Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

This morning, I wrote about Perdita, an (approximately)  four-year-old Boston Terrier found starving in the woods in Southern Arkansas. She was found wandering, she is emaciated from hunger and suffering from exposure.

Perdita, named by FOHA rescuer Joyce Johnson after the lost princess in Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale”, weighted 9.3 pounds when Carol picked her up and brought her to the Southern Arkansas Veterinary Clinic today.

Her ribs are sticking out.

About fifteen minutes after I wrote about this dog on the blog and my own temptation to adopt her, Debra Otto, a Farm Journal reader from the Minneapolis Area, wrote to me and Carol saying she wanted to adopt Perdita, and would wait as long as it takes.

She said she loves the breed, and she and a friend will be happy to drive as far as necessary to get Perdita and bring her to her home. She has two dogs already.

More good news came this afternoon when Dr. Jonathan Bradshaw, the vet that has treated Bud, the Boston Terrier who is hopefully coming home to us on Saturday, tested Perdita and found she tested negative for heartworm.

She is emaciated and weak, and Carol said she needs some support just to stand up, but Dr. Bradshaw said she was otherwise in good health and ought to be able to go home to Debra soon.

This story – like the Winter’s Tale – has a happy ending. The lost princess finds a good home.

Debra is a passionate dog lover and a gracious person. She said she didn’t want to adopt the dog if I  wanted her, and I told her that I couldn’t imagine a better fate for Perdita than living with her in Minnesota.

This makes me quite happy. It is just what I hoped for when Carol first told me of this poor creature over the weekend. I said I wanted to try to help get her adopted, and if I couldn’t, I would consider taking her.

Three dogs is the right amount for me and for Maria. We also have two border collies,  sheep and donkeys and barn cats and chickens. That’s enough.

Maria thought this was a bad idea, and I could see her point, but I also knew she would take Perdita in a minute once she saw a photo of her and saw the condition she was in. And if necessary,I know we could have found a good home for her.

This story, this dog, this name all got to me. It got to Debra too, and right away. She experienced that magic moment of hearing about Perdita, and then seeing a photo. It was her dog.

Carol will take Perdita home from the vet in a couple of days and fatten her up. She and Debra will work out the adoption and transportation details. I am standing by to help. Carol cautioned that the rescue group might ask for a lot of money for Perdita.

I told Debra we – the Army Of Good – would help her if she needed financial assistance, she said she could handle the fees.

All told, I’m getting Bud for nearly $900, including the standard application donation of $200 plus  medical fees. I don’t think Perdita would cost that much, given that she has no need of heartworm treatment. In any case, Debra doesn’t want or need the help.

FOHA (Friends Of Homeless Animals) usually takes dogs that need expensive medical care, and the fees vary in respect to that. Bud needed a lot of medical care.

This is wonderful new use of the blog, and I am enthusiastic about this. We have added vulnerable and lost cause dogs to our list of good deeds, including the Mansion residents, and the refugee soccer team.

And if feels especially good to have helped getting this poor dog adopted into a loving place. She has suffered plenty. And I love those ears.

I hope Debra will grace us with a photo or two once Perdita gets settled.

And hats off once more to Carol Johnson, one of our Better Angels. She saved another dog, and made another dog lover very happy. Carol and I have become good friends and working partners. We will be  making more dog music.

Audio: Saving Perdita

Late September and early October are harvesting time, the farmers get out in their big and smelly and noisy tractors and harvest the corn, the cow corn – they call it sileage – that they will feed the cows all winter.

The stalks are tall and thick this year, they are a kind of art all in themselves, with their curves and turns and distinct lines. In a few weeks, they will all be gone.

Yesterday, Joyce Johnson, the very dedicated animal rescuer who saved Bud, went to a house in the woods in rural Arkansas and brought home a starving, emaciated, female Boston Terrier who had been abandoned and left in the woods for weeks, perhaps months.

Some people had found her, and called FOHA, the Friends Of Homeless Animals, which has volunteers throughout the Northeast and South.

This is what Carol does. When I heard about this dog, it touched my heart, and I thought immediately of adopting her. My own cooler head (and Maria’s) prevailed – she surely must have heartworm, and God knows what else.

It will be months before she is available, and she will cost a lot of money.

She weighs less than 10 pounds.

Carol took her to the Southern Arkansas Veterinary Clinic this morning, they are the good and competent people who brought Bud back to life. The dog is a wreck, but Carol says she is sweet and forgiving. She promised to send me a photo of the dog this morning if she can.

Carol – we have become good friends, we talk all the time – texted me last night.  We’ve been talking about this dog all weekend.

“I’ve decided to call her Perdita,” she said, after a character in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, written in 1623.

It was a fascinating choice of name for Carol. Perdita is a lost princess, saved by a shepherd, she grows up unaware of her royal heritage. It is later revealed that Perdita is the princess of Sicilia.

She is re-united with her father and mother, and marries Florizel, the love of her life, and lives happily ever after.

Carol said she likes the idea of a happy ending for her Perdita, who seemed quite close to death when she was found.

I am looking forward to seeing a picture of Perdita, I think Carol knows how to reach my heart. Maria thinks it is a very poor idea to even think of another dog, just days away from our third arriving by truck from Arkansas.

My head agrees, my heart isn’t so sure. At the very least, I think I may be able to help find a home for this poor creature, with that name, I think she is blessed.

Stay tuned.

Audio: My Head, My Heart. Perdita

I seem to like blue things around me and the farmhouse, I spent much of th eweekend painting these new gates blue, and today Red and I practiced  getting the sheep on the other side of them – they were spooked initially – so we can move them during the Open House.

I like having some blue out there, although it did look a bit like the sheep were in prison. Four or five of the sheep and both donkeys had blue paint on their noses, they all had to check out the new gate, of course.

It’s curious, but sometimes Joan will come up to me and say something that might seem to make no sense. But it makes perfect sense to me, we always know what the other is talking about.

Joan has a lot of humor and warmth and love in her eyes. She comes to Bingo every Friday and one of us sits with her and fills in her board. She no longer has any idea what Bingo is or how it works,  and her eyesight is failing her and she can’t read the numbers on the table.

But she loves the game, and she surely knows when she is a winner. She lights up and claps her hands. Lately, she and I have been singing together.

I am publishing this series of photos of Joan in honor of those who have lost their memories and much of their identity.

Life is a struggle for them, and many cannot handle it with Joan’s grace and good humor and cheerfulness. Joan loves life, today she listened, for the first time, to the Beatles on her new CD player, a gift from the Army Of Good.

You can support my work with Joan and the the other Mansion residents by helping me rebuild my Mansion account, it was low and is climbing up, thanks to the wonderful donations that are beginning to pop up in my Post Office Box. The $5 bills crumpled up in those envelopes touched me deeply.

So many people struggle, so many remain generous and open-hearted.

Memory is precious, we can take it for granted. It breaks my heart sometimes to see Joanie  struggling to understand where she is and what has happened to her life.  She always finds a place of love and laughter, that is an inspiration to me.

If you wish, you can contribute to this work in any amount by sending a payment to me, Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Or via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark  you donations for “The Mansion” or the Sakler Moo’s school fund, or the
“Soccer  Team.” All the money will go where it is supposed to go.

New federal banking regulations require that the checks must have the person cashing the check on the top line, the “payable to” line. So please make them out to me and say where you want them to go.