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Hawaiian Caper
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When Julie called from HSUS one Friday, asking if I could leave on Sunday for Oahu, my first thought was “Ah, yes, a trip to Hawaii! Just what the doctor ordered.”. Volunteers were being deployed to help rescue several hundred animals near Honolulu, and Julie wanted me on her team. How could I say no? Plus, unlike most deployments, I had an entire day and a half to prepare! Usually I get called and am asked, “How soon can you leave? We need you NOW!”
I was told that we would be catching lots of ducks and chickens roaming free on a few acres of land. This led to the usual question that gets asked no matter what we’re about to deal with: “Do you have any experience doing that?”
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Julie, our fearless leader
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“No,” I said, “but I do have a neighbor who raises waterfowl and all sorts of birds. Let me talk to him and see what he suggests.”
My neighbor advised using fishing nets, which is what he uses to catch everything from quail to cranes. I made a quick trip into town just before the stores closed and picked up 2 nets.
I packed my gear and left on Sunday, planning to come home on Friday.
To give you some background on what we were dealing with, check out these websites:
Humane Society of the United States
United Animal Nations
Oahu SPCA
Four of us (Linda, Susan, Richard and me) arrived in Oahu on Sunday afternoon and hit the ground running. We made a quick stop at the Ala Moana Hotel in Waikiki to drop off luggage, change into work clothes, and then headed for the temporary shelter that had been constructed in a warehouse rented by the local SPCA. We needed to house over 200 cats and dogs, not to mention finding some place to put about 200 ducks and chickens.
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shelter entrance - classy, no?
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inside the shelter - early stages
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There were 3 rows of these chain-link pens, all of which had been constructed by volunteers over the last day and a half. Eventually we would get shavings for the cage bottoms, but in the beginning we didn’t even have that. We snapped up every cage and crate available on the island during the first 24 hours.
As soon as I walked into the vet clinic area of the shelter, I spied this little guy.
Little did I know that he was just the first of scads of chickens I was going to get to know well over the next few days.
This little fellow was being given some TLC by one of the volunteers. How could she resist?
The Birds
The HSUS folks who were already on-site where animals were being crated and loaded into vehicles were anxiously awaiting our arrival and the help that we brought. Transportation was arranged, we grabbed bottles of water (it was brutally hot and humid) and we were on our way to the site to lend a helping hand. We arrived on site to find that we really had our work cut out for us.
These were just some of the dog kennels, which had already been emptied of their occupants.
Here you see one of the cat houses on the right, where colonies of cats resided. On the left you see one of the several transtainers that were scattered around the property as storage sites.
Under this particular transtainer the ducks and chickens liked to hide from us. There was so much stuff piled up on the sides of it that we couldn’t shoo them out from under it – until a few days into the operation, when we came up with a secret weapon! More about that later. The other transtainers weren’t a problem, since they were clear on all sides and I could crawl next to the birds and throw pebbles at them, which shoo’ed them out into the open. No ducks were harmed during this operation.
The cats in the cat house were still being captured when we arrived. Several people were inside (brave souls) with the (mostly) feral cats who did not want to be captured.
I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing Julie since working with her at a California wildfire last year, so I walked up to a group of people and asked where she was. Someone pointed to the cat house, where the fur was literally flying and occasionally a loaded carrier would be handed out, and said, “She’s in there – has been for quite a while.”
I walked over to the door to that cat house and yelled, “Hey, Julie, are you in there?”
“Yes, what?” she yelled back, not knowing who was calling.
“I just want to know if you need some advice on how to catch those cats?!” I said.
“Gosh darn it, Tammy! When I get out of here …” she yelled, and then there was some more banging and cursing … and I’m positive I heard some laughing. As long as I made her laugh – mission accomplished!
No cats were harmed during this operation.
This is what the inside of the cat house looked like – there were 4 sections like this. The stench – you would not believe the stench. I’ve never seen a litter box this big. And I don’t ever want to see one this big again. I made Linda stand by it for the picture because I knew that otherwise you wouldn’t believe the size of it.
