Sylvia's Diary 16-01-25

Yet another week has passed, and the weather hasn’t added to help us at all. It’s been extremely icy up at Many Tears and very cold. We are very fortunate to have some supporters who are knitters and knit the most beautiful little jumpers for the dogs and some of the people even knit great big jumpers for the bigger dogs and if they are knitted right, they stay on the dogs and are comfy and not too tight around there forelegs and work so well. Sometimes the coats are made from lots of scraps of wool and have different colours intertwined in them and different stripes and patterns…. and I often wish they were big enough for me. They’re so bright and cheerful and so lovely for us to wrap our dogs in the warmth.

Of course all the dogs have heat lamps regardless of the £5000 a month electric bill and they all have snuggly beds too, even though the cost of picking up the rubbish ( which is lots of duvets and bedding that is no longer usable plus cans and boxes)  is over £3000 a month and sometimes even more.
Being warm makes you feel so much better when you’re cold to the bone. It’s hard for you to make the right decision and do the right things in the bitter wind, and sadnesses seem to last longer. In the morning I get up very, very early and get started so that when the staff getting everything is pretty well as it should be, and that’s when I feel the cold the worst especially when getting out of the bed where I’m cocooned in with dogs on either side of me all snuggled up.
The day will start much the same, but no two days are really the same. As the hours move on, we receive more and more phone call that bring more and more complications, more and more worries, and ultimately more and more dogs. Most of the calls wanting us to take dogs needing new homes. The sadness of not being able to take all of them immediately is really, really huge, but I try to prioritise those about to be put to sleep.

This week having returned from Northern Ireland we are busy bathing, socialising, meeting and getting to know the dogs and having their health checks and booking the dogs in. Then they are spayed and neutered so that they can go to foster homes or forever homes, but this week we haven’t been able to catch up with ourselves-because we have the southern Irish dogs that are passport waiting to come. And this week we will need to go out to get them as well. David and I are going one way in one van and Joyce is going the other direction and we should be coming back with 59 dogs, that’s a lot of dogs, but we will have the kennels ready, and the Vet is ready and all we’ve got to do is work extra hard and hope that the journey to collect them goes really smoothly.

 Yesterday Joyce drove a Foster run and there were 30 dogs loaded up on the van wearing their beautiful little jumpers, all on the way to their new foster parents where they will stay and learn to be loved and learn to walk on leads, learn about houses, about a sofa, no doubt about televisions, hoovers telephones ringing, all things that our dogs were brought up with and are used to.
I took a picture of them being loaded and they looked so snug and comfy and I was so grateful to those wonderful people who take them into their homes. These people also often become buddies to new fosters to help them, to explain to them how the process goes, to help them get through it and be able to become a Fosterer full-time, which is a wonderful thing to do.
We do offer back up so that if a foster is struggling, they can always ring us night or day for help, but having somebody living close to you that can help make it so much easier, and a lot of the fosters become friends with each other as they have something that they share, and that is a love of dogs.
Once the foster van has gone, we have to make up the other van ready to leave to go to Ireland and when Joyce gets back, we had to empty that van clean it and make it up ready to leave in the morning.
In between these Irish runs, there are runs all over the country and locally, the vans do a lot of mileage, but we look after them very well to try and keep them going, especially as we carry such special dogs.

 On Saturday Bill had to go to a farm and pick up eight Labrador cross Retriever puppies that hadn’t sold, beautiful puppies all black and all look very like Labrador puppies. They are all so sweet and so desperate to be loved.
 Sometimes picking these dogs up is a pleasure to be able to see them and help them and help them find a home. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking and the things you see live with you in your heart and in your head for a long, long time.
This applies for the phone calls that we get that as well can be very haunting. Very sad calls from some very lonely people who phone up about dogs very late at night, in the hours the doom and gloom feel so much more intense., and they don’t need someone just telling them it’s an out of the hours phone call and putting the phone down on them. I try to listen. I try to help people. It’s not always easy especially this week when my heart is already so heavy. It’s been particularly hard.

