Drawing: Suki
 |
| Suki is a Shih Zu. |
Drawing: Suki. Pencil on 9" x 12" mixed media paper.
Between the meetings and errands I did yesterday I sat in a café with a bohemian atmosphere, the Coffee Hag, next to a person making a fleece puppy blanket. I struck up a conversation. Not only does Terri take care of four cats, at least one of which suffers from anxiety, she cares for a blind and deaf Shih Tzu.
 |
Terri works at the regional pet shelter BENCHS, where she coordinates dog adoptions. SUKI had come to the shelter. Staff there knew she was blind but Terri realized she also was deaf when she tried to rouse Suki from a nap and she
didn’t respond. Suki was adopted, but her human called the
shelter to ask that someone come get her. Suki had bitten him. She was quarantined for the required period of observation to
determine if she had rabies. Suki had been vaccinated, Terri explained, but she still had to be quarantined and observed. Afterward, Terri decided to adopt her. Suki has adapted
to life with four cats. She generally avoids the cats and they avoid her. She is
needy and insists on regular human contact, not snuggling exactly, but
closeness. She wakes up each night and announces it's time for a drink of
water. When Suki wakes her overnight Terri sets her on the floor, Suki goes and gets a drink, then comes back, gets
lifted onto the bed, and sleeps until it’s time to get up. I told Terri her life caring for Suki made mine caring for Mabel
and Ady sound easy. We laughed at ourselves over our lives with pets. Actually,
Mabel rarely wakes me. Ady does, inevitably for food. I expect she would be a
skilled huntress had I provided her with forays outdoors. But I think Ady has a good enough life—and probably a longer life than if she roamed the alleys. I asked Terri about adoptions at BENCHS. To adopt a dog, a human pays BENCHS in the range of $100-$300, depending on the age and condition of the dog and how many medical procedures had been done to restore the dog’s health. Dogs cannot leave the shelter without the following, as needed: spay or neuter, necessary vaccinations in addition to the required rabies vaccine, de-worming, heart worm test and preventative treatment, and an identification microchip. Sometimes the shelter must provide at their expense, or with the help of funds raised, surgeries or procedures. The shelter pays their veterinarians, vet technical staff, a
core administrative and support staff, and a lively group of dedicated volunteers cares, feeds, nurtures, cleans, a never ending work of love for animals. Emily Kretschmer