My wife and I returned home at the beginning of October from a vacation in Aruba. The last couple days of the vacation felt like an eternity, it was such an emotional rollercoaster. One day we were so distraught we were both sobbing (ironically Aruba's motto is "One Happy Island"), and the next day we were crying tears of joy.
This was our second time in Aruba. We had gone last year, our first trip to the Caribbean, and loved it. The geography reminded us a bit of Arizona (where we had gone for our honeymoon) - desert, cacti, little lizards scurrying under bushes - but without the red rocks - instead, lovely white sand beaches, crystal clear blue sea and a constant breeze that gives the divi divi trees their distinctive bend.
While Aruba was affected by the worldwide economic tsunami that hit last year (we read that there was a 5% dropoff in tourism, which comprises 80% of their economy) this country fortunately enjoys one of highest standards of living in the Caribbean. Aruba is a very ethnically diverse country. The folks who own the little hotel we stayed at told us that in Aruba, schoolchildren are currently taught four languages: Dutch, English, Spanish, and the island's native language, Papiamento. This year, we happened to arrive just days before Aruba's parliamentary election, which is held every four years. Every day you could see people of all ages wearing T-shirts whose colors indicated their party preference; similarly, colored flags adorned people's houses, cars, and pick-up trucks. It was a festive atmosphere. The day after the election, we read in a newspaper that the turn-out was 85%!
Well, enough about politics, this is supposed to be a diary about puppies! Aruba unfortunately has a lot of stray dogs. (I guess cats too, though I didn't happen to notice any homeless cats on the streets. But the big-hearted owners of the small hotel we stay at have adopted a lot of stray cats over the years, and so four or so friendly little cats wondering around the garden are one of the neat features of this hotel, which is comprised of little cottages they call casitas. We were never interested in staying at a big resort, so this little hotel was perfect for us.)
Except for the beaches that are right near big resorts, you won't find big crowds on the beaches in Aruba, so that's nice. One of the beaches we like to go to is Baby Beach.
This beach is also a favorite spot for strays. Three days before our scheduled flight home, we were sitting on Baby Beach and spotted two little dogs. They were probably just a few months old. Both girls, they looked pretty skinny, and their skin was very mangey. We gave them some water and crackers that we had with us. Since one puppy was white and one black, we called them Salt and Pepper.
My wife played with them for maybe an hour, and all three of them eventually ending up napping on the sand. Now it was maybe 6:30 in the evening and time for us to head back to the hotel and have some dinner. But my wife was very reluctant to leave the dogs. "Look at those poor little puppies, they're all alone!" she said, as we packed up and walked to the car. As we looked back, the two little dogs were now adorably huddled together, sleeping on the beach.
She agreed we couldn't bring mangey dogs back to our hotel, but we decided we'd come back early the next morning and if we could find them, we'd bring them to the local animal shelter. My wife could hardly sleep that night, worrying about the dogs (and I could hardly sleep, worrying about her worrying about the dogs!) The next day, we drove to the beach, and by some miracle, the puppies were right where we had left them, playing in the sand. We were ecstatic. They seemed happy to see us, too. We gave them water and some Cheerios we had brought along. After a few minutes, we spread some beach towels on the back seat of the car, put the dogs in, and headed for the shelter.
When we arrived, each of us carried one of the pups as we walked up to the brightly painted little building. A woman inside saw us though an open, glassless window, and came out to greet us. "Hi, we're tourists and..." my wife began, and the woman jokingly cut her off. "No, really? I can smell the sun lotion from here!" We explained we had found the dogs on Baby Beach. "Well, guys, I've got bad news for you," the woman said. "These dogs are in bad shape." She pointed at Salt. "Look, this is a very bad skin disease. It could take years of treatment, very costly. She will keep scratching herself, and it will get worse. This one has it too," she said, pointing to Pepper. "There are so many stray animals and our resources are very limited." My wife asked, "Should we take them back to the beach?" "Oh, no," the woman said, explaining that that would be cruel to the dogs and contribute to the problem of overpopulation and disease. "What will be done for these dogs is they will be put to sleep."
My wife broke into tears. "I'm sorry," my wife blurted, reflexively apologizing for crying. "No, I understand, I see this every day," the woman said. She continued, "Look, I could make up a nice story. But this is the reality here. Putting the dogs to sleep will be quick and painless. I think it is much better than the alternative - to die from disease and starvation."
