Perla and Company

Having pets here in the DR has been, for me, an exercise in dealing with loss. During a family trip to Santiago, that I was not on I might add, San the dog jumped out of the back of the truck and found a new home, apparently, in the outskirts of the city. I still wish he was around to run with me.

A few months ago our cat (in the DR = the cat who eats our scraps) had kittens, one of which I begged my roommate to keep. His name was Pansa – Belly. More than a month ago he mysteriously died of some sort of poisoning, I guess. One day he slept all day and the next he was dead when I got home in the afternoon. I mourned him until the next came along.
If you have a house without a cat within a week you have a house with rats. Uninterested in a repeat of my brother’s heroic rat hunt I was on the lookout for a kitten. The cutest one alive happened to be female, which means no one else wanted her (because she can reproduce more cute kittens). So I brought her home and asked the roomie if I could keep her. I called her Manchita – little spot. The other person taking care of her (her papi, you could say) thinks that she’s a princess and therefore finds a name that can also mean little stain, to be inappropriate for her. Her name is Perla – Pearl. And she’s feisty…perfect for her line of work.

As if having an 8 week old kitten wasn’t more work and responsibility than I really wanted...

I was born into a line of women that is spiritually connected to our animal brothers and sisters…especially lost baby ones J I personally also have a soft spot in my heart for defending especially females’ rights. And so goes the story…

Returning from a trip to the river my brother spotted a puppy on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately it’s so common here that they are abandoned, we knew immediately without looking that she was female. He stayed on the motorcycle while I stood over her deciding what to do. She was alive and strong but very young, eyes closed and crawling. “She’s going to die either way. She doesn’t know how to eat from us yet,” he commented. I was looking down at her still when I heard another one a few meters away. I put the two together and we stayed starring; now wondering what we would do with two puppies too young to lap milk. Mid sentence I hushed him, “Oh no,” we echoed each other, hearing baby barking from beneath a pile of dirt. This time he got off the motorcycle and grabbed a stick. As we began to uncover the third she started baby growling…cutest…thing…ever. Now with three in a pile we looked at each other. “They look like Rottweilers,” I said, knowing that this would touch a soft spot. “Okay, pick one,” he groaned. I had no idea what I was going to do with three baby Rottweiler’s with full weeks of work, a brand new project, a youth group, painting class and my two week vacation to the States two days later, but I thought of my mother and grandmother and saying nothing I picked up each of the three and placed them in my bag. The crazy American girl, wet from the river on a cloudy day, in bathing suit, jean shorts, motorcycle helmet and now with a squirming bag of female Rottweiler puppies. At least I don’t have a dead owl in the trunk of my car…just because I haven’t found one yet J

So now three or four times a day we try to teach three squirming, milk-drenched puppies to drink. And he curses, “Pray to God that you’re a Rottweiler.”