Posted on May 18, 2011 by: WayCoolDogs

The PTS Room contains a table and a big freezer, nothing more.  You can gather what happens there.   One day I saw a smallish, greyish-brindle dog tied up right outside the room, just where those dogs who are next in line to be put to sleep are usually tied, and in dismay I asked what had happened with her.  They told me she had just been brought in and was awaiting evaluation, and it wasn’t that she was scheduled to be put down, simply that they hadn’t checked her out yet.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I put the leash on her and she came willingly, although she was still trembling from top to toe.  But several pats and hugs and soft words later, once she realized I wasn’t an enemy she gradually lost the tension in her body and began to lift her head and look around, though she stayed very close to me, and occasionally got so close she stepped across in front of my foot and nearly tripped us both up.

“Snippet”

She had been brought in for adoption by her owners ‘because the neighbours complained’; they didn’t specify as to why, but they must have cared for her because she seemed so bewildered and lost. Her build reminded me of a whippet, but she was also very long and lean so I called her Snippet.  Soon she was assigned a cage and a room-mate, a tubby little brown dog who, not surprisingly, became Tubby.

Since the streets of Jamaica are full to bursting with little brown dogs, I was somewhat disconcerted when just a few days later Tubby got a new home and Snippet didn’t, although I suppose they may have been put off by her bark, which was annoyingly sharp and insistent, and when she caught sight of me, even in the distance, she would start and not stop till I took her out.  In retrospect, I believe this may have been what the neighbours complained about in the first place.

“Twinkletoes”

Almost immediately she was given a new room-mate, another dear little brown dog but with a difference.  TwinkleToes had been run over and both back legs had been broken.  One had been operated on, and there must have been multiple breaks judging by the long, newly-healed scars running from hip to knee joint.

Amazingly, the leg seemed quite functional, while the other one was still hanging limp, though now and then she would put it on the ground.  Her owner had brought her in but abandoned her when he found out how much the surgery was costing him.  She had the sweetest personality, in spite of all she had obviously been through, and her little face was full of mischief.

I began taking the two out together, and had a brainwave about how to deal with the problem of two leashes.  Instead of having to hold on for dear life to both of them, one in each hand, and getting hopelessly tangled in the middle, I simply clipped them together so that each dog pulled against the other, instead of against me.   This enabled me to exert more control over Snippet, who seemed to think she was a husky running the Iditerod, and it gave Twinkletoes more play so that she wasn’t dragged along behind Snippet before she had time to organize her legs.  I actually gave her that name because watching her run was quite extraordinary.

The two front legs would take off almost independently of her body, getting to full speed in no time at all, while the other two would follow in hopeless pursuit, the ‘good’ one managing to touch the ground now and then, and the useless one jiggling as if it had just come along for the ride. Snippet, on the other hand, often reminded me of a dancer doing the can-can in the roaring twenties, because when she crouched to relieve herself her back legs rocked rhythmically in and out, and she looked for all the world as if she was engaging in a raucous dance.  All she would have needed to complete the picture was a little fringed skirt.

One day a friend of mine drove in wanting to adopt a dog, and I introduced her to Snippet.  She was enthusiastic and said she would be back the next day to bring the adoption fee.  I was thrilled, and began telling Snippet stories about the wonderful life she was going to have with Lorraine, but she never returned, in spite of my phone calls, and TwinkleToes too stayed on, waiting and waiting, but no one wanted a dog with a leg that just hung there and did nothing.

All too soon, one afternoon when I had just returned them to their cage, I saw the wheelbarrow coming down the passage with the heavy green bags, and I went cold.  The stark truth is that when the dogs in the adoption section have been there too long, they have to make space for new ones, who might be luckier.

My two were the last in line.  As they got closer to us I manoeuvred myself halfway inside the cage with them, oblivious of how stupid I might look, hugging them as tightly as I could and telling them everything would be alright.  Neither of them struggled, and they went peacefully.  My emotional state was far from peaceful, but also I was glad I had been there to hold them and assure them in their last moments that they were loved, and I told myself it was better that way, than for them to have gone to owners who wouldn’t care, and who would have prolonged their suffering.

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Guest Post by Cindi Scholefield, a volunteer at the local animal shelter in Kingston, Jamaica. For any donations to Cindi and her dogs, please send to:
Eunice Crompton-Nicholas
c/o
Harry Dufour
9330 Dunhill Drive
Miramar
Florida 33025-3869

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