Doing what I can to improve a few animals' lives.
Thursday, 08.04.2011 - 4:12 pm.

Hello, August!

/End of salutation.

And now, for something completely different:

Yesterday I made a donation for stray dogs. Yes, there are many, many human problems to look after. I became a psychologist to help with those within my reach. But helping animals is my cause, too, and somehow less discouraging and relatively easier to have an impact on. So anyway...in some places near The Andes snow is wrecking towns and temperatures have dropped to -18�C. There are stray dogs in those towns and so there was a campaign to help.

Andrew, being the sweetheart he is, took me downtown during his lunch hour to deliver my donation. It wasn't much, dog food, cat food (I supposed there were cats in need, too) and a blanket for pets. I get lost downtown so I can't thank Andrew enough for taking the time to walk me there. He's very supportive of my animal causes and he's become more involved in them than he may realize.

The address I was given to bring all the pet supplies to turned out to be a dental clinic. "Seems legit", I said. The dentist is an activist, actually, and she was the one who organized the campaign, even enrolling a vet to help with vitamins and medicines. She was very nice and was very grateful for the donation. I'm grateful for people like her, who walk the extra mile. I will do that, too, little by little.

I also designed a flyer with six reasons not to buy puppies from the street, a common business in many places; I told everyone to share it, maybe even print it. See, I recently joined an online group of people trying to stop this business, but it drives me nuts how they talk and talk, some even with long-ass paragraphs all written in caps without punctuation, and nothing gets done. I have read a few ideas but in general, people don't get that there's a political aspect to this: reading, lobbying, getting informed and getting support from key actors. My flyer was very appreciated by some but went unnoticed for the most part. Oh, well. I certainly did what I could.

Anyway, after leaving the dentist's, Andrew and I had lunch at an old-fashioned restaurant. We had a nice lunchtime, this took us away from our lunch routine at home and steering from routine as a couple is very important to us. Then we stopped by Andrew's vet friend's clinic to buy sand for our cats. It's a bit expensive for us having two cats, but we adopted them and gave them a loving, responsible home and to me that makes it all worth it. I was told other kittens from Nico's litter have died from infections and from the cold weather.

Karin, the vet friend, was there and told Andrew and I that she was about to go to the municipal pound to donate some medicines and asked if I wanted to tag along. I didn't, I couldn't stand seeing all those dogs in such state and I'd feel like crap for not taking at least one home (and we can't afford one more pet, let alone a dog). So I made a donation as well. They're poorly fed at the pound so I bought dog food right there at the clinic for Karin to deliver it. I bought a small bag, though, I couldn't afford a bigger one. At least it was good enough for several dogs. Every dog deserves a decent dinner, they say.

And today I have offered to pay for having a dog neutered. I met this dog a few days ago, when I went to buy medicine for Nico (still bouncing back from being born and growing up in the wild). She had this ugly injury on her side and was very nervous, she wouldn't let me come close. Luckily, I was carrying food -always do- and fed her a bit. Today the animal rescue association I get updates from talked about her, she's less than 6 months old and the injury is because someone poured boiling water on her.

It takes money to get these things done, but I haven't spent as much as I'd feared on my donations. Above all, I'm very happy to take part, however small it is, in a cause I've been passionate about for a while now. I adopted and neutered two cats, I feed stray dogs and pet them whenever I can (they so appreciate it), and now I'm donating food and preventing more suffering. It's still a small contribution in such a huge world that is cruel to animals, but it feels good to say that I'm truly doing what I can.

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