Today can be summed up with “Wild animals are not cats and dogs”

Cats and dogs are fairly predictable. Most of the time you pet them and they are happy, you feed them cat and dog food, when they are sick or hurt, you take them to the vet.

People see the pet possum or the house raccoon or even the deer with a party hat watching tv on the internet and they forget that these are wild animals. In the 30 seconds or few minutes of the video, it seems as though they are really not much different than dogs and cats. They love you as their masters and they appreciate your help.

It doesn’t always work that way.

Wild animals, even most very young wild animals are exactly that. Wild. They fear humans. The don’t like anything that doesn’t fit in with their world and mostly, that is humans.
The day started with the woman picking up the young bobcat after it was hit by a car. Instead of calling a rehabber or the DNR immediately for advice, she put the unconscious cat in a dog crate and took it to a vet.

First of all, very few vets treat wild life. Most won’t even allow them in their clinics. All understand that a scared wild animal is dangerous and will lash out. The cat was awake when it got there and scratched the woman who picked it up.
To make a long story short, the vet called the DNR and by Michigan law, the cat had to be put down and tested for rabies. No way around it. Once it breaks the skin, the animal is doomed. People pick them up anyway.

This is one of the biggest reasons I do not allow people to touch the animals in my care. Yet still, they will walk in and the first thing they do is stick their fingers into the cages. My eyes are rolling right now.

Next, came 5 baby possums. Two severely injured with limbs or tails “Degloved”. (that means, the skin is torn away leaving nothing but raw muscle and nerves. It is extremely painful and takes a long time and lots of treatment to heal. I put the healthy ones in a cage and the other two in a darkened basket to be dispatched when they left.

The wife demanded to know how I was going to treat it. Then showed me photos on her phone of a kitten she rescued from a fire. One ear was burned off and a foreleg degloved. It has a large, raw burned patch on it’s side. The photos were gruesome. Then she showed the after photos of this cat, now mostly blind and said it took over 40 vet visits and surgery to save it.

All I could think of is “why?. Was the pain and suffering that kitten went through really worth the outcome? Animals don’t cling to life like we do. They don’t experience angst about death. They do experience pain….but….since this was a domestic animal, the vets could treat it. They could relieve much of it’s pain. It could take comfort t in the touch of human hands.
If this wasn’t bad enough, about 9:45 tonight a woman called and wanted me to come get an adult raccoon that had been hit by a car. She said it was trying to get up but couldn’t. She stated that it got nasty when she tried to move it out of the road. She wanted me to do something. NOW.

I tried gently explaining that there really wasn’t a lot I could do for a coon in that state (trying to handle an injured adult coon is a lot like juggling chainsaws. It aint gonna work for long) I told her that there aren’t any vets who would even look at the coon, let alone treat it and I am not a vet, there is only so much I can do with my limited resources. I told her that the best thing for the coon was to either put it down or simply leave it alone to expire in relative peace.

She would have none of it. She cried and whined. She demanded that I come help the coon. She got really upset when I told her no. I value my fingers. I have scars running up and down my arms from raccoons, and am not in the market for more. I was not going to drive 30 miles to Mancelona and pick up the coon.

She hung up on me with a few choice words including “Heartless, lazy and bitch”.
What she didn’t know is that I felt bad when I put the phone back in the charger. I felt bad for her. I felt bad for the coon. I hate feeling so helpless. But I can guarantee that if I HAD gone to rescue that coon and it was still clinging to life when I got there, it would not have been happy to see me. It’s fear of me would have far outweighed any comfort I could give it unless it involved a quick end to this life.

Not 15 minutes later, a young girl arrived with a fledgling robin. She said it was acting funny and it’s mother threw it out of the nest. When I looked at it, I could tell that it was ready to leave the nest anyway. but it’s head was shaking, it was staggering and the mouth was partially open with it’s tongue forward and raised. All are classic signs of poisoning. Someone treats their lawn or garden or sprays for mosquitos and the mother bird either ingests the bugs or worms and dies or feeds it to her babies and they die.

