Annie

Dogs in the Sky

For several years we maintained two homes, a non-working farm in Indiana and our house in Florida.  We traveled back and forth from one to the other as the mood struck us.  Until late 1990 the farm was our permanent home and the house in Florida was used for getaways and little vacations.  This was early in our marriage, and Annie was a rescued 15" beagle—our first dog.

We thought it would be unfair to Annie to board her in a kennel during our several trips to Florida each year, so we decided to get a carrier and take Annie with us on the planes.  I must say Annie was a veteran flyer in no time.  She'd walk into the airport on her leash without showing the least sign of apprehension.  We always gave her a long drink of water to last her through the 2 hour flight, and then when it was time, we opened the carrier door and Annie happily and voluntarily walked into the carrier, curled up on the little blanket inside, and prepared for the journey.  After her first flight, she knew what was to be expected, and I'm guessing she slept most of the way, just the way she did on a quiet afternoon at home.

We flew without much worry about Annie.  Granted, riding in the baggage compartment wouldn't be very pleasant for you or me, but Annie had what she needed—a toy, her blanket, and plenty of space in the carrier.  Her carrier rode up the ramp to the luggage area, and sometimes I watched from my window seat on the plane.

One trip back from Tampa to Cincinnati did give us some worries about her safety.  Tampa wasn't the most convenient airport for us—Sarasota was—but Tampa offered non-stop service, and we didn't want to take a chance that she wouldn't get transferred to a second plane in a plane change in Atlanta.  All seemed fine as we checked Annie in, and we watched her ride the conveyer behind the check-in desks into the baggage handling area.  We flew home comfortably knowing Annie was in an air conditioned and pressurized baggage compartment, probably right below our seats.

But when we got to Cincinnati it took much longer than usual for her carrier to appear on the carrousel.  When we finally saw the carrier, we were relieved, but I noticed another baggage tag had been added to the original one.  It seemed she had made the trip to Cincinnati on a different plane from the one we were on.  We never heard why the switch, but since it all ended well, there was no harm done.

I never had any fears she could be lost, as the carrier was well marked with her name and ours.  It also carried a Delta Frequent Flyers' Club tag, which is supposed to get you a little better service on Delta.  Also Annie was never without her collar which had identification tags.  I think that time might have been before microchips.

Many people have mentioned the danger to dogs flying as luggage.  We've all seen the trains of baggage carts baking in the sun on an airport apron.  I'm told live animals get priority treatment by the baggage handlers to avoid overheating them in the summer.  Some airlines serving southern cities will not accept animals in carriers during the summer.

These days we live in one place all the time.  It suits us to be home-bodies, and our dogs are quiet, stay-at-home types.  And it's a good thing too, because these days the airline industry is so huge, impersonal, and computerized that I'm not sure I want to transport the canine members of my family as baggage.

Les Inglis

The Booster Center

Davis Hawn is an interesting guy.  I first met him via email when he was trying to arrange a trip to Cuba—he'd done some Internet surfing and found the TAP website.  Well, getting to Cuba isn't all that tough, even in view of the US legal restrictions on travel, but Davis had an odd twist on his trip plans—he wanted to take his dog Booster to Cuba with him.

Booster is a service dog, well trained to help Davis with his PTSD.  As a service dog, Booster is with Davis 24-7.  Davis found Booster when he was a stray puppy cowering in the cab when he claimed his pick-up truck from an impound lot.  It was a lucky break for both of them.

Well, we corresponded about his trip and I connected him with Nora at Aniplant.  Her contacts were invaluable to him, and she helped him get a documentary about service dogs filmed and produced in Cuba.  Davis is a very publicity minded person about service dogs, and the documentary was a natural step in his desire to promote the use of service dogs.

