Dog Daze: Canine Lovers and Puppy Love in Yilan

Up the road, morning bike ride

Even as we were negotiating with our now landlady, we were planning to finally get a dog (or two.) It really didn't seem like a feasible idea living in an apartment. Once we got the house, it was just natural. As my friend Chris was walking around Taiwan (Footprints) raising money for one of the many dog shelter/orgs for strays, he picked up Gina, a stray who followed him on his journey. They came by as they passed through Yilan in July and Chris basically gave me his blessing that we could take her. For a month as we were settling in she stayed with friends in Taipei.

During our first month settling in, we contacted Jenny from the French bakery for another stray. Far be it for her to not only be a business entrepreneur with her French husband, but she dedicates all her free time, feeding, caring for strays and finding them owners. She knows the ins and outs of various local shelters, dog "farms" and vets (She uses and recommends 開口笑寵物精品店). It was through her that we got Zarkon our German Shepherd/Taiwan Mountain dog mix. He maybe is 6 months, no one is sure. He spent 2 months on a farm after he was found and was just annoyingly LOUD, that the neighbors would throw firecrackers at him to scare him quiet. His bark is pretty loud, but his first few days here were quiet. Thanks to Jenny, Zarkon came to us already fixed, chipped and vaccinated. (Its the law here for all pets to be chipped to keep from owners abandoning their pets, although pet stores don't sell them chipped.)

It was a week after we got Zarkon that Chris' friends from Taipei drove Gina over. (Their son was one of the boys who walked around Taiwan with Chris.) Fantastic people. I was worried Gina and Zarkon wouldn't get along as Zarkon was jealous and territorial, but they're the best of buds now. Zarkon is a big bully/baby, but Gina knows how to wind him up and she's much faster.

Gina post fixin'

Gina was already vaccinated when the Taipei clan brought her so we just got her fixed and chipped like two days ago for free.The only 2 places to get a pet spayed or neutered for free in Yilan (normally costs around 4000 NT) is either the Yilan Animal shelter, a reputed hideous place or the kind people in Dongshan's  湖光動物醫院 - 宜蘭分院. My car was in the shop and Jenny got some of her dog volunteers to drive Gina to Dongshan to get fixed. I ended up paying 1800 for her and Zarkon's ear mites drops, meds for her skin allergy and meds for her wound to not get infected. I'm very thankful I didn't have to pay for her getting fixed because that money went to fixing my car!

I grew up with a husky but I don't remember it being so tiresome. Taking care of my dogs is exhausting. Now I see why childless people refer to them as their children. I am up every morning between 5:30-6:15 and take them for a run (while I bike) usually before I have coffee and definitely before I eat. I love that time of day, especially where I live and lead them along the river, deeper into the mountains. I was until, we had a run in with a troupe of Macaques two weeks ago.

Around seven or more of them started to cross our path, about 30 meters away, and Gina takes off as she does full speed into the forest, while Zarkon is barking like a nutter and I have him on leash, waiting for them to all cross. There were infants, a few adolescents , the bigger ones were Zarkon's size but heavier. I was flipping scared, utterly defenseless. The troupe had crossed, but their alpha was holding the line as they escaped into the forest. He was barking at us, like ten feet above us, and not liking Zarkon barking at him at all. The branches under him were heaving, leaves were falling, I feared being mauled and jumped on my bike, leaving Gina hidden in the trees and yelled at Zarkon to, "GO!" We made it home and I was just about to get on my scooter and return to for Gina when she comes trotting along from the back way. What a relief, I literally wept from relief.

I haven't been down that bit since, which is a shame because its my home road, just up the mountain and very pretty. I debated getting pepper spray and I'm looking for an air horn (like in basketball) which is harder to find than I thought, so I can just scare any monkeys away. These aren't your friendly, tamed, Kaohsiung monkey mountain sort. They are here almost every morning, this is there territory. So I go downriver where the mountain is further in land behind the many BnBs, far from monkeys. Its still pretty, but not my first choice.



Zarkon and Gina are hard work, but give us a lot of joy and entertainment (watching them play is therapeutic).  Besides taking them for a run in the mornings, I come home during my lunch break to take them for a quick walk and pee, and then rush home to do the same thing after I clock out.   My kid helps when she can, like in the evenings. In the mornings I feed them dry food from Carrefore and in the evenings mix it up with gourmet wet food from Cookie and Cream a pet store owned by my friend (my former trainer and meat head) who lived in NZ. All his food is high quality, he won't sell animals and he takes in strays too. His big canned wet food is imported from NZ and has clean ingredients, like lamb, pumpkin, chickpeas (and is cheaper than Wonder Pet in front of Luna Plaza).