She did not want to hear this. She wanted me to DO something. Couldn’t I pump it’s stomach or give it something to counteract the poison? No. It’s a bird. All I could do is put it in a dark basket, so it would be calm as see what happens. I’ll know by morning.

I am not going to hold it as it dies to comfort it. It would bring it no comfort. It is not a beloved cat or dog. It is a wild bird, never touched before by human hands. It does not want to be in those hands now.

It is frustrating. Most of the time I can bring them no comfort other than trying to relieve pain or ending that pain forever. They are not cats and dogs. They are forever wild.

It has been snowing for months. This winter started the first of November and has not let up for a moment. It is February now, February 13. There has not been school for over a week and I can hear the mothers crying.

Snow or not. I got shit to do. I put on wool socks, fleece leggings, two sweaters, snow pants and my big, big coat (Michigan people will understand what a big, big coat is). I crammed my feet into my boots, found my ski gloves (which have never seen a ski slope and never will) and pulled on a hat with ear flaps.
I have to pee.
Ok, try again. This time I made it outside.
Not only is the snow over my boots, but well over my knees. I started out just shoveling the steps and deck. Then someone stopped to tell me that one of my peacocks was sitting in the road around the corner. I knew I couldn’t get any of the gates between our house and Levi’s, (a short cut) so I walked around the block by the road. I was amazed and dismayed by the amount of pure ice under the snow on the snow. It was like they used a Zamboni instead of a plow. It’s a good thing I had all the padding on my fanny, but I was almost helpless as a turtle on its back, when it came time to get back up.
As I rounded the corner, I could see something spotted white in the road. It was my youngest partial pied, peacock. There she was, just sitting in the road. I went to pick her up. She flew to a nearby fence. The snow is hip deep there. Just as I got to her again, she flew towards our back yard. I assumed she would beat me home.
I repeated my earlier performance on the ice as I waddled home. She wasn’t there.
I don’t know where the hell she landed. Not only that but her mother (also white) and one of her brothers is missing. Now, I understand how I could not see a white peacock in the snow, but a technicolored one?
So the dogs (Sophie had a playdate ) and I walked out back to look for them. The dogs thought this a wonderful opportunity to knock me down in the snow….repeatedly.
Damn, the wild duck who can’t fly is back by the far fence, bogged down in the deep snow. I chase. I miss. I chase again. I miss again. (Now you have to picture this in over the knee, snow motion and two unruly dogs) She gets into the goose pen at the far corner of the fence line. Ok. I can corner her there. One problem. The gate is closed and a foot higher than I can climb over. Knee deep snow, remember? Not only is the snow holding the gate, but it is frozen to the ground and post.
I need to cut the straps on the fence so I can lift it straight up. No knife. That’s ok, I can take a shortcut to the shed through the garden. It would have worked, but the gate at the other end is also buried in snow…..annnnnd, no knife.

Ok. Back up, go around the yard, making a new trail (knock it off dogs!) find a shovel and dig out the shed door to get a knife.

Nope. All that was there was a dull machete.

