Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Noonday Sun

A mile and a half from our home is a giant Walmart, perhaps the size of three football fields.  It is stuffed with all kinds of food and merchandise, much of it made in China.  It is so close we often run over there for any needed item.  So yesterday Charlene and I got in the car, drove the short distance, and parked in the middle of a vast parking lot, even bigger than the store itself,

Charlene no sooner had her door open when she said, "There are dogs locked in that car," meaning the small Ford van next to us.  We both became worried as it was a hot Florida summer day with few clouds to break up the direct sunlight.

It wasn't the first time we were in that situation in the same parking lot.  The two dogs were energetically barking at us as I tried all the doors on the van.  Even the windows were tightly closed.  I figured the van with the dogs had not been there very long, as they showed no signs yet of too much heat.

We bolted off to the store office, thinking we could get them to make an announcement on the public address system, but the manager told us it was store policy to tell us to call the Sheriff's police.  Charlene called while I rushed back to the van to check on the dogs.

I had a specifically designed window breaking tool that's pretty common in Florida, where many roads run alongside canals, lakes, and bays.  If a car goes in the water, electric windows don't work, and you can drown if the water is deep enough and you're in there long enough.

I'd never used the tool, and I inspected it as I got it our of our car.  It  had a     hardened tip about an inch long with a sharpened point for glass breaking.  "That ought to do the trick," I thought as I looked at my watch.  Nearly 20 minutes had gone by since we had arrived to find the trapped dogs.  I promised myself that if the police don't get here soon, I'll use the tool whether it's legal or not.

Charlene was only a few steps behind me.  She had not only called the Sheriff, but she'd called the County's Animal Services office and our vet's office who then made other calls for help.  Shortly after she got back I was relieved to see a police car with two deputies arriving.

As the police were brought up to date, I checked the dogs—they were still fairly energetic, but I didn't know how hot it was in the car.  It had to be over 100 by this time (nearly 1/2 hour after we discovered them.  The police decided to wait for the Animal Services van, which had been called and was on its way.  Fortunately the Sheriff's headquarters is less than a mile away.

I looked back at the store and saw a man come into view around the corner of the building.  He started running as fast as he could in our general direction.  On arriving in our midst, he said" I only went into the store for one thing.  It wasn't more than five minutes ago.  The dogs are OK."

"That's a lie," I said, "we got here 40 minutes ago, and they were locked in the car then."  One of the police told the man to open the car, and he unlocked and opened the driver's door.

The man had a thick neck and a crew cut, and he was short and stumpy.  On top of all that, he was ugly.  He had a loud, almost overbearing voice, and he was obviously trying to control the direction of the conversation.  He started a long string of questionable statements, trying to prove he was a responsible pet owner.  Here are two examples of the several "excuses" he made:

·       The dogs were his best friends, and he'd give his life for them.

·       He'd been in an accident in which his sister died and he was badly injured, but he nevertheless saved his sister's dogs in spite of serious injuries to his leg.  He showed us all an ugly mass of scars around his right knee.  In his mind, all of this was somehow proof of his love of dogs.

A tall, older man dressed poorly in an old tee shirt and shorts, walked up to us, and it soon became clear he was a friend of Shorty, the dog owner.  He had been with Shorty when they left the dogs locked up with no cooling.  I asked the Animal Services lady why one of them could not have stayed with the dogs in the car with the air conditioner running.  No one had a good answer for that.

One of the deputies made Shorty start the car and the air conditioner.  All three uniforms (two deputies and the Animal Services officer) took down all our names, addresses and phone numbers.  The AS officer squared off in front of Shorty, and told him she was going to ticket him twice, once for each dog.  She was very definite.  Also it was possible she could confiscate the dogs and he could recover them the next day the next day by paying a fine.

Well then Shorty shifted into high gear and protested like he'd been stabbed in the heart.  "Please, please, puh-leeze. Don't give me a ticket.  I'm a substitute teacher, and I have to work tomorrow.  Please don't do this."

We could see this could go on forever, and we still had not bought the few things we came for, so we left confident the uniforms had the matter well in hand.  20 to 25 minutes later we left the store, our shopping done.  We had moved the car away from the arrest scene, but on our way out of the lot, we once again drove near the place of all this drama.  They were all still there, over an hour after we had discovered the trapped dogs.