Davis adopted a Cuban stray dog he found on Havana's main shopping street, Obispo Street.  He named the dog Fidelity. Nora found Fidelity a foster home for several weeks and got him the veterinary care needed to put him in top certified condition for his eventual trip to the US.  It took some arranging to get Fidelity to the US.  With the help of a couple of fine Canadian-based organizations dedicated to rehoming Caribbean dogs to Canada, Fidelity first flew to Toronto from Varadero.  There he met Davis who flew him to Chicago and eventually to New Orleans near Davis' home.

Booster, being a service dog, needed no such elaborate arrangements.  He didn't even need a travel carrier or to be placed in the baggage compartment for his return from Cuba.  Service dogs, under US law, can travel in the passenger cabin with their owners.  With both of his dogs back home, Davis concentrated on getting his Master's Degree from Bergin University in the San Francisco area. Bergin educates dog trainers, offering a full scholastic program for that purpose.  I was privileged to provide a review of Davis' Master's Degree Thesis.

Now Davis is using his Cuban contacts to start something called The Booster Center in Cuba.  It will be a service dog training organization to help the disabled in Cuba.  Davis has provided scholarships for two Cuban students to prepare themselves at Bergin U. to operate The Booster Center.  Those students, Miguel and Beatriz, are currently in California enrolled in Bergin for that training.  It took two years to make all the arrangements for the students' trips to the US, but after countless emails, they are here and immersed in their studies.

A carefully selected, fully trained service dog is a very valuable animal.  He or she becomes the central object in the life of a person who really needs help with the daily problems of living.  They sense problems and perform tasks like opening doors and provide emotional support and companionship.  If Cuba can develop the Booster Center according to Davis' plans, it will be improving the situations of many people, making their lives more productive and less difficult.

Davis clearly has a knack for building on the age old symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs.

Les Inglis

Climbing in Cuba

For most of us city dwellers, tall buildings are no big deal.  They abound in cities, and in the normal course of events we never see their stairways.  We use elevators as a matter of course.  Now I've heard of people who voluntarily take to the stairs for several flights to get their exercise, and I can see that would be  a pretty good workout, but it's not for me.  I'll take the elevator every time.

The summer I was 18, it was different.  I took a train to Washington DC for a little sightseeing.  When I got to the Washington Monument, there was a long line of tourists queued up to ride the elevators to the pinnacle, the highest point in the city.  The wait was about two hours.  In those days my energy was only exceeded by my impatience, and I discovered I could bypass the line and use the stairs to get to the top.  I started off two steps at a time.

Well, 555 feet (about the equivalent of a fifty story building) is lots of climbing, and after a few floors I settled down to a more sedate pace, but I eventually reached the top without having to stop to catch my breath.  But that was then and this is now when I couldn't hope to show such endurance.

On my first trip to Cuba I saw how the other half lives.  Havana has its share of tall buildings with the tallest at 37 floors.  Most of the tall ones run about 10 to 15 stories.  In a Communist country, the real estate belongs to the state, and so it is in Cuba.  Along with owning the buildings, the state is responsible for their elevators which in Cuba are under-maintained.  This means that in Cuba at any given time many buildings have non-working elevators as they wait for scant service or repair parts or sometimes complete replacements.

Talk about inconvenience!  To live or work on the eighth floor when the elevator doesn't work can be a big pain in the neck.  Aniplant's headquarters in 2005 and 2006 was an eighth floor apartment in a building with a broken elevator.  It had been that way for a long time, so on my second trip four of us took to the stairs.  I was fifteen or more years older than most of the others, but I kept up with them, and at the top, I was no more worn out than the others.  That experience put helping Aniplant get a new ground floor home at the top of our priorities.

Nora, Aniplant's President, lives in one of the better tall buildings in Havana near the top of the hill in Vedado.  She's on the 10th floor with a great view of the city and the sea and the building (1950's era) has two elevators with spotty service records.  More than once I've encountered elevators that didn't work and had to climb 10 floors with packages of supplies and donations of medicines.  On one trip, the lift was out and Nora told me the building was getting new replacement elevators.  Sure enough at the next trip the new elevators gleamed, free of graffiti and ready to lift silently one and all along with their luggage.