I got the machete, retraced my trail (Damnit dogs!), cut the straps, got the duck and continued to walk the fence line looking for peacocks. No dice. No peacocks.
So I make it back to the shed with the duck under my arm (Did I mention that both dogs are having a great time knocking me down in the snow?) Put the machete away, the door won’t close, so I stuff the duck in my coat and shovel and chip till it does. The duck shits.
At least it’s warm
As we are trudging back to the house, Sophie decides to impress her boyfriend and chases the geese. The geese fly. One goose flies over the fence. Son of a bitch.
I put the duck away. Feed the duck. Count peacocks…yup, still three shy. Go through the house to get out the front door (another gate that won’t open till June). Where is the goose?
Oh, of course, he is about 50 foot into the neighbor’s yard; in snow so deep I can only see his head and neck. I almost get to him and the other neighbor across the street fires up the tractor / snow blower. Goose flies into the road. I get to the road (am I having a heart attack or is it just the duck shit burning my skin….must be the duck shit) By now the goose is down the street, halfway to the church.
So it’s back in the house to get a stick for herding the goose (the net is frozen to the rabbit pen) and start off down the road. The lovely guy on the snow blower, turns the shoot in my direction. Thanks bud; it will help cool down the duck shit.
Finally, I manage to get in front of the damn goose and turn him back. We are making good progress; the snowbanks are keeping him in the road. Just as we get to our mailbox, idiot guy blows snow at the goose. Goose tries to fly. I tackle him in midair. (The goose, not the guy)
Flipping off the snow blower guy, we head back through the house with goose struggling in my arms. We almost made it. Dogs came in while I was chasing the goose and were lying in wait.
Surprise attack! Goose beats the snot out of me and I drop him. Goose shits in kitchen. I slip in goose shit. Finally cornered goose in the bathroom and returned him to the group outside (who all this time have been cheering for snow blower guy).Now I have duck shit all down the front of my sweater and Goose shit all over the butt of my pants.
Screw the peacocks. I shovel a narrow path through the deck and give up.
That’s my snow day.
And they wonder why I drink.

Well, it looks like the greenhouse will have a winter resident, if I can keep it warm enough. I got in a snake today. A really nice Army recruiter drove him all the way from Gaylord. He’d (the snake, not the soldier) had been living in the basement of the place where they rent. The landlord put down sticky traps for mice. The snake got stuck.
This amazing young man not only drove him here, but he also spent hours with cotton swabs and vegetable oil getting him free from the trap. Realizing that he couldn’t just toss him outside this late in the year and believing that as a wild animal (reptile?) he should be returned to the wild. I have no idea how many people he called before someone pointed him in my direction, but I’m sure it was a lot.
The snake is now lazing in a warm bath in a temporary cage in my studio. I’ll build him his own terrarium habitat tomorrow (just like the turtle, just like the toad). That will give him a more natural space, albeit with a hot rock and all you can eat buffet.
The reason I hope to put him in the greenhouse is not just to preserve space space in my studio…..Jimmy hates snakes. Early in our marriage I was unaware of that fact.
Levi was about 7 when I bought him a ribbon snake at the pet store. (Think garter snake, but semi aquatic). He lived in a terrarium in his room, but was an amazing escape artist. I can not tell you the hours I spent on my hands and knees searching for that snake. We had purchased him while Jimmy was on a 6 month deployment. He never said a word when he cam home and met said snake.
He had been home for several weeks when I went upstairs one afternoon and saw that the cage was sans snake. I looked about for awhile and discovered that somehow the snake had slithered up the curtain (honest I had NO idea that they could do that) and was sunning himself in the open window.
I calmly went to snatch him up, but there was a tiny gap in the screen. The snake quickly slipped through it and was making a second story escape attempt. I managed to grab just the end of his tail. Now I faced a problem. With most of the snake hanging out the window and no way to pull him backwards through the gap against the lay of his scales, I couldn’t get him back in. If I tried to remove the screen one handed, it could squish the snake.
So I did what anyone would do.
I called downstairs to my husband who was watching television, and told him to get a towel from the bathroom and then stand outside under Levi’s window. Now you have to understand, we’d only been married about 8 years and most of that time was spent with him on deployments. He still TRUSTED me.
When he got under the window, I told him to hold the towel open and catch. I still remember his trusting, though somewhat confused face looking up at his beloved wife. I let go of the tail.
What happened next was a juggling act of such frenzy as to be worthy of Barnum and Baily’s big red tent. I didn’t see the end as I was closing the window, but I thought I heard screams. I calmly came downstairs, collected the towel with the snake bundled (rather tightly) in the towel and returned him to his terrarium.
By the time I found my husband again, he was sitting in the chair, drink in hand and staring blankly at the wall. A shiver rippled through his body as I asked him what was wrong.
“I thought I was going to die” he said.” All I could see was that anaconda lunging for my throat and ripping it out. As God is my witness, there was murder in its eyes. It had its teeth bared!”
“It’ a 10 inch ribbon snake”, I replied. “They don’t have teeth and your son carries it around in his pocket”
He shuddered again and got up to pour another drink. “Anaconda, I say. Anaconda!” He left the room.
Later, as I was putting Levi to bed, I noticed copious amounts of duct tape wrapped around the terrarium and a brick weighing down the lid. I have no idea where he found a brick in Navy housing, but the snake stayed put till it died (Likely of obesity) a few years later. We never replaced him. The terrarium went on to hold a succession of toads, lizards and frogs, but never another snake.
Even after all these 30 odd years, the man still wants to know every detail of why I want him got bring me a towel. Trust is a funny thing. I guess it’s kinda conditional around here.

