Many of my blogs are dark and heavy. They tell tales of
abandoned babies, burned children, frustration and the experience of trying to
see God in all things.
Today’s blog will be different. It will be more about life
on a farm … a life that is new to us “city folk”. This really is an inappropriate story to tell, but it is
“nature” and part of our new life in Africa.
It all started yesterday morning when the sun was rising and
the day had not quite started. Our
morning routine includes the first person out of bed opening the curtains to
reveal the spectacular view of Project Canaan for the other person to enjoy
while still in bed. First person
then goes and puts on coffee and lets out the little dog.
That is what happened yesterday. I got up, opened the
curtains and was putting on coffee when Ian yelled, “Ah, Janine? I think we have a problem!”
Followed by, “Come quickly, Max mounted Twende and looks
like he is stuck!”
WHAT?!?
I ran to look out the window and Ian had already thrown on
shorts and was outside, bare-chested in his slippers. I ran out in my nightgown and we both tried to approach the
dogs, who were clearly “STUCK”, and not have them run away… well, truthfully
they couldn’t run away.
Okay if you are under the age of 18 you have to stop reading
now and come back next Saturday.
Next we tried to untangle them and figure out what the
problem was. Sure enough Max had
mounted Twende successfully, then I guess jumped off to the right, but didn’t
“disengage” so now the two dogs looked a bit like they were playing the 1970’s
game of Twister. They were
attached at the back, but both facing the opposite direction (yes, you can all
say “ouch”).
Ian held Twende while I tried to lift Max back up over her
so that things were at least going straight. Oh what a tangled mess!
Both dogs were freaked out (not nearly as freaked out as Ian
and I were and not anywhere near as freaked out as anyone on the farm would
have been had they seen us out there in our pajamas unwinding two dogs who got
stuck mating). I digress.
When we finally pulled his back leg back over her and got
his front legs facing forward we saw that they really were stuck and her
private area was a hard as a rock.
Ian finally got both dogs calmed down, as my anxiety increased. I went inside to make an emergency call
to Peter while putting on some clothes.
Peter was in town, but said he would call Anthony to come and rescue us
all. Ian yelled for me to bring
out some vegetable oil. Vegetable
oil? What on earth was he thinking
of doing with that?
With pants on and vegetable oil in hand I ran back out to
the yard just in time to see Twende run off and Max almost collapse in front of
us. I will stop short of
describing his condition in full.
Ian and I were left standing in our yard, with the beauty of
Project Canaan laid out in front of us. He in his shorts and slippers, me
holding a cell phone and a bottle of sunflower oil. Both of us totally freaked out and in a bit of shock at what
had just happened. Then we cracked
up laughing.
Life in Africa is not always easy, but we learned many years
ago to laugh a lot at ourselves and at things around us that are funny (or
strange).
After we were sitting down with our hot coffee in hand Ian
looked at me and said, “Well, I don’t think I want to start another Friday
morning like that again.” No kidding.
Live from Swaziland … it’s Saturday morning and the dogs are
playing nicely.
Janine
Janie --- I am a vet tech from the states and read your blog regularly. This is the normal way dogs mate. It's called 'tie-ing up' or 'tied up'. It is best to leave them -- rather than help them untie. It does not hurt them (may surprise them the first time, tho.....when they can't get away). You can actually do more damage trying to untie them, then waiting until they naturally do it on their own (about 15-20min). It seems very un-natural to us.....but, it's the way God created them and their body parts are built to handle it.
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