Dog Day Afternoon in Baja
Dog Day in Baja, Part I
There he was romping about the onramp to the freeway, a five-week-old Labrador mix, mostly black with white and black streaked front paws and waving a
marvelous, vigorous flag of a tail, I slowed to a stop far away from him as my husband warned me about approaching cross traffic. He was focusing on
the other cars and was startled by my exclamation, ?Oh s***, what are we going to do about the puppy??
He looked around and said, ?What puppy?? It had disappeared like a magician?s rabbit into a dense set of scraggly roadside vegetation draped over the
curbing. I said to him, ?Let me show you.?
I got out of the car, reached into the brush and pulled him out. The puppy showed no fear, licking my hand, looking directly at me with big deep dark
eyes like the girls in the Nagel paintings and waving that tail like a whip antenna on a dune buggy.
Now, what do we do with him? Our home is at dog max. We decided to take him up to the ?Bites and Scratches? clinic in Rosarito, run by two women
vets. I knew that they do low cost spay and neuter and a certain amount of adoption.
Doctora Carina took him in, just like that. No payment was requested, but we asked and paid for maintenance and treatment.
The puppy, after being treated and vaccinated, will be available for adoption.
If you want a great dog with smarts and a good disposition that will love you with all its heart, let me know, I?ll give you the phone number and
email for Bites and Scratches in Rosarito.
Dog Day in Baja, Part II
Returning home that afternoon, we pulled up to the entrance to our house and I looked over to see a beautiful young adult German Shepherd female
sitting down just off the free road. I pulled off and we got out of the car. I walked down, away from the highway, worried that any approach would
spook her into oncoming traffic. We called her, she was very afraid, but came up to my husband; perhaps the smell of the puppy from sitting in his
lap conquered her fear. I turned away to close the car door, and zap, just like that, she was next to me. I reached down and grabbed her ragged
collar and my husband took his belt off his pants to make a leash.
Now, what do we do with this dog, the second lost dog of the day? She had a collar, but no ID, and she was friendly but very timid. I have never
seen a German Shepherd turn its tail up into its belly to the point that it disappears, and when she steeled herself to approach us, she cringed and
huddled down after each step. I picked her up and put her in the car. I knew about fear-aggression reaction in dogs and was wary, but all she did
was go limp, and once in the car, she relaxed, started panting and exploring.
We took her to a place nearby and asked some locals, they said, ?Go down the road to this place, this dog is from there?
Yes, the people we went to have German Shepherds, but, no, this one wasn?t theirs, but, they took her in immediately and put her in a crate so that
she would feel safe and told us that if we find the puppies, they would take them, too (yes, she was a recent mother).
We don?t have the faintest idea of where her puppies are, we know for sure that they weren?t in the place we found her. However, I guess we will go
looking for them.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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