In a phone call to Animal Services the next day we found out the dogs had not been confiscated, but two tickets had been issued to him.  So Shorty, the loudmouth, got a little of what he begged for, but I'm sure he'll think twice about leaving the dogs in the car again.

On the other hand if he was capable of an act so stupid, it may well be that he won't learn anything.  To the two dogs, I say, "Sorry guys, we did the best we could.  Maybe you two should associate with a smarter class of owners."

Les Inglis

Happy Graduates Kindergarten

Author's note:  We're departing from our usual Cuba themes to tell Happy's story.  This is the third posting on our ongoing effort to incorporate Happy into our family.

After Happy's first five weeks with us, Don Murray, our dog training expert, kept Happy in his home for two weeks so he could concentrate on learning certain commands.  He arrived back home a week ago, and the training of the people (Charlene and me) began.  Don demonstrated Happy's progress.  He knows sit, down, come, heel, stay, off and place. You may not recognize "off" and "place."  Off is the equivalent of "no."  It's a command to stop whatever the dog is doing.  "Place" is a command to return to his place—in Happy's case, a lightweight trampoline bed about 18 by 42 inches in size.  There, Happy is the boss of his world.  Place is a good starting point for whatever practice session we want to work on.

We knew we humans would be going to school too.  Homework is several short sessions of practice for each of us every day.  I'm pretty good at heel, place, and stay.  Charlene has mastered come, sit, and place.  Nobody said this was going to be easy—and it isn't.

Happy is a much quieter dog thanks to his two week visit with Don.  He is still chewing, but he mostly concentrates on his own toys now, not our shoes.  His love at first sight affairs with Peachy and Princess continue at full tilt and his interest in our six cats is softening to curiosity, rather than challenges.  The anxiety level in our house is moderating.

Happy expects company when he goes to the fenced back yard for a pit stop.  We're beginning to get all three dogs on the same bathroom schedule.  This is a major improvement, as house training was (and to some extent still is) a big worry in his first weeks with us.  If we can soon pronounce Happy housebroken, it will be largely thanks to the examples set by Peachy and Princess, our two older dogs, who are trained better than anyone has a right to expect.

Don's website at sarasotadogwizard.com tells us about the advantages of his type of training.  We expect to have Happy be a contented, cooperative family member after training.  We are beginning to see now that that goal will be achieved.  I doubt he will ever like the amazing dancing Border Collies you see on talent shows, but we don't need to have that level of performance.  We're just looking for a loving happy member of our little menagerie.  He's on his way there now, and I hope he will be as happy as we are that Charlene found him for us.

Les Inglis

                                                  Danny, Our First Border Collie

Happy Settles In

Recently I told the story of Happy's rescue from a life of homelessness in northern Florida and of his move to our house.  His first stop on that road was at our vet's office for neutering.  None of our dogs or cats has ever been in our house without being sterilized.  I first saw him as he was leaving the office after the neutering.  He was being carried out because he wouldn't walk on a leash—so great was his terror of humans.  I was just beginning to understand how much adjustment he faced and how much we faced as well.

We knew he was shy of human contact.  You couldn't pet him, and if you even made a move to touch him, he would dodge away from your hand.  I thought perhaps he had never been touched by a person.  Off the leash in the house, he found two best friends, our other dogs, Peachy and Princess.  They hit it off right away.  Our six cats were another matter, however.  Possibly Happy had never been with a cat before.  Most of our felines stood their ground, and when curious Happy approached, they advanced, hissing and growling.  Happy knew enough to avoid the batting front cat feet, and the cats never laid a glove on him.  But we worried it could happen with possible injuries.  We took to discouraging cat interactions which devolved into yelling for Happy to break off and come (not quite within arm's reach as he still didn't want our petting).

House training also presented an ongoing problem.  He would go a couple of days without an accident, and then regress.  I sensed it would be a long learning process, so we had all the rugs removed from the house and cleaned.  Now we pad around in our stocking feet on ceramic tile floors, which clean up easily.  He's not reliable yet, but we're training ourselves to get him into the dog's fenced back yard on his schedule.  Admittedly, we are wildly optimistic and hopeful we'll eventually prevail—but it won't happen tomorrow.

