Tsaxana

[One of my fellow technicians monitors a dog undergoing surgery while a second surgery is performed in the background at our gymnasium field hospital.]

The Tsaxana CAAT trip was a success with twenty-four animals sterilized/vaccinated/microchipped and fifteen animals examined and vaccinated! As always I had an incredible time working with an amazing team who came together and in less than 24 hours were working like we’d always known each other. I can’t wait for the next trip!

Tsaxana is driving, hours and kilometers peeling away beneath humming tires, pedal to the metal on the long highways and sliding slowly around sharp corners underneath a canopy of green so thick it filters emerald light down in sun-dappled showers. Old music on the Bluetooth speaker and plenty of road snacks, laughter, trading cat stories while stuck in traffic and inching along at barely a meter every five minutes, stretch-and-pee breaks where all anyone can talk about is gas prices, navigational failures and suspicious GPS directions and the whoop-whoop of tired joy when the turquoise-painted motel finally comes into view.

Tsaxana is an echoing gymnasium turned field hospital, folding tables and bright red-and-white checked tablecloths, rows of towels laid out on the recovery tarp and orderly lines of surgical instruments ready to be used. An IV pole made out of an old tripod, a plastic hockey-stick, and a shoelace, snapping pictures and giggling over the Canadianness of it all. Surgery tables propped up on chunks of PVC pipe and gym mats underneath for tired feet, the faint and familiar smell of mixed alcohol and Virkon, Hibitane surgical scrub, homemade soup and sandwiches and urns of coffee.

Tsaxana is the shrill howl-bark of a husky puppy, the sound of wagging tails against gym bleachers, skittering nails and soft meows and voices calling back and forth: “Has he been sedated yet — how’s he doing — does she need to be reversed? How’s she looking — you okay? You okay? Can I help? Here, let me help — you’re doing great, you’re doing great, we’re rocking it –“. Deep breaths and quiet whines and always, everywhere, laughter.

Tsaxana is the little boys and girls wide-eyed with wonder as they listen to the heartbeat of their dog and compare the steady ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum to their own heart, smiles splitting small faces, the questions from the owners and the long hours they spend cross-legged or on the floor beside their dog whispering, calling, “Good dog, good girl, time to wake up,” and hands always stroking, holding, petting, scratching. Little dogs wrapped in blankets in their owner’s laps, big dogs with their tails flapping even before they can lift their heads, pink tongues and sleepy eyes and unsteady walks at the end of the day.

Tsaxana is forests bursting with life, green and pink and red and orange with wildflowers and deep brown with the soil-mulch of a thousand ancient rotten trunks, plywood steps going near-vertically switchbacking up hills until it hurts to breathe and my leg muscles are screaming. Beaches of smooth stone and the bone-chilling cold of rivers fed by snowmelt, numb feet and sunburnt arms, the feeling of rock underneath my back and the smell of broken green things in the air. Bears that are no more than moving dark shapes in the distance, the swooping figures of eagles, ravens, sharing airspace with the little float planes that coast down past the wharf. Carved wooden statues cracked with age and still beautiful. A waterfall that courses down the rock by the side of the road and throws up rainbows, spray on the breeze.

Tsaxana is games of Dutch Blitz late at night and laughing, teasing, joking, accidental cheating, sour candy and wine and the sort of comfortable companionship that comes after years, not two days. Trading work stories over burnt coffee and bagels in the morning, walking together in companionable silence, sharing endless plates of yam fries. Sharing rooms, sharing technology, sharing wi-fi that didn’t like to be shared and barely worked except in the small hours of the morning. Sharing a love for animals, a love for giving, a love for helping, a love for doing what it is we do. Sharing each other. Tsaxana is tight hugs outside an airport less than ninety-six hours after meeting and promising over and over, “We’ll see each other again. We’ll do it again.” Always, always, we’ll do it again.

This post was not endorsed by the Canadian Animal Assistance Team; the expressed views are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Canadian Animal Assistance Team.