One of the simple pleasures for Gary & Doc is the meeting and socializing with other of God’s creatures they meet along the way. This is often the four legged, or two winged version. To date, this has included dogs, cats, birds, horses, pigs, dolphins, sharks, and a Panther in the Chagres river jungle of Panama.
During Doc’s daily walks here in Cartagena he and Gary were adopted by a pack a street dogs along the waterfront. One young sweet little female, we call ‘Senorita’ took a shine to ‘Doc’ and it wasn’t long before Doc and she would be looking for each other during our daily walks. Shortly after she disappeared. They found her a few days later lying alone and in great pain. She appeared to have been hit by an automobile, suffered a broken her hip and not generally doing well. Gary and Doc got her cleaned up, hand fed her, got her stable and visited her daily, working with a young local boy massaging her legs and hips and working with her until she could stand and walk on three legs. She is now up and full of pee and vinegar and doing much better. She has partial use of her one hind leg and strong enough to take care of herself. Next was another small dog hit by a car. He was included in the ‘rounds’ and Gary & ‘Doc’ visited twice daily, feeding and tending to both pups.
The rest of the pack has come to accept Doc and his ‘friend with the food bag’ and soon they were all feeding from the little food piles that Gary would line up and it was fun to watch them all find a place in line.
One of the pack was a rather pregnant little ‘lady’ who was quite stand-off-ish in her matronly condition. Kaija made the connection and was able to hand feed her. Soon enough her pups were born in the parking lot of the neighborhood Police academy. Six little bundles of fur.
One morning as Gary & ‘Doc’ were walking past the Police academy, one of the guards called to Gary and took him to see ‘Lady’ and her pups. ‘Lady’ had a large gash in her right front leg. Despite our attempts to clean and dress her wound it was beyond our scope and unless we did something she would certainly lose the leg, and perhaps her life. We found a good hearted Vet and transported little family to the vet’s office for proper care and treatment. We are happy to report that after a short stay she is much improved and back in the Police yard under the care of ‘Maria’ a sweet angel who works as the secretary for the Police Department.
We were off to the ‘yard’ to haul the boat for bottom cleaning and painting. We look forward to our short re-union in another week when we are again back in Cartagena anchorage.
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