Sunday

Last Sunday morning, as Best Beloved, Sputnik, and I walked the field looking at vines and trees, BB pointed under the fig tree and said "Is that a dog?"

A dog, indeed. Black, with an amputated tail, she seemed too weak to move at first, but then crawled out from under the shade and lay at our feet. Sputnik whined and wiggled with joy. Li'l Bro appeared on his porch.

“I saw her this morning,” he said. “And she took some water but I didn't want to go near because she is covered in ticks” He gave me a bucket and I put some more water in. The black dog drank a little more, then she and Sputnik wandered slowly away together.

Back at the house, I woke Sophia. “We have a mission,” I said. “There's a dog in the field that we must take to the shelter, and I need your help.”

There was no sign of either dog when, twenty minutes later, we returned to the field in the Land Rover. We searched the cafe parking lot and Sophia ventured into the supermarket store room, and suddenly Sputnik and his new friend came into view. As soon as we opened the back door, Sputnik leapt inside, but the black dog needed help and as I lifted her in I got a good look at the hundreds of ticks gorging themselves all over her.

We arrived at the shelter and I handed her over. “What will happen to her,” I asked the lady who had scanned her for a chip. “Will she be put to sleep?”

“With no chip, she has fifteen days as long as she's neither sick nor aggressive,” came the answer. “But hunting dogs like this are very hard to rehome and she probably won't be claimed or adopted within that time.”

Sophia and I exchanged a look. “No way,” I said. “You know that your father does not like dogs and will not let us have another. Don't even think about it!”

***

I went back to the shelter on Monday to try and increase her chances.

“If I pay her to spay and vaccinate her, will it make her more easily homeable?” I asked Christine, who has run the shelter since 1994.

“You can pay to have her spayed, certainly, but whoever homes her still has to pay our charges,” she answered. “We have to get our money back, and it says clearly on our website that whoever adopts from here has to pay for vaccinations, parasite treatment, chipping, and spaying – about 275 Euros in her case.”

“Even if that has already been paid for that particular dog?”

“Whatever has already been paid for that particular dog.” It seemed a little steep to me, and the likelihood of someone paying that much for this dog seemed very remote.

Then a voice piped up behind my right shoulder. “What if I pay her medical bills and sponsor her for six months? Would that give her a chance?”

I turned in surprise and saw Rosie, a woman of about my age whom I always think of as kind-hearted and spontaneous, with a lot more money than sense. “It would indeed!” said Christine.

“And if at the end of that six months, if I can manage, could I take her home myself?”

But that was too much to ask. “You would have to pay the 275 Euros and 10 Euros for every day that she has been in the shelter,” Christine responded promptly.

I did the maths quickly and reached 2,075 Euros – never mind the cost of bills and sponsorship – another 290 Euros. "Well done, Paphiakos," I thought. “You've just priced this dog well out of a home.”

But Rosie was determined. “I'll find her a home sooner than that,” she said, filling out the paperwork and handing over her credit card. “Now,” she said, turning to me. “I'm off to the UK for a fortnight from tomorrow, so you need to check up on our patient for the next few days while she has her op and when she goes back to the shelter later. Must fly!”

The lady in charge of sponsorship turned to me blankly. “Well I never,” she began. Then: “She didn't give her a name!” But Rosie had gone.

“Sunday,” I said. “I found her on Sunday, so let's call her that!”

Christine made some calls to the kennels to confirm that she was still there and I heard her say: “There's someone here who wants to sponsor her, so take her of the pts list and send her over in the morning for a full MOT and a spay.” Turning to me, she said. “Phone tomorrow for an update, and thank-you very much for your help and interest.”

