August 25, 2021

No, my title isn’t a reference to Christmas. It’s the feminine form of El Santo, the Saint (1917-1984), Mexico’s most famous and popular wrestler/actor from a few decades past.

I wrote recently about Dorada, the rescued street dog who came to live here two months ago. Three weeks back, I noticed a strange growth on her rear quarters, and two different vets confirmed she had a case of canine transmissible venereal tumour. (Careful – the pictures are gross). It starts small, but it easily spreads, both inside the dog that has it and to others with which she has contact. Dogs sniff and lick each other all the time, so it has an easy means of spreading. And it’s quite prevalent in Mexico.

Before she was rescued, and spayed, she had at least two litters of puppies fathered by other street dogs, so there was no mystery about how she acquired the condition. Thankfully, the treatment, a form of chemotherapy, is highly effective.

But Dori is an amazingly strong dog, as I mentioned in my first post. I’ve wrangled large dogs before, but I’ve never encountered one with the strength of a small horse, like this one. She would give the original El Santo a run for his pumped-up biceps. If I didn’t know this before, I discovered the reality on Tuesday.

For her first chemotherapy session, her rescuer Lucero took her, with me, to the vet, and we jointly managed the dog. For her session this week, she couldn’t drive me, so we arranged with Gabino, the next door neighbour, to use his taxi-cab to get there. 

He meticulously insisted on a clean blanket for the back seat to catch the dog-hairs, and on the journey there, she was mostly well behaved. So far, I thought, so more-or-less good. He dropped us off, agreeing to come back in a short while. 

The vet’s office was not yet open, so I had to wait for five minutes while Dori tried to escape my firm grip on the leash. I soon had red welts on my hand and wrist from the pressure her lunges applied to the chain wrapped around them.

But the fun began inside. The vet, a woman, asked me to control here while she put in a needle, and Dori was having none of it. She had disliked the procedure the week before, and ‘Cooperation’ is definitely not her other name. I was leaning on top of her, trying to keep her from moving, while she demonstrated that she really was El Santo’s female canine equivalent, La Santa. She had no mask, but with my face pressed to her head, my anti-Covid N-95 rode up over my eyes so I couldn’t see. And the dog kicked and writhed and kicked some more. 

The vet finally gave up and asked her daughter, who is …. well, not small, to come and force the dog’s hind quarters to be still while I managed the front end. Finally, the jab was administered, the vet confirmed that the chemo had already started to reduce the tumour, and I paid and went outside to wait for Gabino.

Dori was now truly upset, and not willing to be patient. I had to move away from the vet’s doorway, because she wanted to lunge at any animal that was brought to it. She particularly wanted to kill and eat a cat or two, it seemed, since she howls at cats anyway, and three came for treatment while we waited. Gabino was five minutes late, then ten, then fifteen, and by this point we had moved in spasmodic jerks a hundred yards up the street and back again. My shoulders were beginning to ache from the effort, and my hands were raw in places from the tightened chain of the leash. I didn’t topple as she dashed around my legs, but I had to skip a light fandango at times to prevent it.

Gabino got us back safely to his house, but a truck was blocking the lane in front of us. No worries, I thought, it’s only thirty yards. Thanks, and see ya later, amigo.

And at this point, Gabino’s own dogs dashed out, and Dorada went nuts. With me yelling her name at her, and her waiting for the moment I shifted my grip on the leash to make a fresh lunge, we staggered yard by yard to the gate, where I tried to remain still as I put the key in the lock, the dog blanket draped over my arm and beginning to drag on the ground if I didn’t hold my arm high.

This was her big chance, she realised. With one almighty leap, she almost got away from me, only the leash being wrapped round my left fist preventing her. But I went crashing down onto my left hip and shoulder, the friction tore some skin off my finger, and it was arguable whether her barking dogfully or me barking her name was the louder contribution to the pandemonium. I finally dragged her to the gate, got her inside, and let her run off with the leash still attached while I caught my breath, and watched blood ooze over my left hand.

She let me retrieve the leash once she was re-quarantined in the corral where she has to stay for another week. And yes, I’m fine, apart from a bruise or three, and a missing piece of skin.

But while I’m used to dogs being cantankerous, this one is the strongest and most single-minded mutt I’ve ever tried to manage. 

Dogs are wonderful companions, and they can be rays of sunshine on a grey day. But they never show anything I can recognise as gratitude. This one has also cost a pretty peso in vet bills and in cinderblocks to close her exit-points for escaping. I won’t say I felt homicidal towards her as I limped up the stairs to put iodine and a bandage on my finger, but let’s say she has been testing my affections to the Nth degree.