Sometimes happiness is found in the simple fact that the wood turtle likes his food.

Earlier this summer, one of my favorite DNR officers Mike, brought me a large wood turtle that had been run over by a car. He had pulled over to help it cross the road and some young girl on her phone ran over it before he could reach it.

The shell was very badly damages with part of it completely broken free and a great deal of blood. He was a large for a wood turtle and I estimated that he must be around 35 to 40 years old. That’s really old for a wood turtle. Though there is a strong population in Michigan, you don’t often see wood turtles as they are rather reclusive and fast movers for their kind.

In addition to the injuries this poor old man had endured, he was missing all his front toes and claws. This wasn’t a recent event as they had healed to well rounded and callused stubs. It probably did not help him get traction on the pavement either. This turtle had definitely seen better days.

Usually, a turtle that badly damaged does not have a good prognosis and I send them straight to the freezer where they go into a permanent hibernation. (One must be careful what package they take out of the freezer when looking for a snack around here). There was something about this old boy though, that touched me. Maybe it was his calm demeanor, the way he met my eyes or the fact that he did not try to bite me.I told Mike I’d do my best.

To try and repair the shell, I needed to go to town to get some “Cassis Saver” from the automotive store. Though intended for auto bodies, it has proved to be an excellent medium for repairing turtle shells, especially those that spend time immersed in water. It’s even black, so isn’t obvious or doesn’t stand out to predators. When they naturally shed their outer scutes (think scales), the coating generally sloughs off with them.

I used some medical tape to stabilize the broken shell and put the turtle in the refrigerator to chill while I was gone. This slows the turtle down and not only keeps him calm, but allows me to work on him without a great deal of movement. (Again, assume there might not be what you are looking for in the Tupperware box)

When I got home, I cleaned the wounds and packed them with antibiotic powder. I used food grade plastic wrap over the gaps and sealed them with a light application of Cassis Saver. Then it was back in the fridge to chill and dry the first coat. Hours later, I applied more Chassis Saver and layered pieces of teabag for strength. Then back in the fridge.

Later that night, I heard my husband rummaging in the refrigerator.

“The fridge smells funny”. he said

“It’s chassis Saver” I replied.

“Why does the fridge smell like Chassis Saver”

“Because the turtle is in the fridge”

“Why does the turtle smell like Chasses Saver?”

“Because I’m fixing his shell”

“So why is the turtle in the refrigerator?”

“So he goes to sleep and doesn’t get his head stuck to the Chasses Saver while it dries.”

