The Rescued Easter Sunday Dove...

I've never been a believer of 'old wives tales' until my husband and I experienced first hand, what we learned months later, was an 'old wives tale', predicting a death in a person's family.

Our strange event started on Easter Sunday in April 2009. Our 'paired off' always together cats, Leroy Brown and Loretta Lynn Brown, were sitting together at the large patio door window that looks out on our back porch/patio, and into our backyard. neither cat had been out in the yard on that day because we were too busy to take them out. We never allowed our cats to roam freely where we live because there are too many dangers for cats, here in the rural area we live in. Owls and other predatory birds can attack a cat as well as raccoons and possums, which eye cats as delicious treats.

When Leroy and Loretta would go out into their yard to partake of the sunshine and fresh grass, either my husband or I would stay with them, and when we would go back inside the house, the cats would always go back inside with us.

On this particular Easter Sunday both cats, were watching out the patio window, and they started yowling, I said yowling, not meowing. I rushed to where my cats were seated next to the window/door to find that they were both looking at a small grayish, brownish bundle that was huddled against one of the pillars that supports our patio's roof.



I cautiously opened the patio door, preventing the curious Leroy and Loretta Lynn from exiting the house, and I approached the small bundle. The bundle turned out to be a very frightened bird, a dove, and this was happening on Easter Sunday afternoon. As a Christian I believe that the dove is symbolic of the Holy Ghost, the third part of the Blessed Trinity, and it was Easter Sunday.

I called to my husband to come outside, and he responded. It wasn't the first time we were presented with rescuing a bird in distress but it was the first time we were presented with a dove that needed our help, and it was Easter Sunday afternoon.

The first thing my husband wanted to try was to see if the bird could fly away on its own but we both realized that the little bird was having a difficult time breathing. It was taking its' breaths in gasps. So the breathing issue would have to be resolved first. My husband asked me to bring him a saucer of fresh water, which I did do.

He held the tiny bird in his hand, and dipped its' beak into the water, quickly bringing it up and out of the water within a second. He rubbed the tiny doves' throat to massage it's esophagus, which is the passage through which food travels, The bird coughed, and out from its' throat flew a large seed that had been caught in it's esophagus. The bird started breathing better; it stopped gasping for breath. We figured that the crisis was over, and all the bird needed was to have the seed evacuated from it's throat, and it would be ready to fly away. But this didn't happen. The tiny bird didn't fly away.

We both stayed with the bird for at least a half hour coaching it to fly away but it didn't want to leave us. So my husband asked me to get one of our cat carrier cages from the garage, and I did this putting a clean towel into the cage. My husband put the tiny bundle of feathers into this cage, and he carried the cage into our garage where the contents would be safe from predators. We placed a large, clean towel over the cage to prevent drafts. And we told the dove, "Good night, we will be back in the morning."

Early the next morning, at 6:00 am my husband and I both went into the garage to check on our rescued bird, and when we removed the towel covering the cage the dove let out with a loud coo, coo. That sound to us was a sign that the little creature was feeling much better so we brought the cage outside where we opened the cage, and encouraged the dove to fly away. Once again it couldn't, wouldn't fly away.
We realized at this time that we needed professional intervention to rescue this little bundle of feathers. It was Monday morning, and at 9:00 am I got onto the phone, and called someone I knew that was connected to the local Audubon society. He didn't know where I should take the bird but he was sure that one of the local vets was a wild bird, rescue doctor. I then called several local veterinarians in the Hollister area until I found Doctor Moran, who was the local bird rescue person. The clinic where this doctor is located is the Family Pet Care Center located on East Street here in Hollister. I wrote down the address of this clinic, and called confirming with the clinic that my husband would be bringing in a wild dove that needed professional attention.

Doctor Moran did what he could do for the little bird. He found puncture wounds under the feathers, and confirmed that the dove had a systemic infection, which was the result of some animal mauling it the day before. He gave the little dove a shot of antibiotics, and hoped for the best. The dove didn't make it. It's infection was too far-gone, and the little ball of feathers passed away at the veterinarian's office. I was thankful that my cats had nothing to do with the injury that happened to the dove. Instead they alerted me to the presence of the dove on our back porch. And this caused my husband and I to help the little bird. We thought the issue of the dove that needed to be rescued was over but it wasn't over.

