(Header image created with microsoft co-pilot)
Arrival at the base this afternoon was chaotic. In the morning there were 2 teams of 2, and the same planned was for the afternoon. This meant there were 4 people from the previous shift, and 4 of us replacing them for the next shift. Plus a centralist, and plus someone in training. It was very, very loud!
Left Hanging
The chaos was a discussion about a dead squirrel hanging over a tree branch and in clear view of school children. The call had come in for us to rescue it.
My experience in many of my previous jobs is that more people means more discussion which means less action. So nothing happened. In fairness, from what I could determine, this didn’t count as a ‘rescue’ because the squirrel was already dead therefore we didn’t need to do anything.
Volunteers from the first shift drifted home and we got busy.
Stickers
With housework 🙁
No calls were coming in so it was back to housework around the base. One of the tasks was placing stickers on each of the items in each of the ambulances so we knew which item belonged in each ambulance. In practice, things get used and swapped and cleaned and misplaced and…and… The sticker solution was going to end all woes in this department and bring joy to the world.
It was dull work, but inside I knew it was helpful. And I chatted to the driver I’d met only a couple of times before but not worked with.
Once upon a Time…
Telling stories whilst you work is much more interesting than whistling. And Jackie had this one to tell me.
They’d been called to rescue a black cat that had been locked in a shed for 5 days. She was chipped and the owner lived only a few houses away. There was no answer on the phone, so they made a house visit. The protocol is that we don’t say “We have your cat” in case registration details are incorrect. So the house owners were asked if they owned a cat. They hesitated, and said “No”. For clarification they were pushed. “You don’t have a black cat called Midnight?
“We did. We buried him a few days ago in the back garden when someone brought him back to us.”
The houseowners didn’t realise the dead black cat that had been brought to them wasn’t theirs, and buried it thinking it was Midnight.
They were told Midnight had been found, but was doing poorly and needed to be taken to a vet. They were overjoyed! But not for long; Midnight passed away. The poor family buried their cat a second time 🙁
Bird in a Garage
Finally a call came to pick up a bird who’d been found in a garage. It appeared young, but it wasn’t clear which nest he’d fallen from, and there were no parents around. The rescue centre was the best place for him.
The finders were happy to see us when we showed up, and it was nice to see excitement on the face of one the finders in particular! They’d placed the bird under a cardboard box in the corner of the large garage, well away from any threat of cars running over him. When I lifted the box, the little bird was easy to hold and I could see why straight away; he had a large wound on his head.
I didn’t want the young enthusiast to see this so I placed the bird quickly in the rescue box. The co-finder was very happy to get the magazine, though I doubt he’d be able to read it! I’m sure when I first started there was a children’s version, but I haven’t seen any for a while.
We brought the injured bird to the rescue centre, stopping on the way to pick up some donated clothes from a kind homeowner who has a collection container outside their house.
Who let the dog out?
Back at the base we dumped the clothes in the stuffy room used for storage and sorting. Thankfully we didn’t need to get back to the stickers because an interesting rescue had just come in!
An energetic, playful, brown labrador was found running around in an equestrian facility. He’d been caught and put in his own stable, and as his chip (compulsory for dogs in the Netherlands to have one) hadn’t been registered, the owner was unknown. This meant we needed to collect him and bring him to a rescue centre.
This sounded like an exciting ‘rescue’! But other than taking time away from the staff who worked there, Jackie explained to me that an uncontrolled dog running around near horses can be dangerous.
It took over 30 minutes to get to the facility and we were greeted first by a dog, then by the finder who told us quickly this wasn’t the dog we were looking for. She lead us through a long air-conditioned corridor. All of a sudden a horse’s head was at my shoulder! I reflexively jumped to the other side and found myself next to another horse!
The entire corridor was a series of horse stalls with horses peering overhead to see what was going on! So cool! (unlike my earlier behaviour…)
The finder stopped at one gate, told us the dog was on the other side, and asked if we were ready. Jackie asked if I wanted to catch the dog. How could I say no?! I had the lead ready, and held the…head end(?) by the gate. The finder cracked it open and a blur of solid brown pure cuddleness bolted into the noose and onto me!
The strength that dog has is incredible! I know I was in a stable with horses all around me, but I think there’s a good case to be made for the power of car to be measured in brake dog power! He jumped up at me, on to me, banged his head against mine, slobbering all over my face then running around the 4 vertical humans legs and back onto me! It was all I could do to stop him charging like a bull in a china shop! But what a beauty!
Leading him outside was like flying a kite skitting along the floor instead of up in the air. On the way, the finder tried filling a bucket with water to give him something to drink. He stuck his head inside – then knocked the bucket over. She tried again, and…well. Rinse and repeat!
The phone rang. It’s the job of the co-driver to take the calls, though in my case with my limited Dutch, this isn’t always practical. I can get the gist, but not always the details. I’m really grateful to Jackie for helping me a lot here! Now it was the centralist on the phone, and that meant a detail-rich conversation ensued. The upshot is that she’d amazingly found out that the dog belonged to a neighbour and they were on the way back to their house.
This was good news! We could reunite the dog with his owner there! The only difficulty was it was going to be about 30 minutes before the owners got home. We asked the equestrian staff if instead of us hanging around for half an hour, could the dog stay with them?
They were very clear in not wanting to be a burden to the Animal Ambulance, but they’d really had enough and didn’t want to spend any more time with the dog. They’d invested a lot of time catching him, not to mention being concerned about the effect of a dog on the loose amongst horses. We assured them it was no burden for us to bring the dog to the neighbour’s house and wait for them there.
A combination of snacks as bait, goading and heavy lifting got the dog into the cage in the back of the ambulance. It took a few minutes to park up at the neighbour’s property, 30 minutes for their arrival and a few moments to reunite them with their pet. I felt uncomfortable knowing I’d need to ask them to pay (because ambulance costs are usually unexpected) but Jackie did it with grace and indeed the owners were fine about it. (Even though they didn’t realise the costs would have been much higher should they have retrieved their dog from the rescue centre).
In hindsight we should have told them to register their dog. In the meantime, kudos to the centralist who managed to find them!
Back at Base
Two hours after we left for the call-out, we got back to the base. Jackie cleaned the ambulance floor of the cage, and I the 2 mats that lined it. All according to protocol. I finished up the admin, a bit later than usual because it was the first time I dealt with a payment.
Our co-ordinator sat in the sun outside and joked that the payment paid her salary for the day. But the serious note is she was still here after 17:00 because she was taking on a (voluntary) rescue shift at 18:00. That’s how cool being a volunteer here is! 🙂
Just before Jackie left to go home, I thanked her again for taking the phone calls, and also asked if she minded doing it. She said it really was no problem at all, and importantly, she’d be happy to work with me again. I’m really grateful to her for that, and also happy because I liked working with her. And not just because she gave me some useful tips on how to look after my own cat! 😉
