Roaming vs Homing

This chapter isn't about a Cuban animal—it's about an American cat.  Before I knew its name, I thought it was a female because it was small (almost dainty) and soft and sweet and adorable.  A grey and brown short (although not very short) haired cat with a hint of tiger striping, she looked the part of a lovable little feline girl.

Steve, my next door neighbor, caught me puttering around the yard to ask if perhaps we were missing one of our cats.  I said no because I knew none of our six ever leave the house, and, if one ever did get out, it would set off a fusillade of searches, calls, and emotions beyond imaginable limits.  Telling me this little stranger had been around for a few days, Steve led me into his front yard and pointed out the little beauty standing in the bushes near his front door.  I crouched down to call it, and it came right to me without hesitation and asked for some caresses.  Steve isn't a pet person, and Charlene and I are, so his hope was that we could tell him what to do with the cat.  I mentioned two really good cat shelters not far away, but I could tell he was hoping we might become involved, so I said I'd get Charlene to come over and look at it.  I thought if she sees it, we'll certainly become involved.

Sure enough, she saw the lovable little ball of fur and said, "I'll get a carrier and we'll take it up to Marty."  Marty is our vet who runs a large practice.  We've had luck before placing cats in crates in his waiting room where hundreds of pet lovers pass through every day.  Marty is happy to help out to get animals adopted out into the local community, and I suppose one more pet cat in the area can't be bad for business either.  Well, come to think of it, we've been the beneficiaries of Marty's willingness to try to place pets—Marty first showed us our beloved border collie, Danny, at his office after his former master had passed away.

The transport duty fell to me, and we put the cat in a carrier in the front seat of my car.  At the vet office Marty's Chief of Staff, Tawnya, helped me out.  I asked her if she would check for a microchip and told her I'd stick around until I knew if there was one.  Fifteen minutes later Tawnya appeared smiling with the news thee was indeed a chip.  She offered to make calls to the chip maker to identify the owner if I cared to wait for the results.  "Oh and by the way, this cat's a neutered male," she said.

Meanwhile Charlene had been on the phone to neighboring pet owners.  One had reported another neighbor's outdoor cat matched the cat's description.  Charlene phoned me with what she had learned, and said she'd called the possible owner (Marjorie, who lived several houses up the street) and that she had found the owner.  The cat's name was Tom.  As I was hanging up the phone, Tawnya appeared with the owner's name and address and phone number from the chip maker neatly written on a sheet of note paper, so Tom and I got back in the car and drove to his house.

Charlene was already in their driveway as I pulled up, and I set the carrier down in the grass by my car.  Marjorie, while happy to see him back at home was not surprised Tom had been roaming.  "I tried him in the house, but he likes to scratch the furniture.  Go ahead, let him out of the carrier on the grass"  So Tom, unfortunately for him and possibly for some of the birds in our area, is an outdoor cat.  He gets good food, vet care and love, but he can't come inside with the family.  Seeing how people friendly this cat is, I thought it's a shame he can't live inside, perhaps only for the lack of a scratching pad or post.

The Humane Society of the US never recommends letting a cat roam outside—it's bad for the cat and bad for wildlife—lizards, birds, chipmunks and many other animals.  The cats themselves can get fleas, ticks, and suffer in fights.  It's just not good practice.

Sweet little Tom.  At least next time he shows up in Steve's yard, Steve will know he really isn't a stray, and he's not starving.  And the next time I won't be as tempted to take him into our already large brood.

Les Inglis

Small World

When you hear the word, Caribbean, you think of a large body of water south and east of the Gulf of Mexico, but when you visit the Caribbean, you think of a chain of islands that define the northern and eastern limits of the Caribbean.  Those islands, some huge like Cuba, and some tiny like St. Thomas, are where we vacation, dance, drink, swim, surf, and listen to steel drums and Bobby McFadden impersonators.  Oh yes, and some people go to educate themselves.

This year the Caribbean Animal Welfare Conference (CAWC) was held in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the most far-flung of Caribbean islands.  Trinidad is at the extreme southeast corner of the Caribbean Sea.  In fact, on a map it doesn't even seem like part of the chain of islands, being well separated from the rest and, at its closest part less than 10 miles from Venezuela on the South American mainland.  But enough about geography.

Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President, traveled 1600 miles from one end of the chain to the other to attend CAWC earlier this month to take part in lectures and seminars on whales, turtles, farm animals, animal shelters, and sterilization.  CAWC is sponsored and produced by three main organizations, Humane Society International (HSI), World Society for Protection of Animals (WSPA), and Pegasus Foundation.

Years ago as a late teenager, Nora had attended CAWC with her adoptive mother, nationally known Cuban singer/songwriter/author, Maria Alvarez Rios, the woman who encouraged Nora to make a career out of helping animals.  Unfortunately, Cuba then was entering a long period of economic problems, and travel in later years to CAWC became prohibitive.

This year, thanks to substantial assistance from HSI and The Aniplant Project (TAP), Nora's expenses for herself and one other Aniplant Director were donated, and she could bring her substantial experience with large sterilization campaigns to the conference.

While at the conference, Nora ran into a friend she had first met in 1962 at another CAW conference with her adoptive mom.   These two ladies are roughly the same age and were born in the same small town in central Cuba.  The meeting was a surprise to both of them, especially after more than 50 years.  Here's my translation of Nora's email account of this grand coincidence:

I saw a friend from the year 1962 who lives in Puerto Rico.  Incredibly it became evident that my parents and hers knew each other.  We were both born in Caibarien in the center of the island only a block between our houses, and we are almost the same age.  She knew much about me through your blogs, and she was so surprised to meet me personally.  It was very emotional—they called us "The Cubans."  She is President of ALL SATO RESCUE in Puerto Rico, and we are much alike—thin, active, dedicated, and with much love for the animals, especially dogs.

Nora

I've long had a theory that love of animals is an innate characteristic of human lives.  It's born into us, and if it can't be found in an adult, it was probably lost by action of the person's environment.  But absent such a loss, one could say, "once an animal lover, always an animal lover."  I think the paths of Nora and her friend in Puerto Rico certainly lend weight to this idea. Frankly I'm impressed with this story of two girls who liked their dogs and grew up to make parallel careers out of helping thousands of them.

No wonder I like animal lovers so much.

Les Inglis

Best Friends Forever

One of the toughest problems for dog owners is that dogs live only a fraction of the time people do.  That means in the course of a lifetime a dog lover might have to face the passing of several "best friends." 

Ten pictures of our dogs hang on the walls of my study as I write this.  Only one of these very special creatures is still alive.  The ten do not include dogs I had as a child or before Charlene and I were married.  That's a lot of goodbyes, and each one hurt as if it were a son or daughter.

There is no right way to manage your pet's passage onto another plane.  Sometimes they pass quickly with no forewarning, and sometimes they decline slowly over a long time of building grief.  Sometimes a veterinarian predicts the end, and sometimes he offers a hopeful medical strategy to keep the pet alive.  Many, if not most, of us will reach a long way to keep our pets alive and healthy, but also most of us would question commissioning heroic veterinary feats just to postpone the end of a terminal struggle.  Who is such a postponement for?  The pet or its owner?

Over the years Charlene and I have faced the mortality of our animal companions, and I must say that going through these struggles has not made us experts in managing the end of life passages, except perhaps to reinforce what most of us know—make the most of today for tomorrow may never come.

But let me tell you the story of Booster, my friend Davis Hawn's service dog.  Davis found Booster as a scarred puppy inside his pickup truck when he went to claim it from an impound lot.  At that time he wasn't particularly a dog lover, but something about that little puppy struggling to live struck a chord with Davis, himself a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder.

They bonded and became inseparable.  Davis began to learn more about training dogs and eventually won a Master's Degree from Bergin University in training service dogs.

Booster became educated too, and today he helps Davis with everyday tasks.  Among his many talents Booster can, on command, go to the refrigerator, open it, retrieve a Coke, and bring it back to Davis.  But most of all, they are inseparable companions, which Davis lovingly demonstrates by signing his letters:

                        Davis and Booster

                        We are a team.

After an email friendship, I finally met Davis and Booster at an HSUS conference in Orlando.  Booster was very popular among the conferees as Davis put him through his paces.  It seemed like Booster could understand English, but I had the feeling that Davis understands dog language too.  Surely they are a team.

Our spinning planet shuddered a little one day recently when Davis found a lump on Booster's head.  He was told Booster had developed a tumor that had penetrated his skull and was growing inside the brain cavity.  If he was to be saved, surely radical measures would be needed.  Quickly educating himself in such matters, Davis found two vets and treatments that could possibly help Booster.  First a vet in Canada had come up with a way to take cells from the tumor to make a vaccine that would fight the spread of the disease.  The second vet believed he could kill the tumor by a series of targeted radiation treatments.  Davis opted for both approaches.