She seemed to us to be a genuinely nice person who was in the unfortunate position of having to triage a disaster. She had experience in this type of situation; we did not. This wasn't our island, we were guests. So, although shocked with grief, we didn't protest when she told us this was was the best thing for these dogs. We acquiesced.
She said, "You can bring them into the cage, or we will." My wife felt it was our responsibility. "We'll do it," she said. The woman walked us over to a big metal shed and led us inside. There were several wire cages on the far wall of the shed. She opened one at ground level, and said, "Put them in there." We obeyed, but the dogs were reluctant, and started to come back out of the cage. "No, they must go in," she said, nudging them back into the cage and quickly latching the cage door. My wife and I were stunned and heartsick. The woman invited us inside for a tour of the shelter, which was filled with adorable cats and dogs awaiting adoption. We gave them a donation and drove off, both of us feeling awful, tears in our eyes.
I couldn't sleep that night. In the wee hours of the morning I lay in bed thinking about the situation. Were the dogs really that sick? Couldn't they be cured if they had proper treatment and nutrition? They deserved a chance. Our hotel manager had told us that afternoon that airlines and U.S. Customs require a health certificate for pets which tourists want to adopt and transport home. But I started thinking that it must be possible to transport a sick pet to America for treatment. If the dogs were still alive, couldn't we get a local vet to confirm they were healthy enough to fly? After all, it is only a 4 1/2 hour flight from Aruba to Boston, where we were flying to.
We arrived at the shelter just as they were opening. My wife didn't want to go in - it would be too heartwrenching to hear that the puppies had been put to sleep. I spoke to a volunteer, but it wasn't the same woman as had been there the day before, so she didn't know anything about Salt and Pepper. I explained that we had brought in two dogs who were sick and I asked if it might be possible to bring them back to America for treatment. "Sure," she said, to my surprise.
I said, "That's great. So is it possible the puppies we brought in haven't been put to sleep yet?" She said, "You brought them in yesterday?" I explained we had brought them in the morning and the woman had told us they would have to be put down.
"Oh, then they're gone" she said.
I cringed. "Are you sure, there's no way they could still be alive?"
"No, there's no way. Someone from the government comes everyday between 11 and 12 to take care of it."
I decided to look in the shed, just to make sure, and by some miracle - there were Salt and Pepper!
My wife and I grabbed them (trying not think about the other dogs in the shed). My wife sat in the car with the puppies while I went inside and found the woman I'd spoken to. I told her we had found the puppies in the shed, and she gave me a thumbs-up sign. She came out and looked in the car and saw the dogs and said "Oh, that's just mange." Quite a different attitude then we'd gotten the day before! Whatever. We had the dogs now. She gave us directions to a nearby vet clinic. We went to the clinic and this time I sat in the car with the dogs while my wife explained the situation. They said since we were leaving tomorrow, they would do their best to expedite checking out the dogs. They gave us an appointment for later in the afternoon and suggested that we contact the airline to see if they had room for the dogs. As we drove away, I suggested to my wife that we also try to look up another vet to see if we could get an earlier appointment, since that would double our chances of finding a vet who would be willing to give the dogs a health certificate.
There was an American Airlines desk at a local supermarket, and they said there was indeed room on our flight to transport the dogs and that we'd need to get a carrier. Fortunately there was a pet supply store in the same shopping complex.
While I stood outside the store with the dogs, my wife recounted our story. She also asked if they could recommend a vet. A customer who overheard the conversation said she had a great vet she would recommend. The customer turned out to be the founder of an organization that cares for the island's wild donkeys, so she knew all about rescuing animals. She said the vet was near the part of town she was going to, so she offered to lead us there in her car. At the vet's, she was kind enough to quickly explain to them our situation, and they offered to look at our dogs immediately.
A vet tech took a history of the dogs and checked their weight and temperature, and then the doctor came in and drew blood to check for anemia. It turned out both dogs were slightly anemic. He gave them each a couple of injections and said "I'd like to see them back here in 10 days." I guess no one had told him the part about us leaving tomorrow. We filled him in. He explained that he couldn't certify the dogs as healthy. I asked whether he could just certify them as healthy enough to fly, since it was such a short flight. He said that legally he couldn't do that. We had come this far, I knew we just had to get those dogs home, even if we couldn't bring them tomorrow. I said, "That's OK, we can find somewhere for them to stay, and we'll come back for them." The vet said they could stay at their clinic. This place was so friendly and professional, we knew they'd take good care of them. The boarding and treatment costs were very reasonable, too, compared to what we pay in the States.
