Nearing the end his life, he's not worried about eternity More than sixteen years ago, when we had bought the land but not yet begun construction, a small stray dog showed up at the gate merrily wagging his tail as if we were all old friends. We started to feed him each morning and for …
Tag: pets
morning breaks at the ranch
When you live in the country, driving home on a lonely road after dark is scary. Sometimes it makes us wonder why we didn't pick a place in-town to live, easily accessible by an Uber or kind friends who would take us home. No, we're not afraid of roving narcotraffickers, highway robbers, bandidos or other …
Who decides when is Fifo’s time to go?
Are the usual pieties of putting an animal "out of its misery" sometimes self-serving? Stew and I seem to be on a sad streak lately in the pet department. Our Alpha dog Lucy died about eighteen months ago, quietly and I should add mercifully, because she spared us the decision of having to put her …
An obituary for our dog Domino
Putting an old dog to sleep is one of life's most wrenching experiences A favorite topic of internet clickbaits are tear-jerker stories of animals—blind, lame, abandoned or in some other dire predicament—that are rescued into a forever home and live happily ever after. Our dog Domino, approximately 14 years old, didn't quite follow that script, …
Has Fred lost his hunting mojo?
A change in our cat's hunting habits has left us puzzled Almost four years ago, on a dark though not stormy night, as Stew, Félix and I were coming back from town, we noticed two small fur balls tentatively walking along, one on each side of the road. We stopped, Félix got off and promptly …
The daily circle of life and death at the ranch
As people who always have had pets, Stew and I have learned, or should have learned, that sharing our space with an animal companion entails many hours of fun, when it's healthy and giving you its undivided love, but also at that inevitable moment when it dies, or worse still, when you have to "put …
Continue reading The daily circle of life and death at the ranch
Growing old alongside our pal Lucy Mae
While volunteering at the reception desk of a local animal shelter, shortly after arriving in San Miguel, a woman came in with a battered birdcage holding a pitiful white puppy inside, with a bloated pink belly and soulful eyes. She had found a cardboard box containing three or four puppies, a few weeks old, by …
Reality spoils ending of my happy dog story
The story of Benji, the dog whose adoption by someone in the Centro we facilitated had a bittersweet ending, certainly not the one we expected.Still, it taught Stew and I how little we know about the ways of rural Mexico and also about the perils of hubris, that mythological Greek sin of arrogance—in this case how …
Continue reading Reality spoils ending of my happy dog story
Time finally came to bid goodbye to Paco
When he carefully laid Paco on the stainless steel examination table, Dr. Vázquez, almost in a whisper, said, "This is very difficult."I don't know if he meant for himself, us, or the emaciated cat we had brought in to be euthanized. In the end it was awfully hard for everyone.No one can accuse this gentle …
Call me by my (weird) name
At San Miguel's spay-and-neuter campaignsyou can find some peculiar monikersAfter volunteering for spay-and-neuter campaigns or "blitzes" for dogs and cats in San Miguel for eight or nine years, Stew and I have inherited the weigh-in station as our permanent post. After registration, each animal has to be weighed so that the vets down the line …
El Rancho Santa Clara 