Dog Rescue with Guilie Castillo!

Hello, friends! I'm on a bit of a blog break but am popping in to share a dog rescue story from Guilie Castillo as part of the blog tour for her book It's About the Dog: The A-Z Guide for Wannabe Dog Rescuers. I am a sucker for a dog rescue story and this one about a sweetheart named Jake and the wonderful group that worked to save him went straight to my heart. 💓💓

Welcome, Guilie, and thanks for all you do for dogs!

Sometimes rescue just… flows. Sometimes the stars seem to align for the rescuer—and for the dog. Sometimes the dog treats you like a long-lost best friend (and, who knows, maybe in another life you did know each other) and isn’t just willing but eager to jump into your car. Sometimes all it takes is couple of treats and a leash. […] 

More often than not, though, rescue gets rough. And, because the universe loves irony, it’s usually the dogs in most urgent need of help who refuse to cooperate. Because they’re in panic, because they’ve been abused and don’t trust humans, because they’re hurt and in pain. Whatever the reason, it comes down to this: 

How do you catch a dog that doesn’t want to be caught?

(Excerpt from It’s About the Dog: the A-to-Z Guide for Wannabe Dog Rescuers)

Just last week, a group of rescuers here in Curaçao had one such case. Back at the beginning of April, someone had spotted a dog with a severely in-grown collar at Parasasa Beach, but no one had been able to find him. Then, finally, someone spotted him again, same place, just before sundown. He ran off, though; shy and skittish, probably terrified of humans (probably with good reason). 

Parasasa Beach, Curaçao. Image credit: CuracaoTodo.com

This dog was not going to come in without a fight.

But the rescuers from Feed Friends Foundation weren’t about to give up. They went back the next day, armed with kennels and leashes and food—good stuff, tasty (and smelly) bits of kidney or liver canned food, which they placed around the beach and laced with Tranquigel (a mild gel sedative; best invention since the dog leash, I tell you). Then they sat, at a distance, and waited.

At sundown, the dog showed up. Among the five rescuers (including a seven-year-old girl, daughter of one of the rescuers—yes, it runs in the blood) quiet cheers went up when the dog, whom they'd started calling Jake, wolfed down the food. Now it was just a matter of time; Tranquigel can take up to an hour to kick in. 

Jake had come from the direction of the Marriott property next door, currently being 'renovated' (officially, but us locals have our doubts) and thus closed up. If he made it back there, the rescuers wouldn't be able to follow. It wouldn't matter whether they set out liver or raw tenderloin: no one was going to be seeing Jake until the next morning, when the sedative had worn off and they'd have to start all over again.

Everyone wanted to avoid that. Even at a distance, the wound around his neck looked bad enough to make this an urgent rescue. Jake was going to end this day at the vet, in safety; everyone agreed on that.

Jake, however, had different ideas. An hour had passed, and he showed no signs of calming down. Parasasa Beach is not a quiet spot; the neighborhood is home to several hotels, offices, and restaurants, which mean an abundance of cars and buses and people. And every time any of them came to within five meters, Jake bolted. 

The rescuers took up positions between the beach and the Marriott property line, to prevent Jake from escaping in that direction. They tried to close in on him, towels in hand, using every trick in the book—but each time Jake managed to slip away. Finally, with daylight fading fast, they began to consider one last option, an option no one liked: the dog catcher's pole. 

The dog catcher's pole: a rescuer's best frenemy. We love to hate it. We hate that it saves our butts so often.

Rescuers tend to hate the pole: it's unwieldy, it looks threatening even to a calm dog, let alone a panicky stray. In Jake's case, there was an additional factor: the open wound around his neck where a too-tight collar had bitten into his skin. The pole's looped end had to go around his neck, and none of the rescuers liked the idea of causing this poor dog any more pain. 

Many people have the idea that rescuing is a 'fun' thing, all unicorns and rainbows and cuddly puppies. The truth? It's hard-core, and it requires hard-core people. People who rescue have to care about the dog—otherwise why are you out there chasing a dog in the middle of the night?—but they have to be able to make tough decisions. Keep priorities straight. Stay focused on the goal. Do what it takes.

And, right now, it looked like what it took to get Jake to safety wasn't going to be pretty.