The vet estimated it would take a few weeks for the dogs to be travel-ready. He said they were hopeful the dogs wouldn't develop signs of parvovirus, but we'd just have to wait and pray for the best.
A few days after we returned home, we received email from the vet letting us know that Salt and Pepper were doing well. About a week later, the vet's assistant sent us photos of the puppies and a short video clip of them playing. I looked on her website and found all sorts of great photo essays of animals they have nursed back to health for adoption.
So we spent the month of October hoping to have them home soon and hoping that they would tolerate the cooler temperatures here in Vermont...and that Winnie and Maggie would tolerate their new sisters! (We told Winnie and Maggie about Salt and Pepper, but we weren't sure they understood us.)
Finally, the day before Halloween, a month after we had brought the puppies to the vet, Salt and Pepper were scheduled to fly to Boston on the same American Airlines flight we had taken. I was able to take that afternoon off from work, and got a seat on a Greyhound bus to ride from our neck of the woods in Vermont down to Logan Airport, arriving a couple hours ahead of the flight, which was scheduled to arrive around 9 p.m. My wife drove down after work, having booked a room at a hotel which accepts pets near the airport.
The dogs hardly looked the same as the ones we found on the beach - they must have grown twice as big! We gave them some water and puppy food, and the cargo workers were happy to finally get a look at the dogs outside of their carrier. After a couple minutes, Salt peed on their rug. Oops! We apologized, but one of the cargo workers joked "That's OK. If YOU had done it, that would be a problem - but if a dog does it, we don't mind!"
The pups were pretty good in the hotel that night. They slept inside their carrier on a blanket we had brought them (we cleaned the carrier before putting them to bed, since there was some pee from the flight.) They started fussing in the middle of the night, so we took them outside for a little walk.
The next morning we drove back to Vermont.
We introduced them to our older dogs in "neutral territory" - a park that's down the street from our house. There was some barking and growling, as you'd expect, and even more commotion once we were back at the house.
That night, our oldest and most submissive dog, Winnie (a rescued stray from West Virginia, who we think is a daschund/beagle mix) actually got bitten - we think by Pepper, whose pointy ears fit her impish personality well. Luckily there's a 24-hour emergency vet facility just a few minutes away from us, so my wife took Winnie in and they gave her a prescription of antibiotics and fitted her with one of those silly-looking Elizabethan collars so she wouldn't keep licking her little wound.
Now we've had the pups home for a month and a half, and haven't had any more biting incidents, though we still keep our eye on Pepper, since she's a bit aggressive with the older dogs. But I think Salt and Pepper, though they are bigger dogs, are actually a little scared of Winnie and Maggie. The biggest problem is that Salt and Pepper love to wrestle and rough-house with each other. They sometimes look and sound very ferocious when they are going at it, and this freaks out little Maggie, our mini-daschund/cocker mix (she's our only native Vermont dog; she was born on a farm but seems to think she is royalty and is taken aback if others don't realize she's a princess.) She barks and barks at them, as if to say "Stop it! Stop fighting! It's not allowed!"
So our house can get a bit chaotic now. The dogs get along best when we take them for a walk together.
Salt and Pepper now understand how to walk on a leash - and they've completely acclimated to the cooler temperatures of our region. This week it finally snowed, and the fluffy white stuff didn't faze them at all. It's hard to believe how easily they've adapted to winter weather after living on a Caribbean beach.
I said we haven't had any more biting incidents, but we did come home the other night after work and discovered the place in a state of bedlam - Salt and Pepper had managed to escape from their kennel in the kitchen and had a party in the living room. What a mess. Pictures can't do justice to the scene (or, of course, the smell. Yuck.)
They even got ahold of our camera, which was sitting on a table. I found it on the couch, and they'd taken out the batteries! Fortunately, they hadn't eaten or chewed them - we found them intact. That would have been a real disaster. (We once had to rush Maggie to the vet when she burned her mouth biting into batteries she'd broken out of a TV remote. The crazy things puppies will do! Luckily she's grown wiser with age; hopefully these pups will too!)
I should mention that we took Salt and Pepper to our vet for their first check-up a week after they arrived, and with all the various tests, vaccinations, and some prescription medication (for de-worming and a skin supplement), the price for their first doctor's visit in America came to more than half of what it cost us for all their medical care in Aruba plus 30 days of boarding! Should we start looking into pet-care insurance?
Anyway, that's the story of how we very unexpectedly (and somewhat miraculously) adopted two more widdle doggies...