- Adopted 3 puppies
Many greetings to everybody. Since Molly left me in charge of her house here in Iquitos ( which is also the dogs' shelter site ) during her prolonged absence back at home in the US, I am going to put down here a brief report concerning the few principle events that took place in the meantime.
Well, first I think it is important to say that in a short awhile we are going to have a brand new shelter just out of town, in a tranquil, relaxed place called Cabo Lopez, on the edge of the Itaya river. I am sure this will be a most positive change for our puppies, since the environment of the "selva" suit them definitely much better than the city; plus the new sanctuary will be much larger and comfortable, so this is certainly good news. At the moment, all the employees of the institution are very busy working down there in order to finish the whole structure reasonably soon.
Since Molly left, we had 3 new pets brought in here by different people. The 3 of them got lucky, and were adopted by families, so I really hope now they're happier and comfy. All of them were little puppies, between one and three months old.
The last one was actually a pure bred dog, which is something a bit unusual for an animal abandoned or rejected by its owner (s) : it turned out to be a pit bull, and maybe just because of that reason it was the one to be more quickly adopted. It is true that pit bulls tend to be rather aggressive breeds, but the adopter liked it anyway, and had no doubts about it.
Another nice thing to report is that our sweet Marilyn, one of the 4 of Molly's dogs, has been thoroughly cured of an ear-disorder that used to bother her a lot lately: she has been treated for a few days at the clinic and eventually come out perfectly healed. She, together with the other 3 "house dogs", Sydney, Marone and Bonnie, has gone through some intensive sessions of training, administered by Wilfredo - a long-term employee of the institution - and me. The training was mainly aimed at trying to make them lose at least a bit of their aggressiveness, besides teaching them a few new, simple skills. The results were sometimes encouraging and at other times less so. Anyway, it is always stimulating and also rewarding to observe a dog learn something new, be it even some very basic skill.
A few other dogs went through training along with them: one that benefited most from training was little Neyra, possibly the most traumatized pet of the shelter, who - nearly two years after having been rescued - still showed evident signs of passive/aggressive behavior, typical of shocked animals. Now, finally, after lots of work and dedication, she seems to have lost almost her entire defensive-attacking attitude, and it was such a relief to observe her stretch the paw in sign of friendliness, or let us caress her all along her short, thin body.
Among a streak of positive news, there was unfortunately one that left us all grieving: the death of Calypso, one of the dogs that Molly had rescued personally from the street, and that was most beloved by our president/founder: she was sick and weak, but I personally did not expect her to go so quickly, from one day to the other. I only hope that she had a quiet and peaceful death, if there may ever be such one. Calypso was definitely the most gentle, harmless, and subdued dogs among all those that lived permanently here in the shelter. She was a long-time stray dog, who had survived a life of hardships and struggling. I must say that rarely had I witnessed such a communicative expression in a dog's face: looking at her, one had sometimes the feeling of staring at some human 's eyes. She was sweet and quiet, and seemed to be always worrying about not to upset anybody. While searching for the meaning of the name Calypso, I should say that sometimes it is true what they say, that there is some sort of predestination in a name, for apparently the meaning of the name Calypso - which is of Greek origin - is "Concealed". And that was what Calypso loved to do all the time: she literally disappeared from everyone's sight all of a sudden, even when she was in the house; she seemed to be able to find the remotest, most unexpected corners to hide herself from the view of everybody. Sometimes one could look for her for hours and hours, without success. Certainly, her slim figure helped her a lot with it. Now, she managed to hide definitively from this world, and yet, I am sure she has found some better place somewhere else, because she deserved it. I know she's ok now, wherever she is.
Alright people, I think that is all for now. I hope you keep on visiting this blog and maintain updated about our society and its initiatives: I think I can say AmazonCares is struggling hard to improve the general environmental consciousness in the whole Amazon region, and that is why it needs constant support and encouragement from everyone of us.
Keep up the good work ,
Until the next time
Arturo