One wonderful thing is that our two bulldogs that I loved so much (actually bulldog crosses) have an offer of a home together. These are just super dogs and will make someone so, so happy because they just bring joy just watching them toddling around together, getting in their baskets together, doing everything together, it’s just so sweet And they’re such pleasant characters. They so deserved to get out, way, way before now. I think it’s like having a get out of jail free card because though we try to make this place a lot better than a prison sadly that’s really what it is for the dogs, a prison with exercise area, but unlike a prison there are people loving them and caring for them too.. We truthfully put our hearts and souls into trying to make each day different for them but that takes a lot of time, and though we have a lot of people, some of the dogs need more attention than others and the days race by so quickly.

The equine staff also have that problem, they have all these rescue horses with inside stables with yards because the weather‘s been so bad they haven’t been able to go for hacks. They haven’t been able to go for long walks the roads have been so icy, and it would be dangerous. And so, they’ve had to amuse them and keep them happy.
 Horse like to eat, so that’s one way of keeping them happy but their minds need to be amused, and at the moment the only way to do that is with treat balls which is like a Kong but for a horse, they are  filled with carrots or pony nuts, the horses roll them along the floor to get the treats  out to eat.
We also clicker train our horses just like you clicker trainer dogs. The horses are very clever and they pick up this very easily if you set up the situation correctly. However unlike a dog you have to be even more patient than you could imagine…
 I remember the first time I clicker  trained Marmite our smallest pony to stand on a step. He learned the trick extremely quickly but wouldn’t get down off it. I didn’t want to frighten him, force him, or shout-at him, so I waited and I waited and waited and I was walking round and round waiting. In the end I turned my back on him sat on the floor and looked at my phone and after about three or four minutes, because he had no audience he got down by himself and came over to have a look at my phone too. He is a very clever but a very naughty pony, and there have been many a time when the staff have been exasperated with him, but I think that’s what makes him even more special. 

I remember the very first horse I ever clicker trained, I was in Arizona. I live next door to Cowboys and one in particular was very well known on the rodeo circuit.
People were in awe of his training skills and came from many miles around to watch him, and sent horses for him to train or to sort out their problems.
I was walking in the desert behind our home and found a horse tied up.
I was shocked because it was in the middle of nowhere just under a tree, and he was just tied there, so I raced home and knocked on Brian, our neighbour’s door and explained what I found. He stood and laughed at me; he said “oh that horse is an in your pocket horse”.
Well actually it was an Arab so I said I don’t know what that meant  and he said it had lived in someone’s backyard and they’re giving it lots of treats and it was always in your pocket but it also would chase people out the garden, kick, bite, rear and was particularly naughty.
He told me what he did is he tied him up to a tree in the desert and he would go with water, and once the horse had finished drinking, he would then take the water away from the horse.
He would go with food, feed the horse  and then take it away from the horse. He would do that for three days never leaving the horse thirsty or hungry, but never leaving it access to its food or water unless he was there,  so that everything that happened to that horse and everything that horse had was because Brian wanted to give it.
Now to me I could see that this horse was parted from a herd. It was probably terrified, stuck in the middle of the desert no doubt there were coyotes circling it at times, and I found it to be incredibly cruel.
When I had gone to see it, the horse ears were well laid flat back, and it looked very cross. I didn’t wait and pet it to love it.
About four days later. I see Brian going down to the end of our lane and picking up the kids from school, riding that same little Arab.. . he was shoving children in front and behind him in the saddle, riding back to his place getting off, letting the kids mess around with the horse, and there was no biting or kicking.
The horse was living in Brian’s yard and with no other actions, he was ridden daily and trained. He looked like a kind, happy horse. Brian’s skill was mainly roping, and the horse learnt some skills besides not trying to intimidate people, that he seemed to have been cured of. He learnt some busy work and then he went home to his people. I said to Brian, I see you had great success with the horse…. he said it would be the same tomorrow, and I said what do you mean? He said they’ll go back to feeding it titbits and never giving any discipline, never giving it boundaries and it will just go back to the way it was, but at least it proves it can be a nice horse. And I thought yeah, but maybe there’s a different way,  and at the time clicker training was just starting to get more publicity and I started reading up more and more about it.

