It’s a Dog's Life
Wander into my garden, wander into my heart and you will always have a safe place to stay. Looking after strays in Transylvania.
Photo by Lotty Rammelt: Bear
Dear Readers,
I share my journals with everyone who wants to read them. I am a minimalist and don’t need much but it is my writing that has to sustain me. Food, shelter and comfort, and the occasional visit to the vet all need to be paid for.
We had one dog as a kid and that was before I could consciously remember anything. I only know Bear from pictures and stories, and from the only time I ever saw my father cry when he met a dog who looked just like him. Bear guarded my brother and me in the yard when my mom quickly popped over to the neighbor to borrow something or bring something back. Bear let us pull ourselves up by his fur and helped teach us how to walk. He died when I was very little.
I have always wanted a dog. The hamsters, guinea pigs, and rabbits that populated my childhood never filled that hole. I was ecstatic whenever my uncles and aunts went on holiday and let us look after their dogs. Donald the giant Saint Bernard who would floor me with a giant slobber. Betty who peed in the VCR out of too much excitement. Itam who knew the difference between left and right and would wait at a crossing for me to tell him where to turn.
Life in Transylvania has more than compensated for this lack of puppies. I can only be partially happy about this as the reason I now have four dogs and four pups under my care is the frightening lack of compassion for animals here. I have never seen so many strays
Photo by Lee Rammelt: Holding Mami’s paw after giving birth.
Dogs are chained, abandoned, or even killed. Around a week before Christmas on one of our daily walks with my neighbour we spotted something hanging from a tree. Getting closer I saw that it was a plastic bag sorting a jolly fat, Santa.
I took the bag down from the tree and opened it. I now wish I hadn’t. It was full of dead puppies. I wanted to vomit. I think I went into some sort of shock, while Margit mumbled something about people having nothing in their brain. I replied: And nothing in their heart it seems. I cried for three days and booked an emergency online therapy session.
Photo by Lee Rammelt: Mami and her newborn puppies
When I moved into my new home, a small stone house in Zalanpatak, I met Mami. This kind dog and her four nameless pups lived in an abandoned barn across the road. Margit fed them as best she could, and I helped out with extra kibble and the occasional tin. They were shy little creatures but slowly they got used to me. Not enough unfortunately to grab them for emergency shots when they got very ill. I had called out the vet from the nearby village of Malnas. He rushed over with four syringes, but we only managed to administer two.
They became too ill to hide, too weak to be scared of me. I wrapped them in towels, gave them water. I held them until they died while listening to a sonata on my phone sent by my violinist friend Korcsiko. ‘I am glad they are not alone’ he said. One by one I buried them in my garden. Only one survived. When I found him injured and unable to come to his bowl to eat, I wrapped him up too, and carried him home. Countless vet visits later he started to recover. Muki is now a happy and healthy boy, growing strong and doing his best to live up to his nickname. Rufus Dufus.
Photo by Lee Rammelt: Muki a.k.a. Rufus Dufus
My efforts to put Mami in my car to have her sterilized failed. I partially adopted her too and for a few months, she happily wandered in and out of the yard. Until a little while back she became clingy and wouldn’t leave my side. Then she started crying on and off. Then she hid in my wardrobe for most of the day. Then it hit me: She is having babies. I grabbed two wooden pallets, some slats, and all the warm textiles I could find like sleeping bags and duvets to quickly build her a shelter in the room that will be my kitchen one day.
When labour began Mami wouldn’t let me leave. Whenever I tried, she would howl. In five hours, four pups appeared, all shiny and healthy and relentlessly cute. The insomnia that I have been suffering from for months (when bears and other wildlife come too close to the village, I am treated to a barking alarm of two dozen dogs) has been taken to the next level. I check in every hour, and feed Mami constantly to keep her strength up. We sit together, silently. I stroke her fur while she sleeps. I hold her babies to keep them warm when she goes out for toilet breaks and fresh air.
Photo by Lee Rammelt: Padding the nest with a second-hand fur coat
This is one of those “exhausting but rewarding” adventures that life in Transylvania is full of. A neighbour just asked, are you sure you want to take this on? There is 30 cm of snow outside and temperatures drop down to minus 15 at night. Is that really a question?