Thanks to broken elevators I've also climbed flights of stairs at Radio Progresso, Cuba's main radio station, more than one office building, and even a few times at my hotel which, at 11 floors was once (in the 1920's) Cuba's tallest building.

When you're visiting Havana you become aware there are fewer obese people in Cuba than there are here at home.  I always thought that was because of high food prices and low food supplies.

Maybe so, but for many it might also be caused by the extra exercise one gets when forced to by-pass broken elevators.

Les Inglis

Onyx Touches Our Lives

Onyx (is that a great dog's name or what?) is a black lab mix with a shiny coat and sincere eyes that seem to say, "Adopt me, and I'll love you with all my heart every minute of every day for the rest of my life."  And at less than two years of age, Onyx has a lot of love to offer.  His story follows an all too familiar pattern.

Onyx's people were a Miami area family with a 7 month-old baby.  Like lots of short haired dogs, Onyx sheds a bit, and the baby manages to pick up some dog hairs on its clothes.  First they tried leaving the dog in the yard all the time, but then they decided to get someone else to adopt the dog.  In my house no one would notice a few dog hairs, in spite of Charlene's regular, frequent, and energetic cleaning sessions.

Diana became aware of Onyx's plight and surely didn't want him to go to Miami- Dade Animal Control, a practically certain death sentence.  She told her boyfriend, Fernando, another animal lover, and he began a search for a better future for Onyx.

As it happens, Fernando is a nephew of Dulce, a close Cuban-American friend of mine.  Through her I had come to know Fernando who helps us ship boxes of vet medicines to Aniplant in Havana.  Fernando puts lots of effort into those shipments, and he has become an important link in our chain of people who help Cuban animals.  He emailed me about Onyx to see if we could help spread the word.

Charlene carefully reviews Internet postings of dogs needing rescue in the Miami area.  She closely watches a group called My Animals Rock, posted by a retired lawyer named Kathy who has placed hundreds of animals in recent years (including three with our family).  I suggested to Charlene she pass Onyx's information on to Kathy for wider publicity.  Charlene agreed but wasn't too optimistic, pointing out he's large (65 pounds) and black (a disadvantage for dogs needing homes).  My feeling was that Onyx had lots going for him. Like he was neutered, had all his shots, and is good with cats, dogs, children, and babies.  And, Fernando was willing to transport Onyx to any new home in Florida

I think Kathy was a little skeptical too, but she went right ahead and posted his availability after asking for a better photo.  Imagine all of our surprise when within two days of posting, we heard that Onyx had been adopted, moved, and settled into a new home in Palmetto Bay. Florida.  Fernando had done the transport, and he provided a video file with his email that showed Onyx doing laps in his new family's swimming pool.  Like all labs, Onyx loves the water.

There are thousands of stories with sad endings about homeless dogs, but there are also thousands of stories that end with, "happily ever after."  Onyx is well on his way to a happy life with his new big-hearted human companions.

Those persnickety people who were afraid to have dog hair on their baby's clothes don't know the years of joy and love they and their children will be missing.

Les Inglis

Gift Baskets

Some people live their whole lives without finding a stray cat or dog on the front porch.  Those people aren't usually known as animal lovers.  I think it is impossible to be known as an animal lover in one's area without someone eventually deciding to leave an animal at your door clandestinely.

Granted such secretive "gifts may be motivated by a desire to help a homeless animal, but they are also a burden on the recipient, no matter how much he or she loves animals.  Most animal lovers have more than one companion animal—sometimes a few or several.  I'm not talking here about "hoarders" who are mentally ill and have far too many animals.  I'm talking about normal people with a special love for dogs and/or cats.  People like my dear departed mother-in-law and father-in-law who loved all animals and instilled that love into their daughter, my wife, Charlene.