I called over the next few days and went to the clinic on Wednesday morning, just before Sunday was due  for her operation. She looked so much better! She had put on some weight, and all the ticks were gone. I took her out for a walk and she eagerly sniffed though the dust as we walked the perimeter of the parking lot and ventured into a grove of olive trees. She was unaccustomed to a lead and kept tripping and tangling her legs and mine.  She would lick my hand and wrinkle her nose at me every time I had to crouch to untangle her, clearly thrilled to be out of her cage and receiving some attention.  After fifteen minutes, I took her back and gave her a drink. “She'll be ready to go home on Friday,” the nurse told me. “Right as rain!”

Back in the parking lot I dialled BB's number.

“Yes, Manamou,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“If you say yes to this,” I answered. “I promise that I will never ask you for anything else...”

“Get to the point!”

“You know the dog we found on Friday...?” I heard his “Oh, no!” before I had even reached the end of the sentence.

“Please, darling,” I continued, despising myself for falling back on feminine wiles. “You know I don't ask for very much, and she won't be a problem --”

“Tomorrow,” he growled. “I'll tell you when I get back tomorrow.”

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out rehoming strategies and spoke with a friend who has contacts with shelters that rehome strays on the Continent. I brainstormed with several people linked to the animal welfare world and we came up with various possibilities to save Sunday without having to pay too much.

***

The next morning I called the clinic to find out how she had weathered the surgery and find out when she would be returning to the kennels. “Just hang on, Asproulla,” the receptionist said. “The vet needs a word with you.”

Within a minute, Doctor Nefeli was on the line. “I'm sorry,” she said, in her gentle Greek accent. “Your dog didn't make it.” She explained that the surgery had gone well, but that Sunday had been found dead in the clinic earlier, and that the post-mortem had shown haemorrhaging from the sub-cutaneous capillaries and internal bleeding. The ligatures, Nefeli said, had all held and the surgery had been successful: the bleeding was probably from erlichiosis, a tick-borne bactirial infection that attacks the white blood cells and prevents clotting. “I have her body here,” she said. “So if you want to collect it you can.”

'I'll bring her home,' I thought, dialling Rosie's mobile number. She answered on the third ring, confirmed that I should, and that should I be offered the money back I should use it to check Sputnik for the same disease, and roll the sponsorship over onto some other unfortunate animal who might benefit. “Fat chance of that!” I told her. “You'll get nothing back from Paphiakos!”

But I was wrong. At the clinic the vets put Sunday's body on the table, her head and forelimbs covered by a towel. As they opened the incision and showed the ligatures all in place but the sub-cutaneous layer full of blood, Christine came in. “What shall we do with Rosie's money, do you know what she might want?” I explained, and she sniffed, her eyes beginning to tear. “You'll have me crying now,” she said. “What a kind woman... Don't worry, I'll find another needy dog who will benefit. And you bring in your Sputnik to be tested just as soon as you can.”

One of the vets carried Sunday to the car and I drove her home. Nick and Stellios, Alex and Sophia's friends who had been at the house since the early morning had dug me a beautiful grave up at the top of the upper vinyard, and as I was getting her body out of the bag, Best Beloved walked up between the rows of vines and helped me to put her in the hole. I pulled back the corner of the towel and looked at her face for the last time, her brown eyes half-open, her tongue slightly out, and I remembered her as she was on her last walk the day before, eyes laughing, stumpy tail wagging hard enough to move her whole skinny body.

“Bye-bye, sweet Sunday,” I said, arranging her limbs against the squared off walls.

We shovelled the earth back in and as we headed back to the house.

***

This experience has taught me a lot – which I will go into in later posts: this one is already long enough. For now, though, please, dog owners among my readers, correct use of Frontline or other anti-tick products is an easy way to avoid a disease that can kill your animal. I had only just met Sunday, and losing her was painful out of all proportion to the length of time I had known her.

A Visit to the Vet

After his week's elope with the Siberian beauty, Sputnik returned home thinner, dirty, and scarred. He had been staying at Cuz's Supermarket at the end of the road, but although we had tried several times to bring him back, he always found a way to return to his lady, the Ice Queen – so we let them be in their love nest between the gas bottles and the water tanks.

