Scroggins

Nok and I are suckers for animals.  After the unfortunate passing of Jeebo last month, we swore we wouldn’t get another animal until we were in a position to settle down in one place indefinitely.  Our plans haven’t really changed in that we won’t be in Taiwan for more than two years and will probably continue moving from country to country for the foreseeable future.

Yet here we are today with a new dog named Scroggins.  We got in touch with a group of foreigners here who run a handful of dog and cat shelters in Taichung county.  They had tons of dogs looking for homes, and after visiting one of the shelters we chose an 18 month old mutt previously named Maui.  He was found living on the city streets as a puppy, and he would have stayed there if he hadn’t been picked up by the government animal catchers.  Since the government shelters eventually put to sleep the animals they find, these people rescued Scroggins from the pound and took him to live on their spacious, no-kill shelter at the top of a lovely mountain on the edge of Taichung City.

Nok and I went out to that shelter last week, and it’s a pretty interesting place.  The road gets incredibly steep, narrow and windy towards the top, so much so that our taxi refused to continue and we had to walk another kilometers pretty much straight up.  Scroggins was delivered to our home the next day, and so far he seems to be adjusting well.

Scroggins in our apartment just after he arrived.  He is one of the shyest dogs I’ve ever seen.

 

Nok hugs Scroggins on the floor of our apartment.

Scroggins on the roof of our building.  I tried to get him to sit for a picture, but he’s so clingy he just kept following me when I backed up to take a picture.  This was the best shot I could get.

Today we took Scroggins for a walk at the school behind our apartment.  The tall building behind the palm trees on the left is our building.  I don’t know about the quality of teaching inside the school, but facilities of the schools I’ve seen here are far superior to any schools I attended as a kid.  This is an elementary school, yet it has a massive athletics field complete with a nice, new, rubber-topped track.

A shot from Go-go mountain, where Scroggins’ shelter was.  This was taken from where the taxi dropped us off, on top of a massive abandoned Buddhist monastery.  The monastery was condemned after the massive 921 quake.

Another shot from on top of the old monastery.

For those curious in the how things are going regarding my recent bicycle mishap, for the most part it’s good news.  My wound seems to be healing well, though most people I’ve spoken to agree that the doctor who stitched me up did a terrible job.  It’s incredibly sloppy, and even though the wound covers almost one whole side of my ankle, he used only three stitches spaced very far apart.

I was also concerned because my foot and lower ankle have gotten pretty swollen over the last few days.  I’ve seen five different doctors since the accident, and only today was I able to get a reasonable explanation for the swelling.  Apparently, in addition to the nasty gash I also have pretty serious ankle sprain, which explains why I’ve had so much trouble walking around.

On the legal side, I’ve been referred to an American ex-pat who’s lived here for about thirty years and specializes in representing other foreigners in Taiwan. I’ll let you know how it goes.