The only fly in the ointment was the vaccine vet's schedule had no opening for Booster for a few weeks, but if the radiation were begun, the tumor material to be used for making the vaccine would be damaged, making the vaccine less effective.

Not to be diverted from helping his best friend, Davis opted for yet a third procedure.  First they would harvest robust cells and send them to the vaccine vet.  Then radiation in several sessions would kill the tumor.  Finally, when the vaccine vet's schedule permitted, the harvested cells would be used to make a vaccine.

All that has now happened, and Booster has come through with flying colors.  He has had his first vaccine application and an agenda of several more is scheduled.

Booster is one very talented dog, but he's a lucky one too.  In Davis he has a companion who just won't give up.  Davis is no starry-eyed optimist.  He knows a relapse could happen in the future, but he tells me, this is the first time in history that Booster's type of tumor cells have been applied this way—and it happens to be a remarkable success.  Booster, who has been the subject of countless news articles on his service dog skills, is now famous in veterinary medicine as the living demonstration of a new cancer fighting technique.

That's quite a career for a 95 pound Labrador retriever even if he's smarter than the average dog.

Les Inglis

Something in Common

The other night I watched a TV special discussing life in Cuba.  For many years travel to Cuba from the US had been complicated by books full of rules, regulations, restrictions, licenses, and authorizations.  As a result, US citizens stay away from Cuba in droves.  As intriguing as the island might be to US tourists, most decide it isn't worth the effort and travel somewhere else.

That's too bad as the island offers a large measure of things to see and do as well as its own rich history, architecture, music, and dance.  50 plus years of repressing interaction between Cuba and the US have only served to make Cuba and its culture more interesting.  The TV special I saw illuminated the many differences between life in the US and life in Cuba.

For an animal lover like me, one striking difference is the number of dogs one encounters on the streets—that is, dogs without any noticeable owners.  Now, to be complete, I have to say this is a Latin American and a Caribbean thing.   Cuba has fewer strays and homeless animals than say Honduras, but all the Latin countries have far more than we are used to seeing in the US.  Still, in Cuba few houses have fenced yards for their pets (or any yards at all for that matter), and it is common to allow your house pet to roam outside for its bathroom breaks.  Also the use of collars and leashes is rare in Cuba.  Even owners on a walk with their dogs depend upon the dogs staying with them while they stroll.  Thus, some of the possible "strays" one sees on the street are actually family pets and have homes.  I have learned not to consider the absence of an owner as evidence of homelessness.  That is to say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Rather, I look at the dog's condition.

For me, the best evidence of homelessness is the condition of the dog.  Underfed, ribs showing, lethargy, mange, etc. are far better indicators of homelessness.  On the TV special I looked carefully for street animals, I spotted two in the background of views of other subjects.  Neither of these two showed any of the signs of neglect, and I concluded these were someone's family dogs.

The TV special had sent its cameras and reporter into the home lives and family lives of the Cubans, making evident the relative poverty widespread in Cuba.  Salaries are miniscule and ration books supplement them, but ration books aren't sufficient to provide all the needed food.  Many Cubans have sidelines, and everyone uses every opportunity to earn a little extra money.  One wonders how a person in pressed circumstances can possibly have a dog in his family, and yet pets are perhaps as common in Cuba as they are in the US.  Dogs eat leftovers and scraps, slaughterhouse offal and viscera.  Chicken necks, pig stomachs, kidneys, and whatever else can be purchased cheaply.  Commercial pet food does not exist except in a few tourist stores at unaffordable prices.

Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President, presents two radio shows and one TV show each week.  She teaches animal care, animal health and humane practices.  In a country where radio is as important as TV is here, she has a large cadre of followers who tune into Radio Progresso every Saturday at 9:30 am.  Many times I've seen her stopped on the street by passersby to respond to their questions about pet care.  These experiences help me to conclude the typical Cuban loves animals as much as the typical American.  They care for and love their pets and support them despite meager resources.  They show up at spay neuter clinics for sterilization, knowing it is the long term solution to stray animals on the street.  Even if they can't personally rescue all the strays, they help by neutering their pets.

For all the differences in our lives and theirs, a love of animals, however differently expressed, is something we have in common with our island neighbors to the south.

Les Inglis