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notice all the "stuff" piled everywhere
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Once all of the caged cats and both caged and loose dogs had been captured and loaded into vehicles (air conditioned vehicles, I might add), there was much pow-wowing about what to do next. There were still loose cats, and of course all those roaming fowl. Being the good little worker bee that I am, I did my best to stay out of the way. It looked to me like there were plenty of chiefs, so I didn’t think they needed any help from me. Big mistake … HUGE!
The next thing I knew, Richard, Linda and I had been appointed to the Bird Team, along with a islander named Phoenix. What the heck? Who did I tick off to get this assignment? I don’t even like ducks. I guess if you show up late to the party, you get assigned to clean up duty. And the sad thing was that we all knew that if we did a good job we would, without a doubt, forever draw Bird Duty on future assignments. This was looking like a lose-lose situation!
Everybody who was anybody took off for the shelter with the captured dogs and cats, leaving several of us to tackle the foul fowl situation. We set about using nets and, for the most part, making total fools of ourselves.
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the birds headed for this brush to hide from us
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The entire back part of the 3-acre property was covered with these keawe trees (also known as mesquite trees, I was told). They had nasty inch-long thorns that could and did go right through the soles of our boots. Linda and I lived to tell about it.
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Ha! Caught one and in a crate it goes!
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How to untangle a chicken from a net ...
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We discovered a chicken that had decided to set up house in one of the transtainers. I “suggested” to Richard that he go in and catch her. Richard traveled all the way from Montana to be verbally abused by all of us women (ok, mostly by me). He was an exceptionally good sport about – mostly because he could give as good as he got. Almost.
We kept at this nonsensical approach for catching ducks and chickens that first evening, all the while talking about other solutions.
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beauty is in the eye of the beholder - remember that
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Most of the ducks were Muscovy. When we caught them, we put them in a large pen that the owner had built for birds. We were simply trying to hold them until the next day, when we assumed they could be moved to either the shelter or whatever other accommodations could be arranged. We would put several in a crate or cage and carry them to the pen.
We found that we could actually herd small groups of ducks if we moved them slowly. Unfortunately, the pen we herded them into was not escape-proof. I cannot tell you how discouraging it was, when we were so hot and tired and frustrated, to finally catch a group of birds, only to watch them waddle out of a hole in the back of the pen and head back into the brush.
“Come back!” I’d plead. “We have bread!”
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Richard & Linda - love her hat!
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Tired and Frustrated … or Dumb and Dumber. Take your pick.
By the time evening came around, it was clear we would not catch these birds quickly enough by doing it one at a time with the nets. It was also clear to us that the birds wanted to come to a certain area to eat in the evening and to sleep. We were advised that they were used to being fed morning and night in this one location. So we came up with a plan:
1. We arranged 3 pens to “herd” them into and “chummed” the catch pens with lots of feed and water.
2. We gave “headquarters” a list of supplies we would need to build our runway to the catch pens and to secure the one catch pen that they kept escaping from.
3. We agreed to be on-site before sunrise in an attempt to catch as many birds as we could while they slept.
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Here chick, chick, chick ...
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Linda tosses bread to the birds to entice them to come to the catch pens. We want to get them comfortable going in and out of the pens before morning.
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Shhh. Don't tell her I'm up here!
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I couldn’t resist taking this photo of Linda, who was busy trying to entice birds in with bread, while one duck sat up on the roof behind her, snickering. I can say, as one who has seen it, that ducks do snicker.
Occasionally one of us would catch a duck that wandered within range. I even caught two ducks at one time. He jumped on her to do you-know-what and I said, “We’ll have none of that on my watch! No more baby ducks!” I jumped on both of them and yelled for Richard to help. We hauled their sorry butts off to duck jail, where they proceeded to start up right where they had left off. So much for my breaking up the duck sex ring.