Meet Jake. Photo quality shows how far away the rescuers had to stay in order to keep him from bolting. No close-up of the wound here, but — if you have a strong stomach — you can see it at the Feed Friends page on Facebook.
(Photo courtesy of Dyveke Fraaij-Brugman)

They looked at each other, jaws set but eyes glistening. Twilight had come and gone, and in the dark the chances of catching Jake were dwindling with every minute that passed. It was now or never.

They did catch him. As soon as the pole's loop tightened around his neck, he stopped struggling—which, ask any rescuer, is the most heartbreaking moment of any rescue. He was wrapped in a towel to prevent him from biting the odd arm or leg, the loop was loosened and taken away, and he was tucked into a kennel—safe, finally. For the first time in... who knows how long.

Once in the car, with more light, Jake's rescuers were able to get their first good look at him. The in-grown collar was worse up close, and a few nods of we did the right thing were exchanged. Also, they found out why the Tranquigel hadn't worked: other than the wound on his neck, Jake was in pretty good shape. Dirty, long nails, a couple of bald spots, but not emaciated, not even skinny. He had found a good source of food, either scraps left by people on the beach, or a restaurant trash can; whatever it was, it means he has excellent chances of healing quickly and properly. He's also young, probably not much older than a year. His is a success story, and this part, his rescue, is only the beginning.

Jake has been taken in by the Curaçao Animal Rights Foundation (CARF), an organization known for its work with the cases that would stump (and bankrupt) most other rescue groups. They'll provide the best medical care Jake can get, and, when the time comes, they'll make sure he goes to a home where he'll be loved and cherished and spoiled to bits.

Jake is safe. His future is bright and shiny. And none of it would've been possible without the five rescuers who refused to give up that day on the beach. This is my standing ovation to them.

(Photo courtesy of Dyveke Fraaij-Brugman)

Would you like to contribute to Jake's recovery, and help get others like him to safety? You can donate to CARF here and to Feed Friends here, and a Like on Facebook (CARF, Feed Friends) goes a long way. Rescue, however, is very much like sustainability practices: start local. The best way to help is to get involved with organizations in your area and find out what they need; not everyone can do the chase-down-a-dog routine, and there are plenty of other ways to make a difference. You can help organize fundraising, for instance. You can make flyers. You can donate stuff, or collect it from your neighbors and acquaintances: old towels and bed sheets, bowls, blankets, collars, tags... Seriously, the list is endless.

Julie, thanks so much for having me here today, and for giving little Jake's story a chance to reach, and maybe touch, more people. I'm honored to get the opportunity to share his story, and I'm delighted that it found a home here with you and your readers. Looking forward to chatting with everyone in the comments!

Guilie Castillo, Mexican expat, writer, and dog rescuer, is the author of It’s About the Dog: The A-to-Z Guide for Wannabe Dog Rescuers (Everytime Press, April 2018), a hands-on, less-tears-more-action, 100% practical introduction to dog rescue. 

This post is a part of The Dog Book Blog Tour; during April and May, author and book will be making the rounds of dog-loving sites on the blogosphere to talk dogs and rescue—and to give away THREE signed copies (More about both tour and giveaway here.) Come join us!

A Guest Post from Guilie Castillo and the "Who Roams Here?" Grand Prize Winner

I'm thrilled to welcome Guilie Castillo to the blog today and honored to be part of her tour for The Miracle of Small Things.

Before I get to her post, I also want to congratulate Guilie for winning the Grand Prize in my "Who Roams Here?" game for the Realms Faire. Congratulations, Guilie! And thanks again to everyone who came by here and visited my ghosts and me throughout the week. We all had a great time.

And now I will turn this over to Guilie, who is sharing a post about a subject dear to my heart, dogs and animal rescue.

Can I have a round of applause, please, for hostess extraordinaire Julie Flanders? Julie, what an honor to be hosted here at your space. Today is the (sort of) halfway point of the MIRACLE tour, and this deserves an extra-special post.

The subject of Al, the 100-lb dog that gets rescued by main character Luis Villalobos, has come up often on the tour, but as a sideline. I thought it was time to give Al the spotlight. What better place to do that than here, at a fellow animal-rescue advocate’s blog?

