If you want to drive to Camp Luna to visit, we live on the northwest corner (almost). But if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a dog-dropper-off-er, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve moved to Honolulu.<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vary the statement somewhat: If you need us, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be at home. It follows, then, that if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need us, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re elsewhere.<\/p>\n
We covered this iffy kind of conditional mood a couple of columns back, implying that people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intentions determine the physical location or even the name of the other person.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
Three times in the past couple of months we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been recipients of the that-looks-like-a-friendly-home syndrome, which means that those dog-gone folks who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to take responsibility for recently hatched animals simply drop them off early in the morning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d usually in the Camp Luna area.<\/p>\n
That serves a dual purpose: the dog-dropper-off-ers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to worry about spaying, feeding and otherwise caring for the animals, and second, making these matutinal deliveries a distance away virtually guarantees the Fidos won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find their way back home.<\/p>\n
Here are some insights: When our family lived in Cuba, N.M., in the heart of hunting country, the Nacimiento Mountains, we were amazed at how ill so many of the male teachers in our district became on the opening day of hunting season.<\/p>\n
Those who returned with some form of wildlife usually effected a miraculous recovery; those who failed to shoot their limit remained ill a while longer.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing the curative powers of a 30-30 shot into a deer.<\/p>\n
Many of the recovering hunters then would dump their dogs near our house, out of town near a forest. The dogs apparently didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t serve much more of a function for the hunters, and this gave them an excuse to “gift” the rest of us with fine dogs.<\/p>\n
In our family we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re primarily cat people, having had dozens of felines around the house, even a couple that reached age 22, or 154 in cat years.<\/p>\n
While in Cuba, we generally traveled with “Blooper.” One weekend, after Blooper started to make confetti of our carpet, we trimmed her claws.<\/p>\n
And at that time, we needed to drop off two German Shepherd mixes at the animal shelter in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n
Do we dare combine the trips and mix cats and dogs? We dared, but only after securing the cat tightly in a knotted cardboard box. As we went back into the house \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just for a second \u00e2\u20ac\u201d we heard howls and growls, and we feared the dogs had torn up the cat.<\/p>\n
Well, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d tried to, and they shredded the cardboard box, but even with blunted claws, Blooper made the hounds pay. They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make a sound the rest of the trip.<\/p>\n
At the time, the shelter on Santa Fe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Cerrillos Road contained an after-hours depository, in which we simply pulled open an empty cage, inserted Rover then closed the self-locking door.<\/p>\n
Life was simpler then, not like today, not with all that paperwork that has taken the fun out of the process.<\/p>\n
The dogs people donate to us generally come more than one at a time, from the same litter. The latest batch contained four dogs not more than eight weeks old. They must have been dropped off in the field near our house, and we surmise one of the four made its way to our yard and explained that if we were interested, his\/her three siblings were in the field, awaiting a whelping hand.<\/p>\n
You need to realize that no matter how unattractive, ill-tempered, un-house-broken the animals are, grandkids demonstrate immediate infatuation with the varmints. “Oh, Pompah, can we keep this one, or maybe two of them, or all four?” we hear as the kids hound us with every errant errand the dog-dropper-off-ers make.<\/p>\n
“No, we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep even one of them. There already is a dog in the family, Zeus, and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need four more,” we explain, doggedly.<\/p>\n
Before the attachments become too strong, we contact animal control officials, who do a remarkable job of transporting and accommodating the animals. Last week, however, we personally carted the dog quartet to the county animal control office, where one of the public works employees, Gina Medina, arranged with the city counterparts for us to use the city dog pound.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great that Gina \u00e2\u20ac\u201d who genuinely cares for canines \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and Thomas Garza, with the city, managed the animal transfer so professionally. They deserve praise.<\/p>\n
But wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it be better still if people simply took responsibility for their un-neutered, unwanted animals instead of letting us at Camp Luna perform all the honors?<\/p>\n
So, if you just want to visit us, we live at Camp Luna. But if you plan to drop off animals, remember \u00e2\u20ac\u201d we now reside in Honolulu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you want to drive to Camp Luna to visit, we live on the northwest corner (almost). But if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a dog-dropper-off-er, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve moved to Honolulu. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vary the statement somewhat: If you need us, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be at home. It follows, then, that if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need us, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re elsewhere. We covered this iffy kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}