Richard found out that the Heimlich maneuver works on chickens. He happened to be standing near a piece of wire fencing that made a perfect catch area when a black hen was headed his way. We yelled at him to catch her, which he did. He reached down and snagged her, causing her to vomit. I was so impressed. I had never seen a chicken projectile vomit.
No ducks or chickens were harmed in this operation.
As hard as it was to drag ourselves out of bed at 4am the next morning, we managed to get on-site before sunrise and successfully caught a fair number of birds. It was clear, though, that we needed our supplies to be able to herd birds into the catch pens. That was the only way we were going to be able to catch large numbers of birds in a timely fashion.
In the meantime, we needed a place to hold the birds we had captured. The pen we had been using was now full and filthy. We decided to convert some of the now empty dog kennels into duck pens. They had concrete floors and just needed a little work on the roof portion to make them duck-proof in case these birds could get off the ground to take flight. We spent the morning cleaning several pens, scavenging materials to secure the roofs, and outfitting them with feed and water containers.
As much as I did NOT want to handle those already captured ducks again, I voted for moving them to the new pens. The pens were clean, the water was clean, and the ducks could be hosed down with fresh water. I couldn’t resist making those filthy ducks happy ducks. Linda manned the cage door and the crates while Richard and I went in and caught birds. You do know, don’t you, how many sharp parts a duck has? There are all those toenails. And don’t forget the wings that they love to flap around and hopefully smack you right in the face with. If they don’t do that, they’re quite happy to flap them in the dirt and rocks and throw that up into your face. They also love to share their lice and mites. Just the memory makes me itchy. I will admit, though, that none of the ducks bit me. For that I can be grateful.
By the time our supplies arrived it was about noon and we had put in a full day’s work. There was no rest for the wicked, though. We had to get to work building our herding system.
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Richard with his manly t-post driver
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Richard was pleased with the hot pink t-post driver that was delivered. “We” drove several t-posts and leaned the black fencing up against it. The soil was so compacted that there was no way we could drive the wooden stakes that it was connected to.
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our plan starts to take shape
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Yes, I know the black fence looks like it’s upside down, and technically it is. I don't want to hear about it, okay? As I said, we couldn’t drive the stakes into the ground so that the black plastic would be at ground level. If the plastic wasn’t at ground level, the birds would go right underneath it. So we had to improvise and turn it upside down.
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I think we might be geniuses.
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The wooden structure you see on the right served two purposes. The bottom part was one of our catch pens (the birds liked being in it because it was dark and secure), and the top part was a safe place to keep peeps as we caught them, so they wouldn’t get stepped on. This was the structure that we needed to secure, though, because the trapped birds kept escaping from the bottom part. We used the orange fencing you see to put all around it and block all the holes.
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As long as the birds don't fly over the top of the fencing ...
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Yup, I'm pretty sure we're geniuses.
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These pictures give you an idea of what we constructed to drive the birds into. Once we got them into the corner there were the chain-link cages and the wooden structure to trap them. When we got everything in place, 8 of us started a sweep at the front of the property. The chickens were the most difficult to keep in line, but if we lost a few of those along the way, we just let them go. We were most interested in catching as many ducks as we could on this pass.
Amazingly, we caught the vast majority of ducks on the first pass. We just kept moving very slowly and quietly. How I wish someone would have videotaped it! I thought about doing it, but wasn’t sure I could film and not trip over the brush and obstacles.
As we pushed the birds into the area with the cages a few chickens flew over the black fencing. The ducks, thankfully, didn’t follow them. We could not believe our good luck!
Now, of course, someone had to go into those cages and capture birds. I volunteered. We separated chickens from ducks, and as we collected peeps we put them in the raised coop to keep them safe.
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There's a sweet little peep cradled in her hands.
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Linda had to get into the raised coop to catch all the little peeps. Here she hands one out to us to go into a carrier with its mom.
By the time I had finished, I thought I was going to collapse from heat stroke. Seriously. I felt faint and like I was going to vomit. Have I mentioned it was brutally hot and humid? I crawled out of the third cage and told Richard that I had to take a break. He took one look at me and said, “I can see that!”
