including Oscar, and he probably walked at least 2 miles of the trail. He bounces, more than walks, on his short, still muscular dachshund legs, and his ears rise and fall as his body elevates. He is definitely at the back of the pack but never really out of sight (except when I lose him and panic), and the small bell I attached to his collar heralds his turn at a corner. Sometimes I start singing 'he'll be coming round the corner.....if he comes'. Most people we meet on the trail insist on stopping Oscar even though it slows his momentum and means he has to start his engine again. A few berate me for not carrying him. My answer 'hey, he asked to come on this walk, if he keels over right now, he's only got himself to blame' elicits looks of shock and tut tutting over my lack of dog parenting skills. Susie giggles.

But look - Oscar is a miracle. You've seen the pictures. He looks like a being from another planet. He is happiest when with me and the other dogs. Whether that's in bed or in my office watching me - as he is now - or out in the sun on the dusty trail finding some long forgotten horse poop to eat, he is first and foremost - a dog. During the night I often wake and check for his little chest heaving gently. I suppose it would be fine for him to go to sleep tucked into my arms and never wake up. But I suspect Oscar would be equally content to stop on the trail one day, look up at the redwoods and the blue sky and fall over.

I'm mad at him. He can't be pissing on the bed. But last night after piling all my bedding into the laundry and re-making the bed, I lifted him from the floor and tucked him up as usual. One of my cats, Blackie (I didn't name her by the way) who lived with a homeless woman next to the railroad tracks for years, before Linda asked me to give Blackie a more certain future,  jumps on the bed at some point every night and finds Oscar. She begins to purr and curls up beside him, licking his threadbare ears till they are damp and crinkly. Oscar just lays there with his eyes shut gently soaking up the attentions of this special feline. In the morning these two are entwined like lovers.

So I put up with my prince and his pee and remind myself that, as Anatole France wrote 'Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened'. I am wide awake.

Vick Guilty. No, really?

Atlanta Falcons QB, Michael Vick, the 36 year old with the $130 million dollar contract to push a ball around a piece of green and get knocked down, will plead guilty to federal charges arising out of the dogfighting case involving his property, his friends, his dogs and his cruelty.

Give him credit - when his co-defendants said he was directly involved in the slaughter of 8 dogs, he decided that perhaps his media statements, his statements to the NFL and his statements to his fans might have to shift a little. From 'I look forward to clearing my good name' to 'I'm guilty'.

But you think I'm pleased about it? I think it's a stupid friggin' shame that a man used his talent to make the 'Amerikan Dream' come true for him and his family, and he screwed it up. The idea that he will serve jailtime doesn't make me feel good at all. That's what we need. Another black man in prison. You think Michael Vick is the only sports star with this kind of dirty habit? Killing animals for sport? For sheer bloodlust, and in the cruellest way possible?

Dogfighting. I wrote about the tradition of dogfighting in America on my blog in June 2006, after I got into a nasty little spat with breed fanatics when I supported local law that would have mandated the spay neuter of bully breeds. Not banning them. Fixing them. This game, of pitting two animals who enjoy the fight, into a dirt ring and watch them rip each other to pieces has a long and filthy history. But it isn't part of Black History Month, trust me. White working class southerners started the legend of the 'dogmen' and the tradition of fighting their prized bullies to the death - family men, who posed for photos with their brood of kids holding rifles and 80 pound cropped ear pits, men who were proud of their confederate background - guns, hunting, dogs, drinking and generally just being good ol' boys.

So, I'm not feeling good about Vick going to jail. What will he be, what will he do when he comes out? My question is. How do we stop producing men like Vick? And instead of finding the most punitive way of dealing with this jerk, how about we insist he spend the next twenty years talking to fellow football players about cruelty, animal abuse and hey, he could add in that people who abuse animals rarely stop there. And that is, ultimately, where my anger lies. Vick got caught is all. You think the NFL, the corporate sponsors and law enforcement don't know what these sports studs are doing?

People who abuse animals rarely stop there. Now there's a mantra for my lovable harmless fuzzball Rush LimpBiscuit.

Fur The Love Of Dog

I had a damn fine birthday week. Mostly. Apart from getting riled up by Rush, which had my friends asking 'why did you actually listen to him?'. The sad answer is that my car radio is set to a whole bunch of eclectic things and when KFOG or Radio Alice, or the sole country station are running the same ads for mattress stores at the same time, I flick over to AM talk radio for a shock of cold water. And Air America is too earnest for me, so I go straight for the flag flying righteous evangelists of the right for my dose of 'whoa dude' - (and how come the liberal station has more ads for personal injury lawyers than the right wing stations??).

