Stop the loving!

Boca has permission to play in the front patio with the 4 to 8 year old neighbors. They tickle, they hug, they play games.
But when she's had enough, she retreats to a corner of the garden, as if to scream, "Stop the Loving!" When play is done, it is sometimes hard to get her out of the garden!
Then doggie mommie cajoles and wipes the mud off, and Boca goes back to being a house dog who chews the guts, still chewing, the guts of her stuffed sister.

And then she died

Rest in peace, Lora. It was a rough morning.
Lora got up early Saturday, the second day after her nails were clipped under sedation. She was hung over on Friday and shook it off when she got up. She smelled the T-bone steak Gail couldn't eat when we came home Friday night.
When I took it out of the fridge for treats and tricks, she ran to Gail's apartment as if to say "Thank you." She was beaming!
She did a couple sit pretties, shake and chokala. Then she ran out to "make pee pee." She wasn't gone but a few minutes, just out the door to the median strip, and across the street in the La Gloria neighborhood of Isla Mujeres to visit Baut.
Baut didn't move to play and she ran home. But as soon as she got in the door, she was thrown to the side, then began to tremble. I knew. I am an islander.
I put her on her doggie bed, hugged her and grabbed the cell phone. When Delfino got the call, he knew. He had tended to another strychnine patient at 3am. There would be more.
He came quickly, living just down the hill. He gave her a shot of valium to calm the shakes and spasms. I knew he could not save her. Stychnine is hard to reverse.
He tried. She got other drugs including morphine. If the spasms can be stopped, the system can be purged, hydrated and chelated - sometimes resulting in a saved life. But Delifino saw all he could do was euthanize her with an overdose.
While I waited, Federico came over, said he was sorry, and began to clean his steps where the poison laid. He has a Chihuahua who parents both died in the poisoning of 2007, when it was one day old. Grandchildren up and down the steps all day long. He was sullen.
Delfino didn't call right away. But then he did, informing me of the outcome and beginning to talk arrangements. She was cremated in Cancun with other pets. To have her done separate would cost much more and having her ashes in the garden was not important to me.
He came later with the certificate from the new pet crematory in Cancun. www.paraisoanimalcancun.com
It says he was prayed over and has gone to nicer pastures with her Pastor.
Sunday morning, the garbage men came, looking for her and the others. In past years, police officers put dead dogs in garbage bags during the night so the garbage men could pick them up before children went out.
Later in the day, people came buy and said there was a cute stray here, another one there, that didn't take the poison and needed homes. The Maya plant lady, Lucila, said she knew a Lora look-alike, a skinny male, near La Bruja, needed a home. Alison at Amigos los Animales has a cute guy, too.
Because it is considered against nature, sterilization has not gained much popularity here. Status breeds like "bull terri" have. Then, they are turned loose when failure to manage a household means no food for the dogs. They eat from garbage cans, often returning to their old homes to sleep. But they are dirty street dogs, a menace.
Can't the people in charge see the difference? Have they never experienced unconditional love? Are they so short sighted to not see that children suffer, lose faith in governance as they grow up? That children could play on surfaces the poison has touched and die themselves?
Lora's poison was on the steps inside the gate of Federico's house, where Baut laid without moving as Lora took the meat, meat from a bull that was euthanized after being hit by a truck on its way to tonight's bull fight.
There is a lot wrong in paradise. The door to door vendors came yesterday with neighborhood body counts and inquiries about our Lora. Pobrecita, they said, and walked away, slowly shaking their heads and looking back. Then, I cried.

Further progress!

From pool 1

So, despite la gripa, I persevered, with the help of Carmen and Jose. This is how the rooftop looked this morning when Scott looked at ts on his way out...and home to Dallas!
I'll miss the guy, as will Lora, who was increasing acting like cat around him. He, being a cat lover, was amazed how much she acts like a cat at times - the way she moves her body, stretches, touches with her paw.
Today, Carmen and I will make some further organizational improvements in the suites and I will work on a book contribution. It's always something. But hey, I'll be able to take a dip and do some PT.
By the way, garlic may be more of a magical potion that I thought, and I have a lot of faith in it anyway. For he first time in weeks, I am walking without a cane! When Lora ran off this morning during a laundry run, I searched for her on foot before Jose came by and said, per chance, that he has spotted Lora near the mercado and the dog catcher was around. We went and picked her up. So, she's in for the day, castigado!

Hurricane Preps...Listo!