You’d think he’d know by now. He ended up with potato chips. (Good thing, by the next morning even the butter tasted like Chasses Saver.)
After several coats and another night of drying, I let the turtle slowly warm up. As he came awake, he started to move about, but I still had little hope. I offered every food I could, but he would eat nothing. I feared his digestive system had been damaged by the car. Each day I put him in a pan of water for a soak. About the fifth day I picked him up and there was the biggest “turtle turd” I had ever seen floating in the water. I guess the digestive tract worked. Still, he refused to eat. I offered bananas, apples, tomatoes, Lettuce and night crawlers …everything I knew to be their favorites. I even went to the pet store and paid an outrageous amount on some tortoise food that only seemed to attract fruit flies by the billion.
The next day, I gave up. He had been nearly two weeks without eating. I fought my way through the cloud of fruit flies and removed him from the container he was in and walked him outside. I figured he might as well enjoy the sunshine and herb garden with the time he had left. It was surrounded by a small fence to contain a young duck with a broken wing while he healed, so it seemed the perfect place. I knew he couldn’t dig his way out with no claws, but just in case I painted a fluorescent heart on his back with nail polish to may him more visible.
It was a brilliant, sunny day and he simply sat in the sun for a long while. Later I went out and he was again sitting in his pan of water. Holy cow.! Another gigantic turtle turd! I dropped some banana and mango near the pan. He climbed out and started eating ravenously. “Oh my gosh” I thought, “the poor old boy wasn’t eating because he was constipated!”
Even though I put out fresh food daily, he preferred to eat grass and most of my basil, romaine and parsley. I imagine he supplemented this with slugs and earthworms when he could find them. The duck’s wing healed and was released and the old turtle seemed to enjoy the peace of the herb garden.
Now I faced a dilemma. Summer was drawing to a close and I had to figure out what to do with him next. Land turtles spend years building an internal map of their territory. For a wood turtle, this can encompass about 2 to 3 square miles. This territory usually includes a stream for soaking and hunting and a larger body of water to breed and hibernate in. They dig deep down into the mud to spend the long winter. He faced two problems. One, he had no map of his territory. Two, how could he dig down into the mud with no claws? I debated releasing him and letting nature take its course, but he’s an old man and a gentleman at that. Most wood turtles I have experienced have been a bit on the nasty side and would rather bite you as look at you. This old man is gentle and inquisitive and responds when I approach him. Perhaps he was someone’s peat at one time. Maybe he was in some sort of concrete enclosure and that’s how he lost his claws. Maybe he suffered frostbite. I don’t know. I DO know that this old man deserves to live what life he has left with dignity and comfort.
He will winter with me. If the greenhouse were finished, I’d let him sleep the winter in there, but it’s not, so I did the next best thing. I built him a tropical paradise. It’s about three feet by four and takes up the entire window shelf in my studio. It has plants from the herb garden and some succulents which he promptly dug up and rearranged, it has rich loam and clean sand with a light for basking. His food dish sits next to his bathing pan, so he can empty and refill with ease. He seems to like it, but again refused to eat. I started to worry. I got out the fruit fly bait again. He ignored it, though the cat seems to enjoy watching the cloud of fruit flies swarming over it. Then I found a dry pelleted food for tortoises that smells like Fruit Loops. I thought I’d give it a try.
I dropped some colorful nuggets in the dish tonight and he climbed out of his water pan. He nudged one with his nose. Within the space of 5 minutes, every piece was gone. He even freshened his breath with a bit of parsley. He is content. I am content.
It seems that in a time where nothing seems to be going right, in a time of grief and sorrow, at the most frantic period of the year preparing for winter…all it takes is a silly old turtle eating what looks like Fruit Loops.
It’s good. It’s all good. Everything in its own time. We are both survivors.

I have to keep reminding myself that “time” does not exist for animals. “expectation” does not exist for animals. “Disappointment” does not exist in their world and they have no concept of “Failure”.

These are all our burdens to carry If we could let them go, I think we would reach enlightenment. In fact, if you really run it down to the basics, they are all ego driven. We apply them to ourselves, they have no existence beyond our own mind.

To an animal “Time” is the now. They don’t think that they will do something in five minutes. They don’t look at the sky and say “wow, it’s only 8 o’clock and it’s getting dark, Well, crap” They see the evening coming on and they get up and go play or look for a quiet spot to bed down. Then they sleep till they wake up. No alarm clocks, no deadlines. Time is now. Now is all that matters.

That brings us to “expectations”. Because there is no “time”, there is no expectations of the passage of time, the limits of time or the thought that there will be more time. Since they have no concept of years or days or hours, they have no expectation of a lifespan. They don’t sit and think that I should have 2 more years or 5 more years or 30 more years. They don’t expect puberty to hit ant a certain age and then plan for it. It simply comes when it does and the experience it fully without any ideas of how “It should be” They go to sleep at night and if they wake in the morning, they just go about their business totally present in that moment.