Border Collies are herding dogs insistent that their charges stay in a tight group, even if that means nipping at their legs to prod them.  Happy does this—not with sheep, but with the humans in the house.  His nips can hurt, and he has been known to break the skin.  We'll have to learn to calm him.

Now we are five weeks into our new association with Happy, and if the next five weeks are as tough as the last ones, we'll both need to move into an asylum.  We talked it over and decided Happy needs to have some formal training.  As much as we like dogs and as many as we've had, we've never had such a disruptive entity in our home.  We have taken in many animals over the years we've been together, and some previously had lived only in the outdoors, yet we never had so much trouble with comportment, housetraining, destruction of shoes, books, pillows etc.  We both knew we'd met our match and something needed to change.  In spite of our desperate home situation, we loved Happy as much as any of the others we've had.

Our wonderful vet, Marty Neher had the answer for us—a professional dog trainer, Don Murray, who came to our house, met Happy, and told us of his methods.  An hour and a half later we signed up for Happy's two week stay in Don's house for a course of rigorous training.  During his interview with us, Don had calmed Happy down, answered our questions, and calmed our fears.

Yesterday we said goodbye to Happy as he left for his stint living in Dan's house with their other dogs and cats.  Charlene and I were apprehensive and unhappy at being separated for such a long time.

It's amazing to me that after 5 weeks of elimination atrocities in our house, dog proofing to protect our possessions, yelling at him to leave the cats alone, having him not come when called, trying to imagine if he needs to go out in the back yard (guess wrong and you get to clean it up) that we don't hate Happy, but it's quite the opposite.  Right now, in spite of the turmoil he's caused us, we dread the 2 weeks we must be without him.  He only left yesterday, but we're already counting the days until his return.

Almost no one can define "love," but our attachment to Happy after weeks of unexpected problems and stress serves as good an operative definition as I can come up with.

Les Inglis

                                                          

 

 

 

 

A Make Do Economy

55 years of life under Cuban communist rule has shown us a mixed bag or solutions to everyday problems in the island nation.  Along Central Havana's Prada Boulevard, large restored homes show us their newly restored faces, while in Old Havana many streets feature examples of Spanish colonial buildings in their final state—collapsed into a pile of rubble.

You don't find supermarkets overflowing with foods and household products.  Instead,  small farmers pack their produce into a car or truck and head to the city to sell it in neighborhood food stands,  Even if supermarkets were common, customers who could pay their prices would be rare.  The average Cuban is poor by western standards.

But while hardships abound, human creativity provides solutions to tough problems like getting to work every day in a city with an overloaded bus system.  Thanks partly to car prices pushed to exorbitant levels by fees and taxes, most Cubans don't have cars.  Often the ones that have a car have old American cars from the 1950's.  If you have a car, one way to make money is to provide a jitney service—cruising the streets in search of pedestrians who will pay a small fee if the driver is going their way.  If you see an ancient Chevy or Plymouth, you can often flag him down using hand signals that will tell where you're going.

And when that 55 Oldsmobile won't go another yard under its own power, it isn't junked, it is re-motored.  A jitney driver told me his old Buick had a Toyota truck motor, and it sounded like a Patton tank without a muffler, "Make do" is the name of the game in Cuba.

In our world of email, Internet, and digital ubiquity, it's hard to imagine most Cubans don't have an email connection, much less a connection to the Internet.  How can Nora in Havana send a small package of medicine to Gladis in Varadero?  One creative way is via the intercity bus system.  The bus drivers moonlight as a sort of UPS system in miniature.  It's pretty creative if you think about it—intercity buses serve the entire island.  The recipient needs to know the message or package is coming, and he or he can pick it up at the bus station.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

Large animals are the property of the state, and small animals (like household pets) are largely ignored by the government.  So where does one get vet meds in small doses for dogs and cats?  Again a creative solution has developed.  Medicines for large animals close to their expiration date are sold to the public.  They are ground to a powder and repackaged for dogs and cats.  Unfortunately, anesthetics and vaccines aren't available by this method, but many household pets have benefited from this "make do" solution.

Life in Cuba is a quilt of patches.  They may seem funny to us, but these homemade fixes make life more manageable for the Cubans.  They show us the creativity of the island people just as much as the works of Cuba's artists and musicians do.

