A Morning Kayak, and an Evening Dog Rescue in a Time of Plague
The other day I went out for an early morning kayak, no one but me and the birds. As I glided along I saw willets, godwits, a loon, gulls, cormorants, sand pipers, grebes, a pair of oyster catchers, and what I think was a large petrel mixed in with the gulls. The ocean was cold and clear and so refreshing.
In the afternoon, I took our old dog out for her ritual bio break. She is on prednisone and feeling her oats. As we walked along our usual path, she took off down a steep ravine where she and the neighboring dogs often played as youngsters. After a time, it was clear; she could not get back up; I slid down on my butt and tried to help her clamber back up; she’s a big dog, about 85 pounds. Her old arthritic legs could not do it. I got her about 1/3rd of the way, but we could progress no further. I went home to get help from my wife and our neighbors; she slid back down. Again, we got her a third of the way up. Then we rigged a sling from sheets and blankets and hauled and pushed her another third of the way up, but we could go no further, so we wedged her around a tree so she could not slip back down again; about that time she gave me a sweet wet kiss of appreciation. Finally, we called the nearby fire department at the bottom of the street, and four of them came up to help. One hopped over the neighbors’ fence with some webbing to join me saying “we got this”. Pulling from above and pushing from below, they got her up the last steepest parts of the hillside and up to the fence. Then the three of them above and the one below hoisted her up and over the fence and the stone wall. She scampered off to play with the neighbor dogs, who had been understandably upset about her predicament, went home for her meds and supper and evening nap. Katie had just cooked a loaf of persimmon bread so it went to nourish our kind strong firefighters.
This is a community for which I am so thankful.
Lucien