Day 27
Writing Practice.
Nope not Poisoning This Time
Yet another moment wondering if our dog, Opi was poisoned. Similar signs, body trembling, back legs crumbling, eyes wayward and frightened, tongue licking air. “Damn.” Maya sitting with trembling Opi. I jump up to mix a bottle of sugar water. We hold his head up so I can pour the mixture down his throat (I saved Sprigadee our other dog this way). He was not having it. We stopped. “Call Theo.” But then Opi relaxed a bit and lied down. In past poisoning experiences our pets were restless and could not settle themselves. Maybe, not poison, I think. We agree let him rest and if he’s still showing signs we’d call the vet, knowing also the only thing the vet could do is put him down and save him from a brutally painful death. The last time we called the vet for our cat, Wilson who was staggering through the house meowing in deep despair the vet say, “He look like he have life in him still, let’s give him a chance.” I stupidly agreed. Some vets are not fast to put animals down, ‘that should be the work of God, not humans.’ Theo too. He let his favourite goat suffer three nights under the house before she finally succumbed to punctured wounds by dogs. Both Denis and I, “Call the vet man, put the poor animal out of her misery.” But Theo held hope his favorite mama goat would survive.
Back to Opi. He slept the whole afternoon. Ok good, maybe not poisoning. In the evening he ate food! Definitely not poisoning. However he was still wayward and trembling but he ate, walked, lied down and sighed. Theo believes he was bounced by a vehicle or someone gave him a lash of wood. He was in shock. This morning Opi good! back to his old self butting his nose into our hands, sneaking into the studio leaving muddy prints on the floor. I jotted down notes for an essay I plan to write. We’ve had three dogs and a cat poisoned and one dog shot (Shake, Tricksy, Coco, Wilson and Palo).
Yesterday Parker Palmer’s quote came to mind: “Violence is suffering unheard.” When the first poisoning happened to our first dog, Tricksy, I knew exactly who laid out the pot of rice and poison. A person whose trauma was not only blown violently into her own and other animals but who regularly cursed neighbours and children. I can only imagine her story, a story of deep woundedness, disconnection, suffering. What happens when suffering causes inability to communicate grievances? what happens if those grievances are expressed and nobody listening? More to come re: violence, suffering and unheardness.
Opi has many stories to share, like the time we thought he had rabies. The vet said the only way to find out for sure is to remove his head and send it to Trinidad. So we tied him to a tree and waited it out. Opi stayed tied under the Beffi mango for three days and then we tied him under the house for a few more days. We then took him to GSPCA and turns out the drooling from his mouth was because he likely sucked on a car battery (Vets prediction). The vet gave him an injection and he was fine thereafter. And still thereafter!