Les Inglis

                                                        Happy Stops By

Happy Stops By

When Danny, our Border Collie died, it happened so suddenly we didn't have tiome to contemplate life without him.  One day he played catch with me as usual, and the next morning on awakening he closed his eyes and left us with barely a whimper.  That sudden loss left a hole in my heart that even Peachy and Princess, our other two dogs, tried, but could not fill.

I knew eventually Charlene would replace Danny by adopting another needy dog, but life with only two dogs was a little simpler, and I wasn't in a rush.  Still, I missed Danny so much I kept telling her that if we ever get another dog, it has to be a Border Collie.  That was just to insure I had a little say so about that "next dog."

Well, through the Internet she eventually learned about a Border Collie who was hanging around a farm in northern Florida.  Nina, who posted the information, and Charlene soon began plotting to make this homeless soul a homed dog—in our home, that is.

The trouble was this dog was shy and no one could really get close enough to put a collar or harness on him.  I knew the problem—my days at our farm had shown me a man can't catch a dog who doesn't want to be caught, and this dog did not want to be caught.  No doubt the reason he kept returning was one of the nearby dogs was a female in heat.  At least nature's drive toward procreation kept him coming back, giving us a chance to bring him under control.

Steve started by tossing his hat toward the dog, who sniffed it inquisitively,.  Nina made the trip to the farm each day hoping he'd soon be captured.  She had her job and a family to worry about, but she kept pursuing Scout (as they came to call him).  Charlene was ready to leave on a four hour drive to Lake City, Florida at a moment's notice as each day came and went.  Finally success.  Steve had Scout penned up in his barn, and early the next morning Charlene was on the road to pick up our new dog.

Steve had escape-proofed his barn, but shortly before she arrived, he couldn't find Scout.  She arrived to hear the bad news.  He went to the barn for one last look and there was Scout, curled up in a corner.  Steve easily picked him up, and soon she he was in Charlene's car on the way to his new home.

First stop would be at our veterinarian's office where he was neutered like all our animals.  Vaccinations, flea treatments, etc, were all on the list, so Scout didn't get to our house until another day passed.

I had been away on a trip, so I was keeping in touch by telephone.  She had told me that naming him would be my job, and she was hoping for a name better than Scout, which she didn't like very well.  I pondered names for hours.  Finally I had it—his name would be Happy.

Now you may question why I call him Happy when you see him.  He's a beautiful example, young, perfect teeth, but he's scared to death of people.  Charlene and I have lots of work in front of us to give him confidence.  Seeing him flinching at any sudden move or loud noise, it would be fair to say he isn't happy yet.  No, the name Happy is my promise to him for the future.  We won't stop trying to make him happy until he is happy.

In a household with two other dogs and six cats and two humans, I'm frank to say we didn't need a third dog.

But he surely needed us.

Les Inglis

PS: We've only just begun with Happy.  He'll be the topic of some future blog postings.

                                                                          PABLO

Pablo's Saga Update

Many of my readers will recall the several essays we wrote about Pablo, the Cuban street dog whom Amanda found in Havana's Central Park and his adventures and misadventures which finally got him adopted into Amanda's home in Los Angeles.  Part of that saga was Pablo's long spell in the home of an elderly lady in her nineties—a long time family friend of Nora's.  That lady was Pablo's foster mother who kept him several months while he recuperated from sicknesses he contracted as a street dog.  After regaining his health, Pablo had a period of vet treatment to get a health certificate that would permit him to travel to his new home in California.

That period of foster care was difficult for Pablo and for Nora.  The foster mom came to love the dog, and for a while I wondered if he would ever get to the US.  Nora had to make 2 trips a day to the old lady's house to bring food to the dog and to help out his foster mother.  The trip involved a bus ride, and once a sprained ankle almost grounded Nora as she fell on getting out of the bus.

But perseverance won the day, and after a false start, one day he boarded a plane for Miami.  My friend, Davis Hawn of service dog training fame, met Pablo at the airport, got him a US vet's certificate, and put him on another plane to Amanda.

For some time after that I heard little about the old lady, but one day Nora told me she had moved into Nora's apartment so that Nora could take care of her.  Now in her mid-nineties, her dementia had worsened, and she could no longer live in her place alone.  Being Nora's family friend, Nora felt she could not leave her without regular care, so the only option was to take her into Nora's apartment.

