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 …
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, …
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 …
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
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 …
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
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 …
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 …
One way to dinner late yesterday afternoon, barely three hours after uploading my previous post, Stew and I spotted a grayish dog on the opposite side of the road who was panting, exhausted but determinedly trudging somewhere. It was Benji returning home.We called her name, she answered, and I loaded her into the car. She didn't …
This Friday the 13th dawned fully intending, it seemed, to live up to its bad-luck reputation. Benji, one of the stray dogs that live outside our gate—and whom we thought had been adopted—ran away from its new owner and disappeared somewhere in San Miguel late Thursday. We woke up worried that some horrible thing would happen …
El Rancho Santa Clara 