Greetings, everyone. This is Eric, back at the helm, preparing another update from Harare (with some added commentary from Maria). It has been an interesting week, ranging from highs of participating in the Embassy’s 4th of July Festivities and continual invites to lows including the inability to navigate via street signs, and Shaka getting a bit too comfortable with his inner chocoholic. But because we all talk about our kids, and our dogs are like our kids, let’s start there.
Maria is often asked how we’re adjusting to life in Zimbabwe. Her response is that Zimbabwe and everything about it has been great so far; it’s what we brought with us that has caused us the most stress and adjustment difficulties.
Chase, after first arriving in fine shape, has had some pretty severe anxiety with all the newness and severe change in routine. He barks at everything- the security gate, the security guard, the gardner, the house keeper, the nanny, the back yard, the ghosts in the back yard (that only he sees), the dogs in the neighboring yard, etc… His barking has been a source of stress as we cannot leave him outside/alone for fear of constant barking and disturbance of others. Maria sent out an email to the rescue group we got him from and per some recommendations, we’ve acquired a squirt gun and started him on melatonin, a drug most people would use to help them sleep. One of my less desirable tasks this week was to ask our health unit if they had any available, where I had the pleasure of telling them that I was indeed sleeping just fine, but that we needed it for our dogs. Thankfully, our health unit was quite understanding (even though they didn’t stock melatonin), and they even offered to help us call local pharmacies to find some. It took us a couple stops to track it down (because nothing is that simple here and things close at 5 during the week and 2pm on Saturdays), but we are now medicating our dog. It seems to be helping, which is good—his behavior has been maddening at times, barking uncontrollably. Chase dog will celebrate his third birthday this week, as long as his behavior continues to improve.
Not to be outdone, Shaka also caused his own share of drama this week: Wednesday night I came home to some rip-roaring excited puppies. This was not particularly noteworthy until I opened our bedroom door and discovered that the Little Dog (we sometimes also refer to him as Mr. Taco given his penchant for eating all the things) had found his way into a bag of snack size kit-kats and reese’s cups I intended to use to bribe co-workers. We discovered about 30 wrappers, freaked out, and started trying to Skype with the pet poison control center in the U.S. on our computers. Given our weak internet connection, after about the 4th “can you hear me now”, Maria gave up. We sent the whole pack of dogs (remember there are 3 of them) outside, while Maria relayed to our friend B what had happened via gchat. He, ever so graciously, called our vet in Virginia. Secondhand, we were told to induce vomiting through hydrogen peroxide. Oh, goodie. So now the dogs are barking like crazy outside, I’m mad as hell, hungry, and we have to figure out how to get Shaka (and Chase too, assuming he’d had some, though from the bloat, it was clear who the primary culprit was Chocodog). Maria scoured the usual spots in our current home in hopes of finding the peroxide to no avail.
Plan B ensued: we called one of our neighbors, a sweet woman working to combat HIV/AIDS here in Zimbabwe (the one who invited us to a taco dinner our first night here) and asked if she had any hydrogen peroxide we might give them. She thought she might have some but that she wasn’t home and would call her housekeeper to let us in to search. So we walked both dogs through our compound about a third of a mile to her house. I waited with them, and Maria went in to look for the peroxide. With our luck continuing, there was none to be had. We walked the dogs home and contemplated taking them to the 24 hour vet, though night driving in a new pitch black city wasn’t all that enticing. Maria checked her Facebook and saw that additional recommendations on inducing vomit included getting Shaka to eat salt. This was our next attempt…we gave him a teaspoon, which being the goat he is, he lapped up eagerly. Nothing. All we managed was to further bloat the Little Dog. My low point for the week was not being able to get our dog to vomit, even when it would have been in his best interest. We monitored them the rest of the evening, made sure he had continuous access to water, and I woke up with him in the middle of the night.
Thankfully, both dogs seem to be doing better as of today, Friday. Chase seems less barky, and Shaka has returned to regular size, though we may need to pay the gardener a bit extra to clean up his doings in the yard. We recognize they are in new surroundings, but getting them adjusted has been one of the tougher parts of this transition. I thought we would be largely done with dog drama post-arrival, but the fun continues. This post was intended to catch us up through the 4th of July, but I will write that up separately, as this is already rather long. So who says pets aren’t like kids?
An edit is necessary as Maria just had to stop Pica-dog from eating tin foil. This dog just doesn’t learn…
a Little adventure goes a long way 