I woke thinking about a litter of five puppies in the back yard of a rental house where a Canadian couple are reluctantly packing to go home. They can't take the puppies. Somehow we have to find a place for them to go before Sunday, and it's Wednesday already.
I call them Yoda's Gang, because one of them makes me think of Yoda from Star Wars. Those ears. Those eyes, wise beyond their years. This is Yoda.
In addition to the four shown here, Yoda's gang includes a little white one. Don't know why I'm drawn to white dogs, other than the fact that they're a lot easier to thoroughly search for fleas and ticks. There's a vulnerability about a white dog that appeals to me. And they're easy to see when you're walking with them at four in the morning.
The Canine Refuge where I volunteer is already swamped with puppies, and when I proposed taking Yoda's Gang, I was outvoted. The Canadians and I are all losing sleep over this dilemma.
An email was waiting for me this morning that brought some encouragement: we have an online newspaper here called "What's Up San Carlos," and the publishers want a photo each week for one of our puppies. The owner of Ruby Wine Bar down at the Marina wants to feature our dogs every week. My Spanish teacher emailed me yesterday that a friend wants a puppy. I clutch at every little bit of hope I can get, because I'm feeling overwhelmed. Every day, someone is asking me if the Refuge can take another abandoned puppy or dog or litter. Now I know how it feels to manage an orphanage.
I'm reminded of weeds. One Spanish expression for "weeds" is "malas hierbas." Bad grass. Not pedigreed plants, not the kind you cultivate from seed, or raise from cuttings and pamper with special concoctions, but the kind that pops up on its own in such quantity you despair of ever getting rid of it.
And yet, weeds can sometimes be beautiful. A little vine volunteered in one of my flowerpots, after the flowers I had planted there languished and died. Dwarf grape leaves, fragile tendrils, tiny white flowers and—its defense system—obstinate little green burrs. It flourished vigorously even though I skipped that pot when I watered the others. I finally gave up and adopted the weed, since its will to live was so strong. I have no idea what plant it is. I've decided to give it a place of honor next to my back door. This is my weed.
Individually, weeds can be appreciated for their unique characteristics -- those miniature leaves, delicate tendrils and blossoms like little stars. But if I had a yard full of them, I'd be calling for the gardener to root them out because the burrs would be sticking to my dogs' fur. The weed is simply doing what it lives to do — be fruitful and multiply — but when it reaches critical mass, we no longer appreciate its uniqueness and beauty and reach for the hoe and garden shears.
At the Refuge we have at the moment a garden of little weeds, every one of them beautiful. Some resemble little German Shepherds, Labradors or Rottweilers, others are unabashedly members of a breed we laughingly call Sonoran Shorthair: medium-size, deer-like legs, slender, long muzzles and big brown eyes. Some golden, some brown and a few white or spotted like Dalmatians.
I don't know if we can find good homes, or homes of any kind, for them all. We are committed to giving them a good start, with their vaccinations, and we try to spay or neuter every one before we allow it to be adopted. All this veterinary work can't be done in a day, it requires weeks, and meanwhile we must feed them, dab eye ointment on them, clean up after them with rigorous applications of bleach and detergent. Yesterday the vet came to the Refuge to vaccinate seven puppies. By providing our own meds, we saved considerably on the cost, so we'll be driving to Hermosillo next week to buy more vaccine (a benefit of living in Mexico). A local organization called SBPA supplies us with certificates for free spaying and neutering. We have a lot to be grateful for, and we try not to think too much about the future. So we'll just take it a day at a time, a puppy at a time.
"The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it; the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now."
W. Somerset Maugham