When they wake up, they don’t look up and say “Damn, it’s raining. I was expecting a sunny day. I want a sunny day. I’m sooo disappointed” They simply acknowledge the rain and have the best day they can in the rain. If they have wet fur, well, they have wet fur. Shit happens. They don’t expect to always be dry, so it is no disappointment. “No clover in this field? Well, let’s just look over there. Hey, there are apples. BONUS! Apples are really good”

The animal wasn’t disappointed, because it didn’t get what it wanted. It was happy for what it had AT THAT MOMENT. If it didn’t, it wasn’t thinking it failed. If a hawk sees a bunny on the ground, dives for that bunny and misses that bunny, it doesn’t kick stones or cry and feel like it failed. There is no failure. You get the bunny or you don’t. It straightens it’s feathers and takes back to the sky to look for another. It’s not thinking “I’m running out of time” It thinks “I’m hungry, There’s lots more bunnies in the field. The mother squirrel, who looses her entire litter to the crows, does not feel she failed, she does not mourn and grieve. She either cleans out the nest and starts over or moves to a new one. The next male squirrel she sees, it’s simply “Hey baby. Want to have some fun?” You have to have expectations, a sense of time, disappointment , to feel like you failed.

So where is the ramble going?

Last spring a doe got hit by a car. The fawn was nearby crying, not in grief, but because it was hungry. Some compassionate people picked him up and brought him to me. We hit it off from the start. I had milk. He liked milk. He REALLY liked milk and I seemed to have an endless supply of milk where he was concerned. All he had to do was call out and the milk was there. This was cool. I also had a dry pen filled with dry, sweet shavings. I scooped his poop. “Wow! No poop to accidently lay in, even cooler.” He was happy in his little pen with his friend. He was happy when the door opened and he got out to play. When his fawn friend dies, he didn’t grieve. He simply sniffed her to see why she didn’t get up to play and went off to play with the dog. EVERY DAY WAS A GOOD DAY. He was never scared. He was never hungry. He was never alone.

Then the time came to lower the fences. A doe with triplets had been coming near the house. I assume she was one I raised some time ago as he didn’t seem afraid to be near. I lowered the gates and for a few days, my beautiful fawn, with his tiny nubs of horns, stuck close to the house. He had a whole new world to explore, new things to eat, new things to see. He started staying out all night, I imagine with the triplets. He was having a great time, Though I imagine he was keeping his bottles of milk a secret from the other deer. Life was great.

Then two night ago I heard him calling franticly for me about 3:30 in the morning. I ran down and called him and he came running and jumped the fence and ran into the house. He was bleeding badly and limping. I put pressure bandages on and he calmed down. He even drank some warm bottle . He lay down in one of his favorite spots and I sat with him for a few hours. He seemed calm and comfortable, so I went to grab a few hours sleep and warm up. The next morning. The bleeding had slowed to minimal and he was walking stiffly from one favorite spot to another. I made a dry place for him to sleep and dosed him up with some cannabis honey as it the only pain relief I could give him. I called several vets looking for help or something to ease his pain, but each refused. (the same vets who expect me to take every animal they want to dump one me) I had to leave him for an appointment and knew I’d have to make the decision whether to put him down or not when I got home.

When I got home, he was resting comfortably in the sun so I left him. Later that evening, he came to the pen he had as a baby and went in to lie down. Still he seemed not to be in distress. I was beginning to feel hopeful.

This morning he was dead. He died In a familiar place, safe from predators. He didn’t lay there thinking, “It’s not my time to dy. I should have years to live” He had no concept of time he should or didn’t have. He didn’t feel regret for things he didn’t get to do, there was no expectations of what he SHOULD do” Because he had no expectations, there was no disappointment in what was happening. He never thought “I should have ran faster, not crossed the road in front of that car, I’m a failure at being a deer”. He simply was at that moment in that moment. He knew if he lay on his right side, it didn’t hurt, He knew he wasn’t in the rain. he knew he was in a safe place.