I went to sit in the shade thrown by the big truck, powered down some of my electrolyte pills and started pounding down cold water. It didn’t take long before I started to feel better.
I felt even better when I saw this:
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Quack - more water - quack!
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Those are happy ducks, being sprayed with cool, clean water! They absolutely loved it when the water hit them! They would preen, and quack, and come to the water. I was so glad we had taken the time and effort to set up clean cages for them.
We made a few more passes and captured most of the remaining birds. All that were left were those few that we could not get out from under that one transtainer. There was just no way to flush them out from under there. We all looked at each other … because there was one way to do it – someone had to go under there. In ALL THAT FILTH!
Up stepped our aforementioned secret weapon.
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Phoenix, me, Richard, Frannie, Linda
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That secret weapon would be Frannie, the little girl second from the right. She was a sheer delight to work with all day. She would giggle every time we caught a duck.
“Frannie,” I’d say, “I hope you have a lot of laugh left, because it’s going to be a long day!”
“I’ll go under and get them out!” she said.
We all looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“That’s really nice of you, Frannie,” we said, “but you need to check with your mom.”
Much to our amazement, her mother gave her permission and we proceeded to put Plan B into action. We set up a new runway to force the birds into one of the cat houses once Frannie had forced them out from under the transtainer. We put our people into place and then little Frannie got on her belly and crawled through the filth from one end to the other, getting out every duck, chicken, duckling and peep, laughing the whole way.
They all waddled into the cat house, we slammed the door shut on them and I said, “Frannie, you’d better go disinfect yourself now, from head to toe!”
Richard and I each took a deep breath and then went into the cat house to catch birds. We hoped it would be the last bird-catching we’d have to do for a while.
It wasn’t. We spent the next day and half doing a lot of bird handling as ducks went to foster or adoptive homes. Lucky birds! We also prepared the chickens to go to new homes, but at the last minute they ended up staying with their owner, who agreed to care for them. All in all we handled over 200 ducks and chickens.
There were nesting hens all over the property.
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one exhausted little peep
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notice the leg sticking out of another egg in front
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This little guy was the first to hatch in his clutch. His mom would leave the nest in anger anytime we came near, which we did often when we were chasing a duck. If she had the opportunity, she would beat the living tar out of the duck. The poor duck didn’t know which was worse, the wild humans chasing him or the crazed chicken beating him up.
Of course we did not bother these nests, whose youngsters weren’t ready to follow their moms yet.
The Oahu SPCA also had trapped almost all of the loose cats on the property, so those cats, in addition to the ones in the cat houses, were on their way to new lives.
Back at the Shelter
This was our view of the ocean as we drove from the rescue site to the shelter. Yes, we really were in Hawaii!
These beautiful trees lined the road to the shelter.
We hauled a truckload of crates and cages back to the shelter once they were no longer needed on-site.
Since you’re probably sick and tired of birds, how about seeing some of the shelter residents?
This dog is a dead ringer for the late, great Carly, Butterfly’s dog who died from a rattlesnake bite. It was severely emotionally traumatized. I hope by now it has found a loving foster home.
The population was ever changing as pregnant dogs gave birth. The puppy room was the only air conditioned space in the shelter. It was reserved for laboring females or ill animals, until they could be moved to hospitals, if that was what was required.
Some dogs required special caging.
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Some ladies were hesitant to enter the bathroom.
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Even the woman’s bathroom was not exempt from being pressed into use.
This pit bull could “walk” with whatever she was put in – crate, kennel, whatever. So she took up residence in the woman’s bathroom for several days until a kennel could be bolted to a wall and secured all around the bottom so that she couldn’t chew her way out. It was thought that she was shy.
At first she stayed in her crate in the bathroom, and then she took to sitting in the first of the two stalls, watching the comings and goings. I noted that she didn’t take the handicapped stall, which would have given her the corner to hide in. Oh, no - she wanted to be in the middle of the action!
