aww, crap man

how many freaking calls do i get on animals? alot and then i put them away and i forget them. well i just forgot a dog hanging at the vets for the past month, that i did agree to take. it is a small senior dog with cushings disease and the agreement was they would stabilize (her/him?) with meds and then give me a call. at the time i could squeeze in another small dog because cuddles and harley and carley weren't here. i can still squeeze him/her in cuz her body is little but not as well as i could a month ago.

so the call came tonight and i said, oh right i forgot about that dog, what are the problems again? and then i remembered once i was reminded so in a few days we will have a new cushings stabilized saint.

and while i was on the phone talking to the very same vet who happens to be one of my most favorite people (she used to work at one of our clinics before and has since moved on to another), she told me the story of a very sad dog and it turns out that over the years i have seen her.

The Story of an Old Dog's Crappy Life

Once a upon a time in the land of human beings a very small puppy was born. She was nothing special just a plain shepherd mix and she pretty much never had a good home. She spent her life getting tossed here and there and finally one day when she was old, someone got her for free from someone else and she became a guard dog at a local business. She stood on the hard pavement every single day just staring out thru the wire. This soft hearted nurse used to drive by and see her. she wondered "do they ever take her into their home?" and she drove on by hoping they did.

One day the business folded and the human beings moved away. They left that dog there all by herself until a kind neighbor found her a temporary home. But temporary is not for the life a dog and certainly not crippled incontinents. The possiblity exists that she may now be euth'd except she is a bright dog, with an interest in life, and she is a very nice dog and she is not ready yet to pack in her thus far crappy life.

and that is as far as the story goes...

today i was thinking that i let saints get too big. it is getting too hard to get everything done and all the bases covered. there are too many animals and not enough money and people, and i am getting stressed, tired and sore trying to juggle it all.

so my solution this morning was to settle things down. let our animals who can find homes, find homes. and the ones who are close to ending their lives will end them before too very long. and maybe in a year or so things will get easier if we stick to a reasonable size and quit taking more in to replace the ones that we lose.

it is a good plan and it could work really well if i just tell the vet to let that poor old dog go. her life has pretty much sucked from the day she was born, and it is sad that it sucks the same at the end.

i have all the reasons stacked well in my head that i am doing more than enough as it is. it will be interesting to see when push comes to shove and all other options fall away and that blue syringe is poised over her head, what will i say at that moment?

if anyone knows anyone who can take in an old dog who has had a crappy life, tell them to give me a call and i will pass on the contact info., who knows maybe she's due for a miracle after waiting so long.