But Nora's regular trips to the elderly lady's house didn't stop.  The lady had two dogs she loved, and Nora chose to look in on them once each day, bringing them food.  So the story of hard work and making do with few resources continues.  As the woman's condition worsens, she can no longer live alone.  There are some refuges for incapacitated people, but Nora says those with reasonable prices are unacceptable, so she goes on caring for her old friend in her own home.

Nora has a wonderful friend, Maria Julia, who visits at Nora's place and helps with the work.  If it weren't for her help, Nora would be pinned down at home, working as a full time caregiver, and unable to leave.

Life is hard in Cuba for the average person.  Most people get along on a very small salary or pension, scant food rations, and perhaps a few CUC's scrounged from selling personal possessions or taking in a boarder.  A very few have enough resources to buy whatever they need.

And caring for a friend with dementia is particularly frustrating as the essence of your old friend gradually disappears until there is no recognition, no intelligible communication—none of the spark of the person left to enjoy.

But somehow life goes on still needing the feeding, the bathing, the medicines, and leaving the caregiver asking herself, why is this life like it is?  Is it really meant to be this way?

 

Les Inglis

Politics and Animal Protection

                                                                  Street Dogs

Politics and Animal Protection

A recent poll of southeast Florida residents tells us that 64 percent of them want normalization of US relations with Cuba.  That's the part of the country having the largest proportion of Cuban-Americans, having taken in Cubans who fled the island for over fifty years.  In today's political world, where questions divide us close to a 50-50 split, 64 percent is an overwhelming tide of public sentiment.

But that's not the most striking statistic from the poll.  Among responders all across the USA, 73 percent want normalization.  That population, of course, has within it only a relatively small proportion of Cubans.  These two poll results tell us some things we might and some we might not expect.

First, it's not surprising that a larger proportion of respondents nationwide want an end to the embargo and to travel restrictions.  After all, the nationwide group has much less involvement with Cuba and its people on either side of the Florida Strait.  Also many are too young to remember the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 when we all had good reason to fear a nuclear war over Soviet missiles being installed on Cuban territory. That was enough to make anyone want to restrict contact with Cuba and its communist government.

But time heals all wounds and anti Cuban sentiment has subsided nationwide and even worldwide.  Now nearly 3/4 of us want the embargo stopped and normal relations restored.

One explanation might be that the embargo hasn't really been successful.  It was intended to soften and liberalize the Cuban government.  Several provisions were included to minimize the effects upon the man in the street.  For example there are medical, humanitarian, educational, and religious exceptions.  My feeling the embargo isn't successful comes from how the lives of Cubans have changed.  Leaders have grown more entrenched as they aged, but the man in the street has grown poorer, despite a few recent relaxations of control.  Poverty, shortages, ramshackle housing, and an unreliable supply of food beset the common man in Cuba.  In short, the men we tried to affect were not affected, while those against whom we had no grudge faced a deteriorating quality of life. .

The real surprise of these two polls is the desire for normalization evident among southeast Floridians where the number of Cuban exiles is the greatest.  These people, who have the most reason to hate the Cuban regime don't want retaliation, they want engagement.  They want free commerce and travel between the two neighboring countries.

In our politically divided and paralyzed country, most south east Floridians want an end to the enmity, rivalry, and estrangement between Cuba and the US by a margin of 64 percent to 36 percent!  To me, these poll results are like a mandate—an insistence on normal intercourse between neighbors.

When we began our work on behalf of Cuban animals, I felt we should be completely apolitical, and I studiously avoided mentioning the snit the two governments perpetuate.  I thought, how could any political commentary on my part further the cause of animal protection"?  Well, I was wrong.  After many trips to Cuba, I know well the stress placed on Cuban families by the embargo.  And, while I'm not convinced by the many Cuban attempts to blame the embargo for any and every Cuban problem, neither am I convinced of the value of the embargo touted by reactionaries in the US who would perpetuate it forever.

Now, perhaps with a clear majority calling for normality, could we be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?  I hope so.

I know in Cuba when privations affect a family, it is often the family dog or cat who suffers first and suffers most—either through less food or even in severe cases through banishment and abandonment.  I have seen how tough economic times are visited on man's best friends with heartbreaking results.

Yes, political belligerence in the form of the embargo is an animal protection issue, and I want to line up with those who oppose the embargo for that reason.

Les Inglis