There’d I’d be, using the toilet and she would poke her head under the divider to say hello. Once I finished and washed my hands, she would come wiggling out of the stall for a full-body rub. When she finally got moved to her escape-proof kennel, she was always at the front of the cage, greeting everybody who walked by with a full-body wiggle. Shy, my eye.
Just when you thought you were done with the birds, here’s one more. This is Henry, who was a stray living at the shelter. He was finally captured and adopted. I had nothing to do with it.
The Daily Routine
Each morning we’d arrive at the shelter, after having taken bets during breakfast as to how many dogs we’d find that had managed to get loose during the night. Sure enough, we would drive up to the sound of wildly barking dogs. The meaning: the more barking you hear, the more partying there is going on.
The first several days there was one kennel of 5 dogs that always managed to get loose, and that would then invite several of their best friends to join them. We called them the party kennel. It took the guys working on kennels about 4 days to finally dog-proof their cage. It’s truly amazing what 5 bored dogs can do!
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the furniture's been rearranged
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This is an example of the kind of thing we’d find in the morning. This cage (notice it is empty, its occupant nowhere in sight) has been completely moved out of its row. This is the middle row of short cages, where the smaller dogs go! Obviously, this cage belonged to a strong, smaller dog! And notice that the cage next to it had been reinforced with wooden pallets. Shortly I’ll tell you about the resident of that cage – we named him Hannibal, if that tells you anything.
Some mornings we had as many as 8 loose dogs that we had to round up and re-cage before anything else could be done. This was always a major group effort.
After the morning round-up came the morning briefing.
On this particular morning Julie, our fearless shelter manager, had told us we all needed to make nametags for ourselves so we could stop yelling, “Hey, You!” Never the one to miss an opportunity to annoy Julie, I told everyone to write “Julie” on their nametag. When she finally figured it out, we plastered her shirt with our nametags.
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don't forget to wear a name tag!
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Volunteers changed daily, so a lot of the briefing was the same information. Teams changed daily so that new local volunteers were trained and would be able to take over running the shelter as the groups from the mainland withdrew.
After the briefing teams began feeding, watering, and then cleaning cages.
After a few days of working in the kennels, I was assigned to work as a scribe with one of the vet teams doing preliminary health checks on the dogs. This was around the same time I got asked to stay longer. I changed my return ticket from Friday to the following Tuesday.
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Linda scribes for Dr. Jill
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This was my office. The white chair held my paper work and the all important duct tape tags. Each color meant something different. On top of the file cabinet I had about 5 square inches of space to keep the empty vaccine vials (for the labels I put on the dog’s chart) and my bottle of water. When we were lucky enough to have two dog handlers, I got a third chair so that I could keep my paperwork straight – one chair for each dog’s paperwork. I sat in the green chair.
Watch this dog – he doesn’t move a muscle. He was brought back to the vet because the kennel workers noticed he appeared to be sick. He stayed curled up in one corner of his cage and wasn’t eating or drinking.
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do what you want, I'm not moving
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He did not move a muscle during the entire exam. Notice how thin he is and that he is severely dehydrated. He was given fluids, some Nutrical – a high-calorie food supplement - and canned food. Well, let me tell you, that was a mistake! Guess who one of the escapees was when we came in the next morning? He had chewed/clawed his way out of his kennel! I guess he felt better! I tried to institute a rule right then and there of no more Nutrical for any of the animals, but no one would listen to me.
About the same time I got assigned to working with the vets, Richard started handling the dogs – getting them out of their cages and taking them to the vet for their exams. Richard has had years of experience doing this, so he was perfect for the job.
There was a scale that was the first stop for each dog – or at least each dog that could safely be picked up. Knowing its weight was important, since each dog was receiving a dose of Frontline, and it was necessary information in case antibiotics were needed.
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Richard, John & Bryn get to work
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Next stop was the table (if that was comfortable for the dog, otherwise it was worked on the floor), for temperature and blood draw (heartworm and other parasite tests).
