Looking at the twists and turns the universe throws my way in my life, it should come as no surprise that the only way I was getting to Oregon was to let the dogs lead me. And so they did.
Candace, from the Heigl Foundation, contacted me about transporting last week. But it wasn't my usual kind of transport of one dog in the passenger seat. This was 51 dogs, a co-driver, and a rather large van. No overnights, just a couple of pitstops along the way to feed and water the dogs, and drive through the night 800 miles to Eugene, Oregon.
I always try to make the journey of anything I do just as important as the destination and goal. If it's no fun getting there, what's the point? For these 51 dogs (many of which were pups still being weaned by their momma in the crates), they couldn't enjoy the journey. It was a 14 hour ride from Death's Door to a new Life awaiting them in another state. They wouldn't be sprawled out on my passenger seat, or even cuddled up on my lap. They would be crates, hopefully holding their pee as long as possible, and trying not to get sick.
When Missy, my co-captain, called me from the road on her way to pick up me and a few other momma sand pups, she said she could hear the dogs vomiting in the back. And so the journey began.
I arrived at Home Depot, our rendezvous spot to learn that one momma dog scheduled to be on our transport would not be coming along, as she was going into labor at that very moment... in a crate, in a car, in a Home Depot parking lot. This ride was going to suck for those dogs who get motion sickness, and for not being able to get out and walk around for a long night, but popping out puppies was just a whole other variable I would hate to see added to the mix.
My main worry was the dogs' safety. This is a transport that is done every month or so. Dogs pulled from LA shelters, and sent to various rescues up in rural Oregon. These folks were experts on how to get them all there safely, so I had to submit to their expertise. I was worried about air flow. This wasn't a disaster response team animal transport van; it was an Econoline van stacked with crates three rows deep. So I worried about the ones on the bottom. They were in wires crates, not airlines, so I hoped that gave them more air.
After much jockeying around of crates inside the van like playing a giant game of Tetris, we were packed and ready to go. We were to pick up six more dogs from Kern County on our way north. Missy took the captain's chair, and I rode where so many of my canine companions had with me: the passenger seat. While the dogs who ride shotgun with me lead me on adventure simply by being there, I was navigating for Missy who couldn't see the passenger side mirror--or me for that matter--due to the large crate filled with six puppies between us.
Getting out of LA at 5:00pm on a Friday afternoon has its challenges, but we made it to the Kern pick-up spot on time.
We did some moving around of crates, and hoped the dogs coming in could bunk together.
With all our passengers loaded and secure, Missy and I literally drove off into the sunset with 51 homeless dogs, who only yesterday were standing at Death's Door.
Aside from Simon, a big smiling lug a of bull in his own crate in the back, we had "littles." Many had their own tiny airline crates, but some had to share space. I commend these canines for their patience and willingness to not fight--us, or each other. Fourteen of the dogs were Missy's own fosters that she had pulled from the shelters in the past month, so she knew who got along with who. But for the new kids joining, we knew very little about them. The only one I had any history on was a Chihuahua momma named Missy whose foster mom had brought her and said that, "Missy's going to annoy you the whole ride."
To which I responded with a laugh saying, "Well that's rude; she's right there," before realizing she meant Missy the dog, not Missy the driver.
Indeed Missy the dog was a bit annoying. We even put a towel over her crate and to no avail. Even when everyone else was asleep on the transport, she was barking away. Missy was like that one baby screaming her head off during a red-eye flight while everyone else is trying to sleep.
When Candace called about two hours in to see how it was going, I replied, "It's going great, now that Missy finally shut up." (pause. silence.) "Oh, God, I mean Missy the dog, not Missy the driver."
Missy the driver and I did get along rather well. We couldn't see each other, but we could talk and get to know each other. She had done a transport up to Mt. Shasta before, but had never been further north. So this would be a great exploration for both of us.
People had warned us about how awful this transport was. We would be up for over 24 hours straight. Luckily, Missy is a bit of an insomniac, usually needing only 4-5 hours of sleep a night. I was well rested, having been unemployed since December. And of course, the journey I had wanted to take for some many years was underway. I certainly didn't want to sleep through any of it.
But it wasn't hard. None of it was. Even with Missy barking away behind the driver's seat, a Lhasa Aspo mix behind my seat eternally digging at the bottom of the crate, and the occasional break-out fight in the back, all was well. I truly felt like I was chaperoning a school field trip. Missy was the bus driver, and I was in charge of getting the kids to sit the fuck down, or we were turning this bus around right now.
Only one slightly anxious moment (aside from the occasional bickering between dogs, which always sounds worse than it really is), involved a Pug. She was stuck in a crate a bit too small for her, but we had no other crate. The short-nosed dogs always have to be careful, as breathing in normal conditions is difficult. Breathing while under stress, in a van full of dogs, that gets even worse. Granted driving through the night made it cooler, I was worried for her safety. Initially she was going to sit on my lap, but we decided she could ride in the crate and I'd just check on her. At some point in the night, "Digger," in the crate behind me, had a few words for the Pug who was in a crate behind and above him. The Pug, who I never did name, was scratching at the corner of the door, and being crappy plastic, the crate disassembled itself and the door began to pop off. We were about to have loose Pug in the van, as I had no way of reaching it from my seat.
We pulled over in a gas station as we needed to get the dogs some more water anyway, and we tried to find some way of securing the Pug's door. We tried to reassemble it, and although it had walls, a ceiling, and a door, I didn't trust it. I said we would put the crate on top of the puppies' crate up front with us, so I could watch it and make sure she didn't pull a Houdini.
Around 3:00am, Missy finally needed to call it quits. And so, just as I wished it to be, I took the driver's seat south of Mt. Shasta in Northern California, and just as dawn broke, I captained our vessel of 51 homeless dogs over the Oregon border and into the promise of a new life.