Mary, my mother-in-law, usually had one dog and a few cats.  She and her husband, Ben, cared for all their animals, spent plenty of time with them, and often talked about them with friends.  But Mary and Ben were often victimized by others who might dump a cat or a few new kittens at their house.  Each time they found a box or basket at the back door, they had to care for the new arrival(s), feed them, and try to find a friend who might want to adopt it.  That meant they usually had a few more animals than they could reasonably support.

In our own case, although I can't prove they were dumped, over the years we have encountered several cats hanging around our house.  This happens with a frequency that leads me to suspect some of them may have been unrequested midnight deliveries.  As a result, we have averaged about 6 cats in our house over the 24 years we have lived here.  It was the same at our farm before we moved here, but the number of strays in that area was always large.

What's the alternative if you find a dog or cat?  Well, first decide if you have room in your life for a new companion.  Do you have any friends who might like to adopt a lifelong pal?  Also, consider a local shelter or refuge.  Yes they are usually full, and some must euthanize animals to control the number they keep, but, assuming the shelter practices humane euthanasia, that is neither cruel nor unfair in this imperfect world.  What does seem unfair is to leave an animal at someone's door just because that person loves animals.

I'm saying that when you encounter a homeless animal you should do everything possible to get it into a caring home.  Charlene's mantra is "Never be too busy to help an animal in distress."  And she lives by that Commandment without exception. But beyond animals found along the roads or in the occasional picture of a rescued dog in foster care that we fall in love with, we really don't need surreptitious additions to our menagerie.

Every animal adopted by loving, sensible people is one less animal at risk of injury, sickness, or starvation.

Les Inglis

Finca Vigia

To me, the best weather in the world is found when you go toward the equator until it gets too hot, and then you go straight up until you find cool breezes.  I learned this years ago when I passed a couple of weeks in Cuernavaca taking Spanish lessons.  Cuernavaca calls itself the city of eternal spring, and that's a pretty accurate description.  Even though it's squarely in the Earth's tropical zone, 6000 feet of elevation assures that Cuernavacans don't need air conditioning.

I have a friend, Lilian, who sited her home halfway up a mountain in the suburbs of San Jose, Costa Rica.  Weather there stays close to perfect due to a happy combination of latitude and elevation.  One night, while visiting there, we all decided to go to a restaurant near the mountain top.  I foolishly neglected to take a sweater along, and shivered through dinner, proving on that mountain you can be either too high or too low.

In 1939, Ernest Hemingway brought his third wife, Martha Gelhorn, to live with him in Cuba.  After settling in, Martha began to look for a permanent home. She must have known that in a hot place like Havana it would be a good idea to be as high up as you can get because after a search, she set her sights on a large finca situated on many acres on top of the highest hill on Havana's southern horizon.  It was in a little town called San Francisco de Paula, and Papa Hemingway agreed with Martha to make it their home.

Finca Vigia (literally, "farm with a view") is home to hundreds of species of tropical trees and plants surrounding a one-story, expansive home with huge rooms.  Soon after the purchase, new bookshelves in the house filled with books and the notes of Papa, who read even more than he wrote.  Papa's fourth wife, Mary, built him a four story tower with a writing studio on the top floor.  From that room you can see all of the metropolitan area of Havana and beyond out into the Florida Straits.  Papa felt the tower studio was too silent for him to write well and resumed writing standing at his typewriter in the house.  Even on the ground floor, one could see the Havana panorama laid out in the distance.

Many animal rights proponents would sneer at Hemingway, the hunter.  He hung heads of buffalo, gazelles, and antelope he had killed on safari on the finca walls, sometimes several in a room.  Yet the finca abounded with pet cats and dogs.  Papa would mourn the deaths of any of his dogs, and he was said to be even fonder of his cats than his dogs.  He established a little cemetery for some of the dogs.  Descendants of his dogs and cats still live on the finca grounds, fed and cared for by the attendants of the property, now a nationally protected museum.  Cuba has restored Finca Vigia to the showplace it must have been when Papa lived there.  No expense was spared in the restoration, and every item was cataloged, removed, stored, and eventually put back in the same place when it was necessary to construct a new roof for the house a few years ago.