Well, we are all on the same page now! Mundo came early, Jose on time and Gladys a half hour late. Lora participated, and we are now ready to run the generator should it be needed later this season. For a cold start, prime the carburetor with paint thinner!
Gladys mopped up dead bugs that keep showing up after last week's fumigation and checked linens for mildew. They were all out of here by 12:30, which got me on the 1:30pm ferry and a quick stop at Soriano's (yeah! They had shower mats!) before my 2:30 date with Ricardo at Home Depot, where I selected shade cloths and privacy screening for the rooftop veranda. At Home Depot, I also found a baby gate, all the better to keep Lora in her place, and six swimming pool filters. Ricardo graciously offered to bring it all to the house Saturday.
At check out, 4pm, my lawyer called to say he was coming home early. Yippee! I thought I would have 2 hours to kill!
Ricardo and the cabbie dropped me off and I signed papers for Mauricio. Strategy for later today: I will keep my 10 am appointment at the Hacienda to correct the birth date on my principle legal ID, CURP, and he will meet me near there or at Costco to take my passport and original FM3 to Inmigraccion by 1pm, or wait til Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday are legal Independence holidays.
Two phrases Jose mastered this week: "Like clockwork" and "No rest for the weary." Pretty fitting.
By 5pm, once back on Isla Mujeres, I stopped to update Miguel and the boys. We also decided that September 28 in the Year of the Dog should be declared a "Day of the Dog" party to celebrate Lora's one year anniversary with me at her doggie daddy's place!

Tropical Depression Amusements

Dogs, like people, need good amusement during Tropical Depressions. When rawhide huesitos are hard to come by, a good reformed street dog makes do.
First, you rip the cap off. Then start on the label. Lay each destroyed part aside.
Keep going. The next step is to run it around the house and then bite it until it is flat. Then mommie throws it into the recycling bin and Mexico is a better place for Lora doggy dog.

What's a girl to do?

I once offended someone after she published her dog making a piddle. I offered some snide humor that was taken as a prudish slam. Oh well.
Now where to take a piddle, or in our case pee and kaka, is a difficult question. My compound doesn't have a lawn and the streets aren't safe, witness her hip after she was hit by a Augakan red truck last December. She knows who it was. She howls when it is within 60 feet of the house. The vets report that little Cushman-like truck has hit over a dozen dogs.
So, Lora goes OUT and does it modestly as possible, but en publico. Hace pee pee is her command to get it overwith quickly. And she has one place near the gardenia tree that she does it all.
Jorge the gardener keeps an eye on it and picks up what I missed. And yesterday, because of thunder and rain, she was in and out of her spot quickly. Although while Jose was here, we let her out the side gate while pulling in the trash barrel. And she went across the street and made a mark for all those doggies who mark our corner!
She's not stupid. That is her alias - her sobre nombre. Estupida! But she's muy inteligente.

Doggie Dog, not Snoop

This afternoon, I talked with Mr Hodge, my Third World coach, now from Ohio, originally from Liberia. He wondered how I felt about hurricane preparation since I grew up in a paradise, one that trained me for Isla, I like to say, even for hokey parades.
It's all good, Mr Hodge. I told him about Skype and how he could call family in Liberia with it. Or his sister in Norway. He'll check into it.
Jose is coming back tomorrow to do more deep cleaning. He us also using his time here to improve his English and is amused that I call Lora, doggie dog. The only other he ever heard of was Snoop Doggie Dog. He listened to the explanation of the diminuitive and similar examples. Then, to work.
Yesterday, he cleaned the bodega and fridge and transferred all the stuff from the apartments back to the fridge.
He fired up the generator and took Lora, twice, to get gasoline. Then we dropped off laundry and got rosticeria chicken and took carrot juice to Amelia.
We were no sooner done eating than the Maya plant lady came and drew a crowd to the front of the house. As a young man who rents a room in Centro, he was a bit amazed by life in the colonia. He rather liked it, being from the puebla next to the town wher you catch the Holbox ferry.
He played a bit with Lora before leaving. And I went to Federico's to collect a couple kilos of copied documents before my immigration lawyer called to ask if we could switch the appointment to this afternoon. I said I preferred Monday and he seemed to as well. Then, I tried to get Lora to come in for the night.
She had to be tricked. After a half hour of coaxing, I got in the golf cart while keeping the leash hidden. She jumped right in, I hooked her up, and in we went!
This morning, Lora floja went for a run. But she kept stopping to sit. It wasn't even hot yet when we stopped to see Rubi and her master. They played. A dog a day, another playmate for Lora, still waiting for her vet with the doggie chews.