Al and his eleven siblings were born behind a shed in the yard of the family his mother belonged to. The children discovered the puppies a week later. They weren’t cruel, the children, but they were rough, and their little hands sometimes grasped too tightly. They laughed when the puppies cried, and the bigger humans kicked at the mother dog when she tried to protect her babies.

The puppies went fast. The mother had passed on her regal size and bearing, and her blue-black coloring, to all twelve; people thought they’d make good breeders. Here in Curaçao black dogs inspire a special kind of fear (bonus points for size). Which translates to a tidy side income.

Al was the last to go. He became very close to his mother. She taught him to hunt lizards, to cross streets, and to dodge the big male human’s kicks.

Eventually, another big male human came and took him away in a crate. He felt the scent of his mother fading along with the sound of her desperate yapping, and knew helplessness for the first time.

For days he refused to leave the crate. Different people peered in at him, offered things that smelled incredibly good, pleaded with him. But there was no violence, even when he growled. He couldn’t help himself. It was fear, but also despair. Where is my mother?

But she, too, faded. And so he forgave, and forgot, and came out of the crate to discover a dreamland of lawns and soft beds, of endless, delicious food, and a child that played with him not as a toy but as a friend. And never hurt him.

The family, in the military, was reposted to Holland. And the dog had to stay behind.

At first the neighbors fed him, but then he was forgotten. Hunger drove him to the streets; he was eight months old, huge but still growing. He hunted lizards, and remembered his mother. He would go back to her.

He was big, but not savvy. Gangs of dogs bit and tore and chased him away. He grew thin, then skinny, then mangy. Ticks infested his ears. Humans threw rocks and firecrackers, tried to run him over with their cars.

He lost all sense of direction, and of purpose.

And so it was that, a year later, he chased an iguana over a wall and into a chalkstone patio. He almost had her, could almost taste her, when someone shouted and threw something and he had to escape. He waited, just outside the wall, and when it was quiet he jumped over again. That iguana would be his first meal in days. But she was gone. And he had no energy left.

That’s how Luis found him. Sitting on his patio. A monster of an animal, so rangy his head looked huge, malformed. But a dog, nonetheless. And Luis, who’s never had pets (never wanted any, really), will take him in and give him a name: Al, after Alfred Prufrock. (That’s another story.)

Al’s story, for all its wretchedness, isn’t unique. In a place like Curaçao, with so many temporary residents and little culture of animal welfare, abandonment is our daily bread. It’s such a disconnect for me that so much suffering should exist in places we tend to think of as “paradise”… How can our paradise be a hell for others?

Several organizations are at work to make Curaçao a paradise for humans and animals. These are some of them, in case you want to check them out (and a follow on Facebook goes a long way):

Stichting DOG

Stiching Dierenhulp

Dierenbescherming

Curacao Animal Rights Foundation

I-Animal

Are you involved with animal advocacy in your area? What challenges do you face that you feel are specific to your community? Do you have a rescued animal at home?

Julie, thank you so much for your warm hospitality! Al sends his love. (He actually sent liverwurst treats, which I tried to explain probably wouldn’t mean to you what they mean to him, but… His heart is in the right place.)

ABOUT THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS: Mexican tax lawyer Luis Villalobos is lured to the tiny island of Curaçao anticipating a fast track to the cusp of an already stellar career. But the paradise we expect is so rarely the paradise we find.

Truth Serum Press, Aug 2015

Available as paperback, and in Kindle, epub, iBook, and Kobo formats. Find it on Goodreads and Facebook.

ABOUT GUILIE: A Mexican export who transferred to Curaçao “for six months”—and, twelve years later, has yet to find a reason to leave. Her work has been published online and in print anthologies. THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS is her first book. Find Guilie on Facebook and Twitter, at Quiet Laughter where she blogs about life and writing, or at Life in Dogs where she blogs about… well, dogs.

ABOUT THE TOUR: To celebrate the e-book release, THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS is going on virtual tour. Several blogs are hosting Guilie throughout November to talk about writing, the book, its island setting and its characters — including a 100-lb. monster dog rescued from the streets — and some of the issues MIRACLE touches on, such as the role of large and small things in the realignment of our values, and the power of place in our definition of self.