Posted on September 08, 2010 by: WayCoolDogs

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I found out during an ice storm from December 2006 to January 2007 in Nebraska that feeding dogs with no money yet providing adequate dog care was not only possible but manageable – but just barely. With over 19 days of no power, no water and no way to get to work — I wondered if I would lose my mind before it was over and the health of myself and the dogs would remain in one piece. The phrase “feeding your dog” turned into a daily motto of sheer creativity.

We had a dog rescue of old dogs who were in delicate health due to their age and needed lots of help. Whatever bedding and heat we had usually went to them during this storm.

Our neighbor found an old kerosene heater that we put in the kitchen next to the front door, every two hours round the clock opening the door to let the fumes out. The oldest dogs stayed in the kitchen with us, wrapped in blankets and loving every minute of it! Money was nonexistent, and we had no idea how long we would be without electricity or water. Things looked real bad.

We also had no dog feeding chart to go by or  any dog feeding recommendations from our neighbors, as they were in the same shoes we were. I guess you could say we just “winged it” — feeding meal by meal, day by day, and second by second. Everything was feasible until the dark nights rolled around, when everything seemed worse.

Stuck in survival mode

In the middle of blizzards and ice storms over that period, Nebraska lost power to over 30,000 people with the majority in the rural areas. Lines were tangled messes over the roads preventing most of us from getting to town for help. We were in such bad shape that we did not realize that surrounding states were hurting just as bad. No money, no water and no electricity — could it get any worse? Always.

We were mentally stuck on survival, one footstep at a time, bucketing 20 to 30 gallons of water twice a day from our neighbor’s well. It was a good thing we all worked together, desperate and exhausted as the electricity lines slowly went up. We were the last ones up in our area as we were in the most uninhabited region. We were considered “out in the boonies.” Heck,we don’t even have cable out here and our water comes from a well.  Now … a frozen well.

I had been given two stocking hats from different organizations helping us out  with the cold and no heat. I picked out a hot pink one and a blue lime green – guess I was trying to cheer myself up. The repairmen for the lines were working 12 to 18 hours a day, covered with sleet and ice on top of those poles trying to get them up as fast as they could.

During the nights, we could see teams of men after it got dark with their truck lights on. It was the only light available in the area. It was comforting to see them.  One day I saw a crew down the road. I quickly ran down to see how long it would be before they had my power on — wearing my pink stocking hat. They were from the deep south, and had the cutest accent. We were sure glad to see them . . .and the dog.

A red-faced young man, clear up on the top of the pole in 30-miles per hour winds, yelled down to me, “Ma’am, I really like your hat. Sure wish I had one of them!” I looked up at him as he worked half-froze to death and replied, “Honey, if you can get my power on, I will make you half a dozen!” The crew thought that was funny and got a good laugh out of it. I wished I had a container of hot cocoa with some whiskey in it for them. But my power did not come on for another week or so as I was on another line. I would have given them the cocoa and whiskey anyway. It was a time when everyone was shoulder to shoulder and were one.

Rescue shelters in town for dogs and people

We took each other into town where rescue shelters had feed and gas for our home heaters and vehicles  – Salvation Army, Catholic Organizations, etc. We hardly ever went anywhere as we were afraid our house would burn down. Our health was good, but our mental state was shaky. One of us always had to stay at the house with the dogs. The organizations provided a hot meal every day for us when we could get to town, so we would bring home a hot meal (not really hot be then) for the other person.

We all worked together in kind of a frozen stupor, sharing with each other what we could spare. People came out from Lincoln and Omaha, four hours away, bringing food and bedding for those in need. It was a terrible time where everything seemed to just run in a blur. I didn’t even know I was upset until I was in line waiting to bring food home and I burst into tears — no reason I thought. I guess the generosity of the people helping us overwhelmed me so much as we had so little. I don’ t know. But if it had not have been for the dogs and those people, forcing ourselves to go forward I wonder if we would ever have survived that bleak time. As I look back, I wonder how we made it.

Bringing food home for the dogs and us

Whenever I brought food home, I always thought of how it would feed us two old ladies and the old dogs — plus two elderly cats. One dog was not well, JJ,. who we always had a difficult time feeding her. The only way was to spoon feed her every couple of hours. Feeding your dogs with nothing will force you to become rather ingenious in ways you never heard of. I would always bring home plenty of rice, potatoes and chicken, plus lots of canned vegetables and stale bread.  What we could not use for the animals, I never brought home but left if  for other people who could make better use of it. I would have had to take double to feed us and the dogs, so it was easier to take what we could eat together.

Hauling water and boiling rice

Obtaining water was easy, I guess. Doing without electricity was not.  At least as long as it was not sleeting and snowing  outside we could still survive. The neighbors lived a couple of miles south from us. They had an outside well which was not hooked up to electricity like ours but ran on an outside well. It was here we got our water every day. The five-gallon buckets were hard to lift inside and out of the van, so we would place them inside the vehicle and pour it in.

Getting home was easier as the buckets were in a downhill motion!!  Problem was the buckets would be frozen to the floor as the water would slosh over and freeze the minute it hit the surface. We set aside water for us and the bathroom, and placed the dog’s water on the inside porch. We would pull out  our largest soup pot and filled it with water for boiling one chicken or two pounds  of wild meat in it.

People donated wild game to the dogs when it would become outdated, and we had to use ours up as the deep freeze was defrosting with no power. Lots of the meat we placed outside, but we lived off most of it during that period. We cooked large amounts of rice and some meat as we had several dogs. This would simmer all day long for our “soup”. At that time we had no power for almost three weeks, only using a small kerosene stove  top for cooking which took it all day to cook.  In the soup, we could not put in pepper or onion as they are considered unhealthy and toxic to animals. But after the meat was done, we would begin to add rice or homemade noodles with eggs if we had them, or with water/canned milk if we had that, to make our own “people soup!”

When we fed the dogs, we mixed it with portions of dry dog food to make it go further. The rice made it thicken and the dogs loved it.When we fed the outside dogs, they would see that old pot and ladle in the old rickety wheelbarrow as we hauled it to their kennel, barking  excitedly as the delicious meal they were going to get. They did not even know they were in trouble. They thought they had died and went to heaven, for sure. Other people began to bring us outdated bread baskets by the trunk full—white bread, buns, hamburger and hot dog buns. The dogs thought this was a treat, and once we ran out of rice or the eggs, we would add this to the soup and broth for the daily feedings. They had all they wanted and never lost weight, losing only a few very old ones during those terrible days. But somehow we made it through.

The social love of dogs

We found out that as long as our dogs had us, they never realized we were struggling. They are social animals and as long as they had us, they were happy. The day our power came on, they told my mom she had cancer. She died two months later. For several years that particular time has been a fog in my mind with everything that happened and losing my mom. I felt like I was frozen inside and could not wake up. But we survived and our dogs survived, and I think for the first time in my life I understand what the words “the will to live” means. It means feeding our dogs no matter what, and everything else will fall into place.

(All photography by Nancy Houser and Sandra Marquiss)

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