Yesterday I found myself running frantically down a crowded street in an unfamiliar town, pulled along by two dogs and watched by a large, laughing crowd. I've already mentioned that life has been pretty busy for us lately. This moment felt like the pinnacle of the craziness.
I had been going full-speed all day, and now the pace had suddenly increased by a very substantial amount. How on earth had we arrived at this moment in time?
Well, it all started with the entrance of a horrible person into the local animal hospital. No, that's not quite right. Let's start somewhere else.
Her name was Buttercup, and she was a wonderful dog who had been atrociously abused before landing at the pound. As part of our usual volunteer efforts with the Companion Animal Protection Society, we took Buttercup in as a foster dog until the group could find her a permanent family. We managed to find Buttercup a superb home to go to, but her new mom had asked to delay the adoption until this past Thursday evening, which was when her summer vacation started.
Earlier that week, a horrible person entered our local veterinary clinic with two young dogs. This person presented the healthy animals to the vet and requested that they be euthanized.
Why?
They were moving.
The vet declined the request, took the dogs from the horrible person, and called my boss Nay for help. Nay, like us, is heavily into animal rescue and occasionally takes dogs such as these two from the vet and offers them for adoption from her boarding kennel. The problem was, this is the height of summer and the busiest time of the year at Nay's kennel. She had a period of three days where her kennel was already booked solid, so she would have no room for "the twins" as we now call them.
This is the part where we come in. Knowing that Buttercup was about to be adopted, and that space was only tight for a few days at the kennel, we agreed to take the twins while we still had Buttercup, and our own two dogs, not to mention our own two cats, the three adult foster cats, and the three sick feral kittens.
Were you counting? That's 13 animals.
So on Wednesday I loaded "the twins" - overweight but handsome Spaniel-ish looking littermates named Fat Jack and Riley - into my car after work and brought them home to meet the rest of the pack.
It was supreme chaos that Wednesday night and the next day. Mark left town early Thursday morning and I was left alone to supervise the thirteen animals, and take the five dogs out on their walks. That evening our dear Buttercup got officially adopted and went home with her new mom. Mark arrived home about a half hour too late to see her off, but we're used to these goodbyes so it was no big deal.
On Friday I left for work early in the morning. It was a big day at the kennel - the boarding facility was stuffed full of dogs and our grooming schedule was nothing short of gruelling. I stayed late to help Nay finish the day's work, and we decided she would come home with me around 6pm so we could all go to a parade that our rescue group was walking in together.
Around ten minutes to six, a client with six dogs showed up to have their animals boarded. The last great rush of the day occurred when all six dogs went running through the kennel to their room, and set all the other dogs off howling and barking. We rushed to set up their beds and get instructions from the owner and realized we would be tight for time getting to the parade.
I called Mark and asked him to order a pizza - we would pick it up on the way home, eat, and run to the next town for the parade. Nay, her cousin Cheryl, and I clambered into my car, drove to my house, and ate a rushed pizza dinner with Mark before piling back into the car with "the twins" and our own two dogs, Arlo and Oliver.
We arrived at the designated parade spot - the community college in the next town. We were a few minutes late, but that wasn't a big deal. What was a big deal was, nobody was there. Not a soul.
???
!!!
After a few frantic phone calls, we realized we were in the wrong town. The parade was actually about four towns over from our own; not at the next town as we'd thought.
We drove to the real meeting area and promptly got stuck in traffic driving between floats that were in a line-up to get into the parade. We were going at a snail's pace, the parade was starting, and we couldn't park and find our group until our queued lineup got closer to the community college parking lot that we were aiming for.
Slowly, tortuously, we inched along. Then Mark saw a clear path, jerked the car to the shoulder of the road, and zoomed past the waiting parade floats. We parked but couldn't find our group. The beginning of the parade was already snaking down the road as far as we could see, and our animal rescue group was nowhere to be seen - they must have already gone on!
Three of us started to run. Then we all looked back at Cheryl, who was awaiting surgery on an injured leg.
She would have to be sacrificed. We gave her our car keys, apologized, and left her standing there.
I had our dogs Arlo and Oliver, and as I ran Arlo pulled me as hard as he could. I leaned backwards to keep from falling on my face as I ran, and my shoes slapped hard against the pavement. Nay and Mark ran on with me, each with one of "the twins" running along next to them.
I had no idea that a parade in a little town in the valley could be so very, very long. I was sweating and my face burned. Crowds of people lined the sides of the street, and laughed as I ran past.
"How far up are all the dogs?" I asked one woman who was sitting in a lawn chair. She turned toward me with a wall-eyed stare and laughed. "Do you know?" I asked, prompting the answer "YEAH", as she laughed harder.
Thanks, crazy lady.
Both of my dogs had to stop to poop. In front of everyone. While I was trying to run. At different times.
We continued to run. Finally, just when I thought the agony of it all was too much, we spotted a crowd of people walking proudly and calmly in the parade ahead of us, each with a dog. We had reached our group!
We slowed down and greeted the familiar faces. I was red and sweaty and my dogs were keyed up from all the excitement, joyfully pulling as hard as they could at the ends of their leashes.
This was the pinnacle of the crazy month we have had. I found it difficult to regulate my walking speed and kept shooting ahead of the other people and dogs, and having to pull myself short and wait for the group to catch up.
Finally I relaxed enough that I was able to walk apace with everyone just like a normal person. The parade was huge and entertaining, and everyone was having fun. We reached the end, found our abandoned friend Cheryl with almost no trouble, and all went for ice cream afterwards.
Later that night, enough space opened up in the kennel that Nay could take the twins, and Mark and I found ourselves with only two dogs at home - our own sweet boys.
The absolute rush of activity we've been caught up with - in seemingly every part of our lives - has abated just a bit, and now I feel like I am floating in a gentle current, whereas before we were crashing on frenzied waves.
I really do feel like I'm floating, honest-to-gosh.
It's nice.