Papa, I loved your writing, hated your hunting, marveled at your Cuban home, and snapped a photo of your little pet cemetery.

Les Inglis

Vegan Abroad

I've been trying to be a vegan for 25 years now.  That means eating no animal based foods.  It sounds simple, but in reality the western world is stacked against vegans. Restaurant menu selections by and large contain meat or eggs or some dairy product that vegans forswear.  Years ago Charlene and I became vegans at the same time, setting off a project of reading food package labels, seeking vegan recipes, and gambling on strange ethnic restaurants.  We learned to ask for special preparations when nothing vegan appeared on a menu.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  We long ago left the learning phase, and now we've found a number of suitable restaurants, and the meals we have at home are wonderful and cause no animal suffering.  It's when I travel I find the most mealtime challenges.  First of all I'm placed well back on the learning curve of finding a suitable restaurant.  When traveling, you take what you can get.  Also you don't know how adaptable the chef is if you are thinking about asking for a substitution.

But on my trips to Cuba, I have pretty well solved the problem of what to eat.  And the solution was easy—it was in the restaurant in my hotel.  Guests in most hotels are a captive audience it not being convenient to leave the hotel to grab the first meal of he day.  My hotel, the Presidente in the Vedado suburb, lays out a magnificent breakfast spread.  Its large dining room has a well stocked buffet line with just about anything you might like for breakfast.

The buffet line starts near a griddle cook who, on any given day, might be cooking pancakes, fried eggs or French toast.  It then progresses right to left past a steam table loaded with large pans of hash browns, home fries, even mashed potatoes, buscuits, cooked veggies like cabbage or onion, and hard boiled eggs.  You name it, and if it is eaten for breakfast, there will be a tray of it sometime during the week.

Beyond the end of the tray line and placed around the dining room are tables with cereal, oatmeal, fruit, breads, sweet rolls, and even sliced cheese.  To drink are coffee, hot chocolate and different fruit juices.  I have to pick and choose to stay vegan, and usually I'm pretty successful clinging to my dietary life style in the hotel dining room.

At lunch time we guess at restaurants and the selection isn't as grand for a vegan.  But fortunately, the beans and rice dishes I love are ubiquitous in Latin America, and  Italian and Chinese restaurants are a sure bet if you want to avoid meat.  In general when I'm going to Havana, I know I won't be hungry because of my culinary proclivities.

One feature of eating well in Cuba does bother me.  Being a tourist destination for Canada and Western Europe, Cuba supports a well developed system of supplying restaurants and hotels.  They offer nearly everything one might desire in the way of food, and the tourists consume it with gusto, whether vegans, vegetarians or animal eaters.  All this gustatory largesse is bought and paid for in CUC's, the Cuban convertible currency.

Ordinary citizens can't usually buy food priced in CUC's.  They can't afford it.  Their salaries are small and paid in the old Cuban Peso (moneda nacional or MN), worth a fraction of the CUC.  Ration books supplement the citizen's larder, but offer less than enough to last a month and a very limited selection of foods.  The typical family cook shops in food stands placed in the neighborhoods by farmers who haul their fruits and vegetables into town every day.  It is forbidden to raise beef for domestic consumption, but beef can be had for the tourist and anything else he might like.  The hapless citizen can see the rich life of the tourist, but he can't partake.

During World War II the Nazis occupied Norway and the domestic meat industry faded away, leaving the citizens an unappealing diet of plant foods and grains.  After four years of this meager fare, doctors discovered Norwegian citizens were showing lower rates of heart disease and cancer.  Norway's experience may suggest that Cuba's seemingly unfair dual currency system and the simple fare it forces Cubans to eat may well have a silver lining in improved health of the citizens.

Les Inglis