Aside from that, I have had a sweet week. Walks by the creek, birthday cake with friends, movies, dinners, warm weather, an invitation to a 50th birthday celebration in Australia in September, e mails from family, my brother calling me, dogs, cats, riding my bike....wow....and on top of that, some great comments on my blog. Thank you for my birthday wishes, and to those who said my imaginary profile might actually be a turn on!

Yesterday, the pup, Indiana, went into a possible home, with some cool people and a one year old cattle dog called Clancy. But, I have to say - this is a tough one. I miss him already, and even though I always miss the dogs that leave, I think Indy may be one of those I look back on with some regret for letting him go.

On my birthday, Indiana and my pack (human and animal) headed down to the woods on the San Mateo Peninsula. There was a time I spent almost every weekend there, in the redwoods. It's a beautiful place owned by Susie's Mom (Susie being one of my numerous exes named Susie). My dogs have always loved it there, and 2 are buried there. We headed down to the creek, Indiana taking timid steps over the fallen trunks and rocky splashy water. Roo, my 12 pound mutt, pretended she didn't know how to climb over branches and Indy took this moment to separate the dogs from the wimps. By the time I had walked along the creekside - till property lines intervened - Indiana had become a rugged outdoorsman, sprinting up and down the banks, kicking his heels up in delight as water splashed in his eyes, and keeping up with the big dogs, thundering back towards the house and a wooden deck to crash out on.

On the way home, he was sacked out next to Calvin, Roo, Roxy and Oscar on the back seat, a sort of blissful haze surrounding him. Frank of course, being the irritable border collie he is, lay in the back of the car, a dog gate keeping some distance between his glaring, gnarling self and the rest of his family.

What would it be like not to have this feeling? This sense of being completely at peace with another species? I can't imagine a life without fur.

Ophelia 8/9/90 - 7/20/07

I'm writing Ophelia's obit before her death because after the deed is done, and she has gone limp while draped around my neck, I will not be able to write it.
Ophelia is a grey tabby whose life spans these last tumultuous 17 years. Years in San Francisco and Berkeley, the deaths of my parents, the passing of many heroes in my existence, my becoming a legal resident, the publication of  'Nothing But The Girl', my 12 year relationship (and it's ending), buying a home, and many other obsessions, preoccupations, depressions, elations and my animal house existence - which Ophelia would comment on with that withering, weary 'oh not again' look, as I would open the front door with another pup and declare to all 'it's only going to be here for a day or so'.

Ophelia was born just days before my mother died, in August 1990. She was, from the start, a cat whose every fur strained at the restrictions placed upon her. Indoor cat? Fat chance. From the moment she arrived in our Bernal Heights flat at the age of 6 weeks, she swatted at the windows, scraping at them to burst out. So, when I gave in, she promptly dislocated a back leg performing circus tricks on the wrought iron gate outside the apartment. 'Keep her indoors' admonished the vet. Yeah, Ok, right. Pheelie would not, could not be contained, and sped around the neighborhood dragging her red bandaged cast behind her. It thudded down the sidewalk, which only marginally slowed her down.

She was beautiful. Of course. Massive round green eyes, glints of orange peeking through the thick gray tigerstripe, and a voice like burnished hockey blades, a little on the sharp side. Her good point? She came when called. From the back of our flat overlooking the hills of Noe Valley and Twin Peaks behind, I could open the window and yell 'Ophelia, get the fuck back here, right now' (much as I yell at Roo in the park these days), and she would appear, a gray flash in the distance, racing across roofs and under fences and up ramps, jumping up onto a deck and another roof until finally she streaked in the front window which we kept cracked just wide enough for her to squeeze through.

At home, she lived for comfort. Often that meant scraping the flesh off my neck or chest, as she leapt from whatever surface she was on, onto my shoulders and down into a pancake wrap around my neck. And there she would lie. For ever. No matter what I was doing.

She is not the cat, today, that she was. And if that sounds like stating the obvious, it is why I am having her euthanised while she still seems to enjoy small pieces of life and not waiting until she has given in. She has long suffered from some indeterminate gum infection and possible stomach irritation, yet in spite of tooth extractions, antibiotics, bloodwork etc, the vets can't give a definitive diagnosis. That doesn't make it any easier. But she is wasting away and has trouble eating. She seems cold and starving. It is my obligation, though I hate having it be so, to make this decision that I believe she would make, but cannot. It will be the most humane death - surrounded by people who love her, and draped around my shoulders, which will shake with grief.

My friend and hero, June Jordan, wrote her own obituary, knowing full well that someone else could not possibly do it as well. She had asked me whether, with her words, she could send out a photo I had taken of her, which she loved. I am hopeful that were Ophelia to read this obit, that she would say 'Not bad'. But she would add 'Why no photos of me outdoors? And why didn't you tell them about the time I...and then there was the time that....'