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I connected with this dog ...
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Here’s one of my favorite dogs. There is just something I like about wire-haired dogs. While I was there I saw several people take her out and look at her for potential adoption, but she never quite made the cut. I wanted to shake them and ask them what was wrong with them, because as far as I could see, there was nothing wrong with her! She was a lovebug!
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Thrilled to be seeing the vet!
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This poor Golden was a handful. It took two people to get it out of its cage, due to its “attitude”. It probably has never known a loving home.
It certainly has not enjoyed a grooming in the recent past. What you’re looking at above are mites and mite eggs. Yecch!
This dog was just one of several that were running a high fever.
Cold, wet towels helped bring down its temperature.
We didn’t need more dogs, but puppies kept being born.
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mutual admiration society
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Do you think Doc Stewart likes her?
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Do you think these two liked each other much? Doc Stewart was a softie. The poor dog had what felt like a tennis ball in her colon. She was definitely going to need surgery.
Lunch meant a break from the hard work going on inside the shelter. It was a chance to sit down, have something cold to drink, and relax. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much shade so we would huddle next to the building. Have I mentioned that it was brutally hot and humid?
Richard said, during lunch one day, that someone had really ticked him off. They’d had a fight and he’d ripped the guy’s arm off. He showed me this to prove it:
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I'd hate to see the rest of the guy!
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Those guys from Montana are mean!
If you’re running an animal shelter, even a temporary one in a secret location, somehow people find out about it. One day some young girls ran in carrying an almost dead kitten.
John and Julie set to work on it immediately – there was not a vet in the shelter. The girls told us that the kitten was about 3 weeks old and its mother had been killed by a car. Some people took it home and fed it all the wrong things, until it got so sick they gave it to these kids. These kids had no idea how take care of it, but they knew enough to know it was dying.
John yelled for someone to bring some sugar. Unbelievably, someone came running with a glazed donut and a Coke! We’re all still laughing about that. If you don’t laugh during these horrible situations, you spend all of your time crying.
Julie warms the kitten and I tell it, “Don’t go to the light!”
Julie has to do CPR on the little thing. It spends the rest of the day with us. Eventually it starts having seizures, and Dr. Jill arrives later in the day. She administered seizure meds. Thankfully she is a cat specialist. She took the little kitten home with her that night and when it continued having seizures she decided to euthanize it. A sad ending, but everyone tried so hard.
Day's End
One foot was starting to hurt, which never happens to me. I realized that my boots have finally broken down (too many years of abuse). Needless to say, I am frantically boot shopping, since Ariat no longer makes this boot in my size. The rats.
On the way home at the end of the day I managed to get a few colorful pictures.
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rain in the distance - you know what that means!
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Susan pretends she's a dog
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I knew Butterfly would appreciate this
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This tree was growing everywhere – all along the freeways and streets. I saw it in this color and in solid yellow. I never did find out the name of it, though.
There were several group dinners, but I only attended a few of them. I was trying to keep my migraines under control, which was a real challenge.
Dianne was the HSUS Incident Commander. She did a great job keep thing organized and running smoothly - as smoothly as you can in a situation like that. It's sort of like herding cats and takes real skill because the ground is always shifting under you. Flexibility is the name of the game.
Hannibal
You might think, after seeing pictures of the various dogs in the shelter, that our most troublesome dog would have been a pit bull, or a sharpei, or maybe even that muzzled Golden retriever. You’d be wrong. Trouble came in the form of a little Fox Terrier we named Hannibal.
Remember that cage that was reinforced with wooden pallets? That was Hannibal’s cage. He still managed to get out. He’d make like a mouse and squeeze his way through anything.
Hannibal was a vicious little guy. There’s just no other way to say it. He was an intact male (he is no longer intact). I think all the stress of being in the noisy shelter around other intact males and females in heat did not help the situation.
