Today is a recovery day. Saturday the rescue that I work with had an adoption event. That meant getting up at 4:00 AM to bathe my four foster dogs, load crates, load dogs and get myself presentable and to the event in time to set up tents and get everything organized before we opened. At 11:00 AM I had to take one of my foster dogs, a shepherd, and another's collie to the vet for shots. Both are VERY heavy dogs and do not like to get into or out of vehicles so I had to pick them up and wrestle them in and out of my truck. When I returned to the event I found that someone had been feeding one of my dogs treats and she had started projectile vomiting. While I was cleaning that up, I was approached by two rednecks who were looking at the Rottweiler puppie that I foster. They wanted a, "large, mean and aggressive" dog. What they saw when they told me that was a, "small, shakey, mean and aggressive" fosterer. I had another woman interested in the fox terrier and she said that she would return after an errand. She never showed. The event ran over because a woman showed up with a pickup truck full of starving dogs. It took an hour to deal with her, and then I had to load my dogs and crates. When I arrived at home, I found that a well intentioned friend had been there to measure for some carpentry work and left a gate open. My horses were loose and grazing in my front yard. I jumped out of my truck and spent and hour chasing them around until I finally got them back to where they belonged. During this time two of the dogs in the crates were howling and the sick dog had switched from vomitting to diarrhea. I got the dogs kenneled and the sick dog cleaned up. I went into the house and checked my voice mail to find a message from some old friends who were a hour away and were coming to visit. The house was a mess from the mornings chaos, so I did a quick cleanup and jumped in the shower. The guests arrived just as I stepped out of the shower. After a short tour of the farm, they took me out to dinner. They dropped me off at home at 10:00 PM. When I walked in I found the sick dog even sicker and called the emergency vet. He returned my call at 10:30 PM. As a result at 11:00 PM I found myself in my car driving back into town to an all night drug store to get medication for the dog. I got home at midnight, cleaned up more mess and finally got to bed at 2:00 AM. A 22 hour, very aggravating day.

Yesterday, I could not walk at all. Today, I must advise a very generous donor that I cannot take the 3 month old Arabian colt he is offering to the rescue to sell for fundraising. I just cannot take care of any more creatures.

Mary