Fowl Language

Nick, whose wayward doxie scared some chickens half out of their skins, reports that all is well - the chickens have been 'rescued' by their previous caretaker, and are writing a tell all book about their experiences - 'My Life As A Chicken, And My Near Death Experience In A Liberal Berkeley Home'.

And on the subject of liberals, Alec Baldwin has almost swept the Virginia Tech slaughter off the front pages with his regrettable verbal assault on his daughter. If every parent who screams insults at their kid were to be so publicly humiliated, perhaps moms and dads would behave a bit better. But I'm on Alec's side on this one. It was a PRIVATE phone call, and should have stayed that way. Would this phone message have been so widely disseminated had Alec been a plumber in the Bronx?
People clearly feel self righteous and indignant about his anger, and he has already paid a pretty high price - being barred from seeing his daughter on an upcoming scheduled visit.
What I think - this is none of anybody else's business.

Geez, I started out this blog on a somewhat amusing note, and now I'm right back to my ranting self. Oscar, Aida's doxie, who lives with me, and is good with feathered fowl, used some foul language in the car this afternoon on the way to the park for our walk, and I am using this as an excuse to withhold his allowance. 'Friggin' bicycles' he muttered as a cluster of two wheelers pulled up next to our car at a stop light, one of whom came so close that Oscar was brushed back from his spot hanging out the window. 'Share The Road' he yelled at them as they pulled away, and as one of them gave him the finger he unleashed the above mentioned insult.

His allowance is being donated to the Farm Sanctuary.

dachshund on the hunt

I have an acquaintance who is a great dog owner/guardian (the phrase we have to use within hearing range of In Defense Of Animals). He walks at the same unrepentantly unregulated park (not for long as the State Park system is arriving with dog banning rules and regs any day now) as I do. He walks pretty speedily around the perimeter trails with his pugs (I'm not a great pug fan) and he is so blatantly in love with these snub nosed oinks that he has a 'got pug?' bumper sticker on his car. So, I like this guy. He's British. What's not to like?
He also is the less than proud o/g (see above) of a young full on bred dachshund. I like dachshunds as we all know. In fact I am so besotted by Oscar, the 17 year old who came to spend a weekend in September 2005, and never left, that I am contemplating a website dedicated to his passion for getting lost and for eating cat shit covered in gravel. The site will be called 'Where Is Oscar' and should rightfully lead to a fat book contract for Oscar, and a talk show, which would be aptly titled 'Oscar Talks Trash'.

But Nick's dachshund wasn't on his walk this morning. And Oscar, Roo, Calvin, Frank, Roxy and I noticed.
'The dachshund has been bad', Nick said. So bad in fact, that he had worn himself out and he had refused to get out of bed this morning to come to the landfill.
Nick looked a little embarrassed actually, and then blurted out 'someone brought two chickens to our house. I thought it would be nice to have chickens running around'.

A sort of bashful smile crept across his face as I, as anyone would, looked at him with the only phrase that comes to mind at moments like this. 'Have you done much reading  about dachshunds, Nick?'

Nick guessed that the chickens were less than happy with their new home. One had become instantly featherless at the paws of the little hunting dog, and the other had barely escaped the same fate. I don't think the chickens are going to stay at Nick's for long. The dachshund was shaking for most of the night, with anticipation and glee. I said to Nick 'Just bring a whippet in for the day to finish the job, it'll be a quick twist of the neck, and as the chicken is already featherless, so much faster to prepare for roasting.'

Back to lesbian dramatics tomorrow.

Just Because

Dog Laws And Your Civil Liberties

Got a phone call the other day from a woman who has a model citizen canine pitbull. An older dog with no history of aggression whatever. Here's the thing - her job has been re-located to Denver. For all of you who have forgotten or who never thought this had anything to do with you - pitbulls (whatever that means, it's sort of an ambiguous term like 'herding breeds'; it can mean what you want it to mean) are banned in Denver. Not regulated or restricted. Banned. This woman, who in today's employment market, can't tell her employer to stuff the job, needs to re-locate her dog here in California unless she wants to violate Denver city laws, or have her dog impounded and killed. This IS a civil liberties issue - whether you like dogs at all. I'm not a pitbull (or similar breed) fan - no secret there, but this is downright screwed up.

In fact it is making me pissed off. As I often am when it comes to punitive lifestyle legislation. This has nothing to do with dogs - it has to do with whether America is becoming -  fast - the home of the shackled and land of the leashed - that's you, not the dogs. So, that's just my morning rumble and to go with it - a picture of a couple of nasty, vicious pitbulls......yeah, right.....