Just got back from the Lebanon warehouse where the pit bulls
are being temporarily housed from the fighting ring a few weeks ago. Meet-up was at 9am and Dani, the onsite
volunteer coordinator, gave us a quick briefing.
I started the day by going outside and hosing off some of
the crates that were poopy. Little did I know, the hose had sprung a leak that
soaked me as soon as it was turned on.
Oh well, it was raining anyway.
When that job was done, I walked my soggy tennis shoes back inside to
help with watering.
Some of the dogs had drank all of their water, others had
tipped their bowls so we filled those still right side up. In the crates with upside-down bowls,
one of us distracted the dogs; the other hurried and turned it right side up or stuck a new bowl in the
door. We then used a plastic watering
can to put through the crates to fill the water.
All of the dogs were lined up in rows with sheets or
blankets covering their crates except the front. There was cardboard or some sort of partition between each crate
and in back of the crates in some cases so that none of the dogs could see each
other. None of them have been acting
aggressive but because they had been bred to fight, this is the best way to do
it.
Some of them had no teeth because apparently, if a dog
doesn’t show any ability or interest in fighting, they file their teeth down
and just breed them. When they are
done, they hang or kill them in some other way. I know…. Awful! And these
were sweet little guys. Some of the
puppies were just too cute (and noisy).
So back to the squeaky tennis shoes. One by one, we carried a dog crate into a
back fenced-in area also covered in sheets, where we let them out, cleaned
their crates, put fresh bedding, puppy pads, food and a new water bowl in. We also gave them a Kong filled with peanut
butter. Since they are interactive
toys, they entertain the dog for hours trying to get that peanut butter out.
Now I do almost consider myself a professional poop cleaner
upper but I have to admit, I was getting a little “gaggy” from all the
poop. So I took all the Kongs and dog
dishes from the day before and the ones that were being taken out during crate
clean up. That was my job the rest of the day.
I washed old peanut butter out of Kongs, filled them back up and stuck
them in the freezer. Then I washed all
the dog dishes – more poop – more gagging, but I had on my surgical
gloves. I dried them all, organized all
the unused Kongs, stacked-up all the dishes so they were nice and clean to do
the same thing all over again. Washed
out a few buckets and was proud of my little tidy space.
Needless to say, there is a lot of laundry going on
too. In fact, since two of the dogs had
kennel cough, they told us to wash our clothes right when we got home. And I’ll shower before jumping into bed with
my guys tonight.
One of the things that really touched me was all of the
supplies: toys, food, water, soft drinks, bleach, paper towels, you name
it - people donated it. In fact, I took in two cases of water and
added them to the about 20 cases that were already there. They had a buffet style table in
the office that has better food than my house, which I was grateful for because
I didn’t have time to eat. And at noon,
this nice couple brought in crock-pots full of chili, 2 different kinds of taco
meat, homemade salsa, refried beans, individually wrapped heated tortillas, lettuce and
cheese, even homemade tortilla chips. And it was good! I guess they’ll go back and get their dishes
later. Yesterday, someone brought in a
bunch of pizzas. Just to help out the
volunteers. Thinking about it made me kind of teary on the way home.
And during lunch, we all compared dirty carpet stories, the
virtue of vinegar and who makes the best carpet steamer….. It was a poopy great day!
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