Then…he simply wasn’t. He let go. He wasn’t expecting heaven. He wasn’t fearing hell. He simply returned to the spirit of the deer and not the embodiment. I imagine the moment of death of an animal as a long breath. As they exhale, they leave the physical body behind. The next time they inhale, it is the breath of a new life. A life that will be lived totally, one. moment. at. a. Time.

I am the one with the grief and longing. I am the one with the disappointment because I expected him to grow up and live a long life nd it did not meet my expectations. I feel the failure for not keeping him safer, not teaching him more about the dangers of cars. (as if I could) I am the one , not able to accept the total, timeless. completely in the moment way of living.

I have a lot to learn about enlightenment, but I have some good teachers and they all have 4 legs or wings.

I admit that I am a lousy Buddhist tonight.

A woman left a message while I was gone that said she was seeking “placement” for a raccoon that they had. It was becoming difficult to deal with and needed “rehoming”.

I knew exactly what was going on. It happens every year about now.. They find a baby coon in the spring, think it’s sooooo cute and that they can take it home and raise it. Once in a while the coon survives, but as coons always do, they become well, coons. They expect me to take the animal and either keep it forever (so they can come and visit at will) or retrain it for the wild.

Preparing a pet coon for life in the wild takes months. It’s late in the year. Chances are it could not be released before winter sets in, so I would have to keep it all winter. That means dedicating a pen (which has already been cleaned and disinfected) for that coon only. It means winterizing it, so the little bugger (who will not have thick enough fur after living in the house) won’t freeze. It also means FEEDING that coon all winter. Chances are, it has not been fed a proper diet, so there may be health problems to deal with also. So I have to cover the food bill for at least 6 months, provide a heated waterer (so the water doesn’t freeze) and care and clean up after it every day..

I called the woman back. No answer. I wasn’t exactly calm enough to leave a message. So she calls me again just as I was sitting down to dinner.
She tells me that the coon is about 4 months old and becoming “unruly” (That means, it snarls, bite and generally tears the house apart on a regular basis) She said her children raised it. I asked why she didn’t call when they found it. She said she wanted them to have the “experience”.(I refrained from asking what holler in the Ozarks she came from)

“so, I said, now you want me to take care of the problem YOU created”.

Isn’t that what you do?

“Nope DId you know it was illegal to have the coon? Oh wait you must have looked up on the internet how to care for it, it probably already told you that. Has the DNR contacted you yet?” (Often people aren’t willing to relinquish an animal till the law is breathing down their neck)

“What I do”, I said “is to take orphaned and injured animals and treat them and get them back into the wild as soon as possible. And I’m pretty good at it.”

Oh, he can’t live in the wild! He needs “Placement”.

“I’m not a zoo.”

You mean you won’t take him? she asked incredulously.

“Nope. I will not take a problem you created and make it my problem”

Well give me numbers of people who will!

“There aren’t any. I’m it and I won’t. You’ll just have to find someone on your own or deal with your own problem.”

She hung up before I could make any further suggestions. I don’t think she would have liked them anyway.

So here’s why I’m a lousy Buddhist and feel so guilty. The coon is the one who will suffer. I don’t know what will happen to it. They may just take it out in the woods and dump it. It may survive. It may not. That’s probably not the most compassionate stance. The other problem is that I feel no compassion for the woman who did all this. None. Zip. I probably should, but… nope.

It’s a fine line we walk between being compassionate and being door mats. Compassion should not require us to take on a great deal of work that we don’t need. Turning the coon down causes me suffering. Taking the coon and caring for it through the cold of winter would have caused suffering. I chose the path of less suffering….I hope.

Buddhism isn’t easy. No one tells us what to do or makes the rules. The only commandment per say, is compassion. Sometimes we have to apply that compassion to ourselves.

It was so much easier when I was just a bitch. Bitches never feel guilty.