Sometimes I give them raw, but not everyday its just too expensive buying at the supermarket. My former housemate 17 years ago from my Tamsui days, has a house in Hsinchu and adopted 2 strays herself. Her dogs are on a raw diet and she buys the scraps from the traditional market, costing them 200 NT a week for 2 dogs. Going to the local butchers at the traditional market is next on my to do list. My friend in Dongshan has 12 dogs all on a raw diet which just blows my mind, the expense, the time, the personal sacrifice. Respect.

Its easy to think Taiwan isn't a pleasant place to be a dog.  When I was first in Taiwan 17 years ago (I worked in Tamsui for a year and a half before traveling, going back to school, etc.) it seemed like everyone hated dogs. Then when I returned with my kid in 2008, it appeared like a kind of fad that people have dogs (the little toy ones or an exotic Husky). The problem is people would get a dog and realize how much work they are and then drive out to the countryside, like Yilan and abandon their pooch. My neighborhood in Yuanshan is rife with street dogs, mostly because the farmers don't spay or neuter. Its one of the reasons driving a scooter here is dangerous at night (that and the old people.) Nevertheless, there are just as many people in Taiwan (expats and locals) who are also working tirelessly on the behalf of animal rights, or are responsible dog owners themselves. Recently, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially ban dog and cat meat for human consumption- yes that's a thing.

If you are in Yilan and want to help, you can go to the Boulangerie Française bakery, ask for Jenny. She is very transparent with her doggie bills and you can be one of those people who monthly helps her pay for taking care for all the strays' food and medial expenses. Likewise, you can visit the kind people at 莉丰慧民V  臉書官網 and buy some of their products that also goes into taking care of strays. Or if you have the space and time, you can just take home a stray.

Next month are 2 holidays weekends (10/10 and Moon Festival) and any other time I'd be planning a short stint somewhere, Japan, Korea like last year. Now, having these wild dogs, who love chasing flying squirrels and scaring wild pheasants, these dogs have domesticated me. I'm more of a homebody now than ever.

RESOURCES and NEWS:
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aftr/201701140009.aspx
List of animal shelters in Taiwan
http://news.pts.org.tw/article/352826
AIR 宜蘭縣動物權利
Humane Yilan
莉丰慧民V  臉書官網
Taiwan Unofficial Animal Shelter List

Home Run! Moving House in a Typhoon

My kid and I's dream of a mountain manor where we can have chickens and a goat, providentially came true! Its a funny story how we found this place. I was late paying my water bill, so I went to the water department in Yuanshan (near my work, it was my lunch break) to pay it. They insisted I could pay at 7-11, but I was doubtful, only because whenever I am late with my Chunghua Telecom bills (phone, internet, cable), 7-11 doesn't work I need to pay at their offices.

In another example of Taiwanese kindness, the one lady insisted on driving me down the road to 7-11. I was perfectly capable of going there myself, but whatever, I was open, and then we started to talk. She grew up here, she went to the same little mountain school as my kid and her childhood classmate, still one of her friends, had this little house available to rent. Now this was back in February right after CNY and it was only abundant Grace that kept this house from getting snatched up until our lease ended in July.

 

 We moved out of our Yilan City apartment the end of July during this crazy weekend of an approaching typhoon and my friends visiting from Tainan. We decided to have the movers move the big furniture on Friday instead of Sunday because of the typhoon. It took them 2 trips in their blue truck, which cost me 4000 NT (132 USD). We sat out the storm in our Yilan City Apartment with our guests.

 My friend Chris Knight, a walker (he once walked the entire Ganges River), traveler, disaster manager, and animal lover was now walking around Taiwan with 2 boys, one an old friend of ours who is 12 (who also walked the Camino de Santiago with his mom last year) and his Taipei friend who is 14. They had been camping, sleeping at police stations, walking days, raising money for homeless dogs. Admire and marvel at their incredible journey at Footprints of Formosa.