I used to get quite a few horses come through either to stay with us to be rehabilitated or to be helped as they needed medication and special nursing. One in particular horse called Cotton who I had taken a big shine to who had a huge tumour on his head and it had been cut out leaving an enormous hole in his forehead. The local Dude Ranch, which is a ranch where the public go and play at being cowboys, owned this horse but it was taking up a lot of time to keep his wound clean, so that he would survive, so I was asked to help.
He was a great big cream draft horse, very gentle but very tall, and to clean out his wound every day I would have to climb up the fencing balance myself with a bowl of antiseptic wash on the side and try and clean it, without the bowl falling down and without the horse walking off.
I thought this was an ideal time to try out skill of clicker training, so I started the way the book say, and within a very short time taught to him to drop his head when I clicked my fingers, nice and low so that I could treat his wound and treat his tummy at the same time, because I gave him a lovely treat each time he did what I wanted.
After three or four weeks and an awful lot of ladies’ stockings, because we used ladies’ stockings to stop the bandage slipping and the sand blowing into this huge hole in his beautiful forehead, the hole started to heal up.
He was clicker trained as well and he went back to the ranch and worked. He worked for two years giving hayrides on his wagon to the would-be cowboys and taking them to their outdoor cooked breakfasts, but eventually he died from a tumour in his head, I guess they didn’t quite get all the tumour out and that’s what happened. He was a beautiful brave kind horse who gave everyone so much pleasure and taught me the art of clicker training a horse.

The trip to Ireland went well. On my van I had the most beautiful dogs, some that even reached out to be petted more, stretching their paws and legs out and tapping me as I went by, as I walked up the caged aisle to fill up waters. The pickup locations on our van were spread very far apart requiring us to drive many miles picking them all up, but unlike the week before the roads were snow and ice free, making the whole journey less stressful.

The boat however is a different story, because after storms the port at Holyhead has been shut, Stena line has been inundated with container backs to move. This seems to mean that the ferry is constantly late, and getting off the ferry is delayed by 30 minutes to an hour each way.  Of course, we are desperate to get home with the dogs, but just cannot, making the journey longer, and the kind staff waiting longer, and getting paid to just wait.  It’s frustrating.

Just before I left to get the Irish dogs two beautiful new freezers arrived. They are the exact size to fit where the other two broken ones were. Yet again many people were upset with me for asking if anyone had old freezers, they no longer wanted that would fit, and we could use.
Those complaining all said the same, that having been donated money from the winnings of a celebrity on the Wheel of Fortune so why did we ask for freezers and not just buy them? I had not realized how people would not see, it was a no brainer to ask for something that others did not need and use the Wheel of Fortune money to help dogs like Ace who needs cruciate surgery, or so many others that come in constantly needing specialist help.  Anyway in the end kind folks donated two new freezers to put the donated raw food in, and for that we are so grateful.

A little Frenchie cross pup left us this week. He lived against all odds. He was born at Many Tears to a very small Frenchie, who apparently was in pup to a cav cross. When she delivered the first pup, owing to its size only head came out. The broad stocky shoulders etc were trapped. This little puppy’s face lips and tongue started to go blue and purple, as it was being strangled, trapped. The mum, her pup and those trapped inside awaiting a way out were rushed in the vet, and she was given a pre-med, which helped her relax, and our vet managed to free the pup, then anaesthetise her and did a c- section saving the other three pups too. It’s rare I get to see the adoption of the special pups saved, but that day I watched a happy loving family meeting the pup, falling in love and adopting. I thought this is what it is all about.!!!

I have walked about this morning early before the staff has come in. I have met a splendid kind German shepherd who buried her beautiful head in my arms. A delightful big kind male corgi, who pushed with another for attention. A small Frenchie who was so definitely once some ones loved pet. A complete kennel full of delightful cavaliers, tiny poodle, great big retrievers’ dachshunds and lurchers. They were all sweet and seemed grateful.

I was wondering if people would consider doing boot sales for us now and then? If so, we have many things to sell to raise funds and would be grateful for help to bring in the funds.
We have also added different items to our Wishlist and we would be so grateful to receive some items from the list if you feel able to.

Thank you again for your support. The week has been long and painful, and rising above the sadness is proving to be very hard. However, knowing some of you stand by my side, care, and support is amazing. Thank you.

Best wishes Sylvia. x