The Acolyte's blood had come off, but he still had some oil stains on his coat. “You should see the back of the supermarket,” Sophia said. “It's disgusting. No wonder he's filthy!” He had a bare patch on his hip, his ears had been bitten, and he had a cough.

“Dissolute living!” I told him as I poured his breakfast kibble. “There's always a price.”

But when Sophia noticed a trail of bright red blood under his tail after yesterday's walk, I decided that the time had come to visit the vet.

“Which vet do you use?” is a constant topic among Paphos pet owners. After much trial and error, I have cast my lot with Paphiakos who also run the largest animal welfare in the district. They are open 0700-1900 every day of the year (although clinic hours are shorter), have bi-lingual staff, clean premises, a tea-room, and plenty of love to go around. Also, their prices are well within the reasonable range.

We arrived at 8.40 and spent the twenty minute wait in the tea room with two enormous cats, two nescafes, and thick slices of banana nut loaf. Overwhelmed by his ride in the back of the Land Rover (“Mum, do you think that Sputnik hates cars so much because he associates them with having been abandoned on the road, probably from a car, and he thinks that we're taking him somewhere to dump him?”), Sputnik didn't know what to do with himself: he had to smell everything at once, to see everything, to investigate the cats, the cake, the outdoors.

The vet gave him a thorough examination, and pronounced him 'healthy, but a bit run down' when we told her of his escapades. “He's been very stressed, very excited,” she said. “He didn't eat well while he was away, and his immune system suffered.” (Why does that remind me of another adolescent male that I know?) “That's why he has an overgrowth of skin parasites that are normally present but controlled.”

“I don't want to put him on anti-biotics for his cough,” she continued, as his lungs are clear of fluid. “But if you notice that it gets worse, that he stops eating, or see more blood, bring him in again.” She gave me a worming tablet for him, and instructions for a thorough bath.

On the trip back he looked out of the window with interest rather than angst, and sprawled on the floor of the back while I nipped into Carrefour to see if I could find any gloves for the Littles (I did – the last two pairs of a size that will fit). When we got home, Sophia bathed him – to his disgust – and he's now sleeping in the sunshine.

The bill – for half an hour appointment with a full examination, two diagnostic tests (fungus and parasites), and a worm pill? Forty-six Euros. Seemed reasonable to me.

Postscript: Rescue Horse

I called Animal Welfare this morning to see how our patient was doing and if the owner had shown up. The receptionist was brusque: "No, the owner never claimed the horse and the horse had to be euthanised. One of her back legs was broken and she had massive internal injuries.

I was very sad. I had been worried about her breathing and the possibility of internal bleeding, but I hadn't realised that her leg was actually broken, although she had been so reluctant to walk.

Poor Lady. There she had stood, parched and patient for so many hours, and in such pain. And there she would have died if we hadn't taken care of her and called the Rescue Service.

I'm sure that this cycle of tragedy is not finished. It began about six years ago when a man lost either his son or his grandson in a tractor accident. He became depressed, moody, and eventually homicidal and murdered two people at the coffee shop in Choletria. The man whose wife was killed can't bear to live sober now and kills a horse -- so far. If he regularly drives that drunk it won't be long before he kills someone else or himself.

The police know, the family knows. No-one does anything about it.

Rescue Horse

Zenon’s tenth birthday party was planned for Saturday afternoon. He wanted Best Beloved to do a souvla, he wanted a cake with DragonballZ from Zorba’s, and he wanted a crowd of friends over for games that included water balloon paintball and three-legged races. So we complied, planned, invited his friends and their parents, and prepared for the day.

At about 10, Best Beloved went out to buy the souvla meat, and as soon as he came back I left to collect the cake. As I passed the turning to the dam, just past the end of our road, I noticed a horse standing by the side of the road.

“That poor thing!” I thought to myself. It stood hunched in the blazing sunshine, its head hanging. As I drove down the road I wracked my brains to think whom it belonged to: there are few horses in Cyprus, and I thought I knew most in the neighbourhood. “I’ll take it some water as soon as I get back, and I’ll call Yianni (a friend who keeps racehorses in a nearby village), he must know the owner.”

