Ah…another Sunday.  Here I am on this glorious day, sitting at my picnic table on my back deck.  I can hear the birds chirping as I sip my fresh iced tea.  I am surrounded by five of my dogs lounging at my feet.  Tyson is actually UNDER my chair, looking up at me every so often.
I am, of course, working.
There are still fifteen things on my to-do list, and I am finishing up the first one.  Sigh.
Some days are tough.  Lately it seems we’ve had a string of some days though.  We don’t talk much about the emails we get and the tribulations we go through, but I’d like to give you a taste.  Some days are very difficult.  The emails never stop.  Story after story about dogs, cats, goats, donkeys, turtles, roosters — any animal you can think of pretty much.  They are all innocent of course, and we start every day knowing we can’t save all of them and knowing that means death for some of them.

So while our heads are spinning from this (I try not to look at the pictures), self-centered, arrogant, egotistical and yes, stupid people crash into our lives and cause more static that we don’t need.  What do I mean?  Here….
Let’s start with the lady who adopts one of our famously cranky dogs.  She knows the dog is cranky.  We TELL her the dog is cranky.  We sit with her and explain it to her.  I was there.  She takes the dog home and he acts cranky.  Duh.  So she brings him back.   She demands her money back.   We say no.  She calls her lawyer.  We say no to her lawyer.  She finally agrees.  Then she reports us to the better business bureau.
Another person offers to transport a dog for us.  We don’t answer her in 24 hours.  Sometimes I don’t read my email for 24 hours.  She gets indignant and tells us that she was warned about Pets Alive. She’s tried to volunteer here and has been unable.  What a terrible organization we are.  She will tell everyone we know how bad we are.  Sigh.  Yeah.  You do that.
Then there’s the nasty emails about how much we suck because we won’t take people’s 14 year old aggressive dog that they need to “get rid of” in the next few days.  Of course it is our responsibility to clean up after these irresponsible people and it’s our fault that we won”t relieve them of their moral responsibility.
Meanwhile, three other rescues who are struggling ask for our help.  So we’re spending time trying to get them back on their feet.  And one of them decides its time to negotiate the terms of our help.
I could go on and on.  I could read you more of our hate mail.   But I won’t.  Let me tell you about Oreo.
Oreo is a black and white female Pit Bull.  Here’s how she was introduced to Pets Alive:
Marcos’ wife was in labor, and he was taking her to the hospital.  As he passed the front gate of Pets Alive he saw Oreo there.  She had been dropped off at Pets Alive by some uncaring, irresponsible people.  He stopped.  There’s an example of the dedication of our staff.
Marcos ran and got Juan, and headed off to the hospital.  Juan and others coaxed her to the kennel with M&Ms.  They called her M&M, I immediately decided her name was Oreo.  Both stuck.  Oreo is a sweet, gentle, friendly dog who loves everyone.  She isn’t crazy about other dogs, and didn’t do well at all in the kennel.  Surprisingly, she lived well with Mufasa, the evil chihuahua in the Kennel office.
She’s a hugger, and she’s a talker.  She thinks she’s a lap dog.  She became a staff and volunteer favorite, and many times I would walk into the office and Oreo would be in someone’s lap or stretching on her hind legs to lick someone on the face.  Her tail always wagged and she always ran to me when I came in the room.  Many times when I was in the office fixing something or working on something I would scratch her behind the ears or just entertain her as she flitted about.
She’s a black (strike 1) pit bull (strike 2).  She has some hip problems, and she’s not exactly young (strike 3).  We expected that she would be around a long time, and we did the best we could to keep her happy.  She was walked often, handled and loved on by the volunteers and staff, and we made sure she lived outside the kennel environment where she was happy.  And she was happy.  We did well to make her comfortable, but we all wished she could find a home.
Well guess what?  Kerry informed me excitedly last week that there was an application approved for Oreo!  We had all been through this before, but this one felt good.  When they came to see her I made sure to pop in.  When I walked into the kennel I saw Oreo on the couch with her front legs on the arm, stretching to lick the man of the house in the face.  Her tail was wagging furiously and he was laughing.  A child watched from nearby, smiling and looking a little overwhelmed.  So far so good.
THEY WERE GOING TO TAKE HER HOME!  Oreo, the dog that had been abandoned at Pets Alive close to seven months earlier, was going home!  They were picking her up the next day.
Word traveled fast among the staff and volunteers, and Oreo got quite a sendoff the next day.  Gil and Maria stopped by to send her off, and the driveway was littered with the cars of well-wishers.  She was kissed, stroked, and loved into the car of her new family, and her tail was wagging as she drove into the sunset.  Jenessa said she had never seen anything like it at Pets Alive.
It was a victory of sorts — another soul saved.  Another sweet, innocent animal who can lie by the fire, run with kids who love her and be part of a family.
Her family called us when they got home to let us know that Oreo made a bee line for the bed when she got home, and that’s where she’s been ever since.
A few hours later we got another of those emails I was telling you about.  Kerry annotated it and sent it around.  The last words of her comments were Some Days.
Yep.  Some days are better than others.