One sweet dog Jiji had adopted Chris and was traveling with them (Z and I hope to adopt her the end of August). All four of them crashed with us for two nights during the typhoon, in the middle of my moving house, with most of my towels, bedding, and no refrigerator, but they were the easiest of guests. We ate at Balagov's, swam at the cold springs in Yuanshan, waiting for typhoon Nesat to pass. My kid thoroughly enjoyed having cool kids her age to play with and I enjoyed having some adult conversation!

Checking out political art while waiting for Nesat to strike

Yuanshan Coldsprings

Nesat hit fast and hard, all the windows flooded except the kitchen (balcony). We survived, our guests walked the next day from my house to Taipei 101 (nuts!) as we were hustling to clean my old place, which was a mess from the typhoon waters, trying to get our security deposit back (which we did). Then I was engrossed unpacking into our new, mountain abode.

Nesat destroyed the banana field in front of the house

Ah the house, its spanking new, no one has lived in it. Its in the middle of a tea farm, a tea field beside us, and tea behind us on the mt in the distance, my other neighbor has a ginger farm. The banana field (owned by my landlord) in front of us got completely destroyed from the typhoon, half of their pomelos that border the tea field and our house were on the ground, but the jackfruit survived unscathed. The landlady's mother has a vegetable garden beside us and if we don't pick the sweet potato leaves, okra, gourds, en choy ourselves, she molests us with bags of the stuff. We have been having en choy or potato leaf omelettes for breakfast almost daily.

Digging holes for flowers! "Mom I'm gonna dig a hole all the way to America!" When I was a kid we tried to dig holes to China😅.

The benefit of our new abode besides the quiet, the views, fresh air and proximity to my work and my kid's school, is that water is free. It just comes from the mountain. Another benefit is this place is made for bike riding. The roads here are small lanes, that circle in and out of the orchard farms, perfect for a late afternoon leisure ride when the day's heat subsides. The last benefit is we are gardening. I'm not sure how long we will stay here or in Taiwan, but for sure this is our last and final homestead. We have planted yellow and orange hibiscus, lotus, some flowering bushes I don't know they names of, garden herbs, dragon eye tree, lychee tree, and a cherry tree (which the monkeys prefer over the riper pomelos). I imagine how handsome it will be in 5 years, 10 years. It's peachy keen if we aren't here to enjoy it then, as I see it already in my mind's eye. For now we enjoy caring for them. The ground is unforgiving rocky, I broke one of the old lady's tools, digging out the stones and it was back breaking work digging those holes. The road to our home has this natural compost of fallen tree leaves on the road that have never been swept or cleaned, so we scraped 3 inches of the finest, blackest jungle humus and added it to our plants. So far so good.

 I tell people I live in Yuanshan because thats basically were we are, except because I live on the other side of a river I technically live in Jiaoxi! My address on Google map sends everyone down the road and lost, its mid August and I still haven't received any mail. I'm still waiting for my landlady to fix my mailbox that was blown away during Nesat, but still no green mailman on his motorcycle around these parts looking for us.

Adjusting wasn't hard, even with Chunghua taking 20 days to install cable and internet (we played lots of chess). The exception is getting used to the critters,  but so far no snakes. There are macaques behind our house in the mornings and evenings, they stole one of  my kid's shoes and sometimes are on the roof right after dawn. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw a side-widing centipede in my living room, which I wasn't able to catch and then 2 more in the shower. I located which farmer's supply store sell DE (Diatomaceous Earth) and sprinkled it around the outside perimeter and inside where I think critters would hide. It apparently keeps snakes away from the chickens, which is good to know, as we plan on getting chickens and a dog the end of the month.

Yet I was in a dilemma, a traveler's dilemma. I had the money, I found the cheap flights and guesthouse, we could of gone to Jeju Island- today in fact. (We could go there still). Twice I was this close to finalizing the payments of the air tickets and then I closed the window.  I think its a combination of being tired of blowing what little I have in the bank and starting from zero the next month (that was us after last month's Singapore trip) and wanting to take it easy. There are activities to enjoy here, we have yet to surf this year which is a sorry state since its now August (but the sun is so abhorrently strong), we could go diving here too. Mostly I didn't buy those tickets to Jeju because our home is so dang relaxing. I have the month off and our home is a sanctuary, and with my easy schedule, I cherish everyday being like a Saturday. I don't desire to be anywhere than where I am. Contentedness is highly underrated.