But Julie had him figured out. Good thing, too, because every morning for the first several days, Hannibal would be loose. Someone had to catch him and Julie was willing to do it. She used a catch pole and a few of her closest friends.
“Tammy!” she’d yell, “get over here and help me corner Hannibal!”
“I don’t have a catch-pole,” I’d whine.
“I do,” she’d say, as if my life wasn’t in jeopardy!
I’d give it my best shot and cover her back - :) - while she spent 10 minutes getting the loop on the most clever little Hannibal. He was a master at hiding his nose between his two front paws when he saw the loop headed his way.
Eventually Hannibal got moved into a nice big kennel after some large dogs got sent to foster care. The whole kennel operation was shut down while this happened and it took 4 people to do it. From back in the vet area we could here lots of noise and clanging and a few shouts.
I don’t know if the new digs helped his disposition, since I had to leave at about the same time, but I hope so. He also went off to be neutered later that day. Let’s hope that helped!
On my last afternoon of work, we were going through a list of dogs that needed their bordatella vaccines and I recognized that the next number up belonged to Hannibal.
“John, Richard, we need to talk,” I told them. “The next dog we’re supposed to work on is Hannibal. What do you want to do?”
“Let’s get him!” said John.
I looked at Richard and rolled my eyes.
“Shall I get Julie to get him out of his cage?” I asked John.
“No way! Everyone is making too big a deal out of this little dog! I’ll go get him myself! You guys take a break!” declared John. He grabbed a big towel and stomped off into the kennel. Richard and I looked at each other and laughed.
John returned about 10 minutes later, sans Hannibal.
“Where’s Hannibal?” I asked innocently.
“Hannibal needs to rest,” said John.
We went on with the rest of the dogs on the list. I hope whichever vet neutered Hannibal knew to give him his bordatella vaccine while he was out like a light.
I heard “the rest of the story” while we were out to dinner that night – our last dinner before leaving Hawaii.
When John got into the kennel and headed towards Hannibal’s cage, Julie happened to be standing there. She asked him if he wanted to use her catch pole and he scoffed at her and said, “No – you know I hate those things!”
Julie just backed off and waited to see what would happen. Hannibal was now in this nice large 8’ by 16’ or so run. Since the previous occupant had been a barker, a tarp had been hung along the lower half of the cage so that it couldn’t see the other dogs, which worked to keep it quiet. This meant that Julie couldn’t see Hannibal – she could only see the top half of John.
She told us that John went into the cage carrying his slip lead and big red towel like a matador, ready to throw it over Hannibal and scoop him up. All she could hear of the dog is a snarl and his nails scraping on the concrete as he charged John.
She said John sputtered, “Oh, S%$@!” and scrambled backwards, towel flailing, as he struggled to get out the gate before the dog nailed him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to use my catch pole?” she asked him.
“I’m just going to let Hannibal rest,” he said.
I think it’s clear that John needed to rest! Hannibal was in fine form, although I am a little worried about who they’re going to find to foster/adopt the poor little guy.
John was laughing hysterically as we both told our parts of the story – he said he had to, because it was all true.
R & R
For 8 ½ days we worked all day long every day, except for one day – the powers that be managed to let those of us who had been there the longest leave the shelter at 3:30 so that we could have a few hours to actually rest and maybe see the hotel pool (which closed at 6:30 and was therefore always closed when we got home at night), or maybe see the beach before dark.
We hit the pool for an hour or so and just chilled.
Then we took a nice walk to the beach near our hotel.
We actually swam in the ocean for about half an hour! Wow! I couldn’t believe it! Now I didn’t have to tell people I’d been to Hawaii and hadn’t gone in the water!
Then we just sat quietly and watched the sun go down.
I thought about how I had just one more day to work.
Only one more day to help as many animals as I could.
Then I would have to leave paradise, hopefully leaving some animals a bit happier and healthier for us having been there.
Once again, I would be leaving a piece of my heart with a few hundred more animals (not to mention people) who had worked their way under my skin.
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