Resolved, I continued on the cake mission, and a moment later my phone rang. It was Best Beloved: “Did you see the horse?” I told him that I had, and what I had decided to do about it. “Keep Yianni out of it for now,” Best Beloved advised. “It got hit by a car last night and the police are looking for the owners. When you get back, we’ll take it some water together.”

The cake collection was completed in record time, and back at the house Alex and I filled eight four-litre bottles with water, put them and a big bucket into the Land Rover, and headed toward the horse, stopping to pick up Best beloved from the field en route.

Close to, the horse was smaller than I thought – only about 14 hands – and standing awkwardly, tied to a boulder with a rope, chain, and too-large head-collar. She was resting a back leg, a gaping slice carved out of her side midway between hip and shoulder. Blood still trickled down her matted coat, and the flies clustered hungrily.

As Alex and I approached with the bucket and water bottles, she lifted her head and whickered, moving painfully toward us and plunging her nose deep into the bucket. She drained four litres in a gulp, so I gave her some more and more and more. After four bottles, she slowed down and I decided to wait before she had any more in case it made her colic.

She allowed me to stroke her nose and examine her wound: her shoulder was bruised, and her stifle, and I went around the other side to see if I could see any other injuries. There were none visible but a slightly swollen fetlock on her near hind leg. While she had some more water we discussed what to do and Best Beloved filled me in on the story as he knew it.

Billy had been drinking at the Cousin’s Café until late last night, and one of his companions had been the man from Choletria (the next village up) whose wife had been murdered last year by the man who had lost his grandkids and his mind in a tractor accident five years earlier. This man spends his life now in a bottle, and when he left at two in the morning (after Billy had gone home) instead of going up to his house, he inexplicably turned south – and hit the horse broadside. He returned to the Café with a broken windshield and an incomprehensible tale. Then went home.

At some time in the morning the police came, tied (and left) the horse and breathalysed the driver, finding him still well over the alcohol limit. Billy was trying to find the owners of the horse.

We called Yianni who said that he was working thirty miles away but would come with painkillers at about five. We called other people in the village, but nobody knew the horse or the owner, so we finally called Paphiakos Animal Welfare, the only people in the country who do large-animal rescue and who are fortunately just down the road. They said they would be with us in half an hour. Meanwhile the horse downed another twelve litres of water

They were as good as their word. Half an hour later two men pulled up with a trailer. “Still no word on the owner?” they asked. And when we said that the matter was in the hands of Kouklia police, and that we had advised the Boys in Blue that we had called the Rescue Service, the lads went into action. Examining the horse gently, they tried to lead her forward, but she rolled her eyes and refused to move until they put a rope around her hindquarters. They half-lifted her up the ramp into the float, and securing her head-collar set out for the animal surgery in Kato Paphos.

“Well, that’s the drama of the day over with,” I said to Best Beloved as we rolled up to our house.

“The party hasn’t started yet!” was his reply. “Sixteen ten year-olds are descending on us in a couple of hours…”

And so they did – with their parents and their old clothes. And a good time was had by all.

Marcos, the son of our former land-lord, broke the piñata with a brilliantly placed swipe, and showed his practical side and engineering skills in building towers with balloons. The teams drew in the paintball water-balloon war, with Kay’s little Marios switching sides like a demon. And we never got to the three-legged race. The souvla, hoummos, salad and spuds, cake, jelly, and baklava were cleaned up with just enough left-overs for Sunday lunch, and people began to trickle away at around seven-thirty – tired, happy, and full. The way that people should be after a good party.

I will call the Rescue Service next week and see how our Lady is doing. I did think about trying to adopt her if her owner doesn’t show up, but we have no place to keep a horse properly and no time to build one, so I’ll keep that idea in fantasy land and refrain from mentioning it to my children.