Faka'ofa :(

2.19.11

So I had a really sad experience this week. My neighbour’s dog had puppies. I have been deliberately avoiding adopting any animals because I know I will get too attached and not be able to leave it when I finish Peace Corps. But since I don’t know what I’m doing/where I’m going after PC I can’t truly commit to bringing a pet back with me. So I had been really successful with this even though I could hear the puppies, because I hadn’t yet seen them. But then they all came out of hiding. Long story short I fell in love with the runt of the litter, who was half the size of all the other puppies and black and just so cute.

I decided Tuesday that I was going to adopt him. But I went to another village Tuesday night to have dinner with a friend so I left the puppy outside with all the other puppies which is how he’d been living anyway so I thought it’d be fine. Well on Wednesday I couldn’t find him anywhere. I was so sad all day. Then my principal found him behind their house, where the puppies had been born. I was sooooooo excited! I jumped up and down and said thank you over and over again. I’m sure they thought I was crazy but oh well. So then I brought my puppy- named Tisikou, or Disco- inside and discovered that he couldn’t stand up. Whenever he tried he would stumble a little bit and then fall over. I gave him a bath and I tried to feed him some bread and water but he wouldn’t eat it. So I went to the store and got tinfish (fish in a can) and milk. I tried to feed him that and he wouldn’t eat it. So I put some milk in a honey bottle, pried his mouth open and fed him that. He drank a little bit of milk. By this time I had figured out that he was dying. A similar thing had happened with my friend Cecilia’s puppy a few weeks ago.

I was obviously really upset because even though he had only been my puppy for a day and a half, I loved him a lot. The only reason I decided to get a puppy at all was because I loved that specific puppy. I kept trying to feed him milk but he wouldn’t eat it anymore. So I just let him lie on the mat and hoped he was comfortable. He was making really pathetic squeaking noises whenever he breathed and his breathing was getting shallower and shallower. I put him in my lap and pet him until he died, around 10:30 that night. I was crying and crying and crying, it was so sad. My neighbours came home and they said they would bury my puppy for me the next day. I tried not to cry in front of them but for anyone who knows me well, you realize that obviously failed miserably. They were really nice about it though.

It was generally a pretty traumatizing experience and it still makes me really sad. Maybe that is stupid but it’s easy to get attached to animals! Haha. My neighbours kept trying to give me another of the puppies and I kept trying to say no but I think he might be mine anyway. We’re kind of just sharing the last two dogs, one is a girl and belongs to the kids over there. That dog is named Pretty. The other one is a boy and is kind of mine I think but I’m not really sure. It’s kind of confusing. But his name is Spoon, or Sepuni. I named that one, haha. I’ll keep you updated on whether or not he actually becomes mine. I really liked the name Disco and am kind of bummed I can never use it for a puppy again but my dying little puppy deserved a name and that is the best one I could give him. But I like Spoon, too. Maybe he will come to America and you will meet him someday. Or maybe not. That’s a ways away.

Xoxo
K