This brand new day was filled with nothing but good things for the canines who had slumbered peacefully for the most part on this journey, but now that day was breaking, those who were housetrained notified us that they had to relieve themselves. There was nothing we could do. I tried to explain that it was okay if they went where they were. We only a few hours to go, and although sitting in your piss and feces isn't a pleasant way to start the morning, this journey would all be over soon.
Oregon is indeed mountainous. I had not slept yet, as I had been awake for navigational purposes throughout the night, so after letting Missy nap for a short hour or two, by 8:30am, I said I should probably hand the reigns over. The steep mountains and winding roads was taking a toll on my eyesight. The rising sun had awakened me, but my eyes didn't feel like functioning anymore.
Missy grabbed a coffee from inside the gas station mart, and then we traded places. I buckled myself in, the kids began to quiet down, and Missy put the van in drive. As she turned every so slightly to get back onto the road, I heard her say, "Oh, no, the Pug's tipping over," just in time for me to see the Pug on the puppy crate start to topple toward me.
I quickly put my hand up to stop the poor kid from crashing down, but the little holes in the crate offered nothing in the line of reward for stopping her fall. I saw, then immediately felt, a cascade of liquid run out of the door and holes of the side of the crate. I flipped her right-side up quickly, but not before I first thought, "Oh, that's just her water dish," and quickly re-assessing, "Nope, that's yellow!" all over my pants, the seat, and a little on my jacket.
I told Missy to pull over and I stepped out to survey just how much liquid had come out of the Pug, and out of the crate. Astounding, really. I was about to meet transporters in an hour and a half, and my entire left pant leg was covered in urine. Good morning, folks, nice to meet you!
I got back in, secured the high maintenance smooshed-faced dog back onto the crate, and we carried on through the stunning landscape.
If sitting in pee was the price I had to pay to be on this trip, then so be it. When the dogs in the back continued their grumbling about sitting in pee, I pointed out to them that at least they were sitting in their own pee, whereas I had someone else's, so they should just kindly shut up and quit their bitching.
My pants were mildly dry by the time we reached our first rendezvous point just south of Eugene, Oregon. The first ones off were the stinkiest--and cutest--of them all. The puppies who were in the front with us were going to Save the Pets rescue. Jenny, the woman who picked them up, was there to greet each one of them.
And Missy, whose house these little tykes were born into on St. Patty's Day, said a heartfelt goodbye to each one of them and wished them well on their new life ahead.
Jenny was kind enough to stick around for Barb, who was transporting a bunch of Missy's fosters to Luv-a-Bull, a dog sanctuary in Eugene. When I opened the back doors to start letting the dogs out, all of which were Missy's fosters, I realized just how great the kids in the back of the bus were. Not only had they not made a peep the entire venture, but their crates were clean. They had not defecated for nearly 18 hours. I was so proud of them, and at the same time, felt bad for them. I don't think I could hold it that long.
When Simon got out, he briskly walked to the nearest tiny tree and lifted his leg for a good minute and a half, perhaps longer. Five minutes later, he didn’t wait any longer and standing in the parking lot, waiting to be transferred to the new vehicle, he let out another long stream.
We said good-bye and thank you, and wished them all a good and happy life to come. These were Missy's dogs; they were the ones she chose to pull from the shelter. She's the reason they're alive today. She deserved whatever time she needed to say goodbye and pass on knowledge about each and every one of them. And she knew them all, their names, their traits, everything about them. Some she had had for over a month. These were children and she was seeing them off into their new lives.
Our second and final stop was Safe Haven Humane Society in Albany, Oregon. The rescue was taking some, mostly momma and pups, but two other rescues were meeting us there to take a few.
The six dogs from Kern, including "Digger," went on their way to Heartland Humane Society, and then the final van showed up to take the rest of our passengers to a rescue in Salem.
We transferred them one by one, helping them out of the crates and carrying them over to their new transporter, and placing them in those crates. There was a miniature pinscher that I took a liking to, but I hadn't been able to interact with him throughout the drive. He was one of the last boys on the van, so I decided I would transfer him. I noticed he had spent much of the night pooping in his cage (it was a house crate, not an airline crate), and had stepped in it as well. His front paw looked like he was standing on a cookie, it was all caked into between his toes and flattened against the pads of his feet.
"Aw, honey, let's get you cleaned up," I said. "Just hang on a second."
I had him in my left arm, relatively away from me, given his crap-accessories, and bent over to reach to my right where the puppy training pads were so I could wipe off his paw. As I turned my head back, I felt it: he reached his lanky leg up into the air, and planted his cow-patty-crusted paw into my hair.
"Oh, no, you did not just do that," I said as I felt him streak his paw down the side of my head. I looked up to see Missy across the parking lot with a horrified look on her face. Mouth open, she just shook her head, "Oh, yes, he did just do that."
She jogged back toward me and took the cute, but shit-covered dog out of my hands and I was left a little at a loss. I had a baseball hat on, but I was pretty sure there was shit in my hair as well.
Later on, Missy described the moment from her side. "Stephanie, I looked over and it was like in slow motion. I saw you reach for the puppy pad, and I saw the MinPin eyes all glazed trying to make sure you didn't drop him so he flailed about and then his paw landed on your head and he dragged it down, leaving this streak like he had just wiped chocolate icing in your hair!"
If I haven't mentioned this before, dog rescue is not without it's crappy moments. But what's a little piss on the pants and shit in the hair, when you help save over fifty dogs, giving 51 innocent lives a second chance and a brand new beginning?
Up next... Beginnings, Especially of Life, are Messy Affairs
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