Last spring we had two pairs of doves that would come into our yard, and feast at a seed box that we were keeping on our patio. The injured dove we took to Dr. Moran on East Street was one of these doves. For weeks after this event one of the remaining doves, the mate to the one that died at the vets, would return to our yard, and walk around our patio cooing. This behavior was un-nerving because it showed us that this bird, this little bird was looking for it's mate, and the last place it knew it's mate was before it disappeared, was in our yard. One day, about ten days later after we brought the dove to the vets, I was watching this single dove from my patio window, and I saw it go up to our back garage door, and stand there cooing at the door. This told me how sensitive doves are for this one to realize that we had kept it's mate in our garage after we found it on our back porch, back on Easter Sunday.

Two weeks after we rescued the dove, and took it to Dr. Moran's office where it passed away from an untreatable infection, we noticed that our beautiful deep green leaved bush that would bear deep purple berries in the summer, appeared to be dying. We paid extra attention to the bush, and watered it as it should be watered. Not too much and not too little water was given to this bush. It was spring, and in spring this bush always grew a fresh crop of deep green leaves because it lost all of it's leaves during the winter months. Even though we were especially diligent in caring for our bush the new leaves continued to dry up, dying and turning brown. In time all of the new 'spring' leaves on this bush turned into brown, crinkly, dead leaves.

This bush was located in a plot of earth, next to our back porch, right across from the pillar where we found the huddled, bundle of feathers that was the frightened, injured dove that came to us on Easter Sunday, in April, and died from a systemic infection at the vets office.



It was in early July of the same year when we discovered that our beloved cat, Leroy Brown had a lump in the area of his mouth that could be felt under his chin. The lump turned out to be a salivary gland cancer that was growing under his tongue. Leroy's veterinarian, Dr. White, was ill and was not available to care for Leroy at this time. We had to find another vet, and we took Leroy to Dr. Leroux at the Hollister Veterinary Clinic on Sunnyslope Drive. We thought that we were doing the right thing.

Leroy Brown Dutra died unexpectedly in Dr. Leroux's veterinary clinic after undergoing his third successful surgery on September 18, 2009. Dr. Leroux made it clear to us that Leroy didn't die from the cancer he was fighting, and he didn't die from the surgery. A woman, who worked for Dr. Leroux, allowed Leroy to jump from his cage, and then she chased our dear Leroy around the clinic, two hours after his surgery. Chasing our cat when he was still under the effect of anesthesia was what killed him.

When we were considering where Leroy's grave should be we found that the berry bush that died in our garden was now just a skeleton of black, bare branches, and no longer had a root structure. This bush was located just across from where we found the dove that needed our help, on Easter Sunday morning. it was easy to remove the now dead berry bush; as soon as my husband started to dig the bush up, it just lifted out of the ground. This patch of earth where the berry bush had been became our Leroy's grave.

On Leroy's grave we have placed a memorial for him that is a sculpture of a cat. And all around his memorial I planted a green ground cover, and Hens and Chickens. Hens and Chickens are a succulent that is a thick, green leaved succulent that has a red boarder around the edges of the leaves. Leroy liked the Hens and Chickens in other places in our garden, and often checked them out when he went outside, so I planted some where he rests.

Months after all of this happened to us, my husband and I were watching a television program one evening, and we heard one of the characters in the story say that when a dove dies on your porch it is a sign that someone in your family will die. The dove we rescued didn't die on our porch but it huddled there for safety after something mauled it, and it died later at the veterinarian's office. Then the beautiful berry bush that grew close to where we found the injured dove, died, and a couple of months late, our dear Leroy developed salivary gland cancer; dying while in the veterinarian's care at his clinic. Leroy's grave became the plot of earth where the once beautiful, berry bush used to grow. I've looked it up on the Internet, and it is an old belief that when a dove comes to you and dies on your porch that there will be a death in the family, just like the character in the movie on television stated.

We never believed in 'old wives tales' before the Easter Sunday dove came to us on that day, and we did all we could to help it.

Strange things happen here in Paradise, and this was one of the strangest, most painful things that has happened to us here.

This is a true life story of both Carol Garnier Dutra and Richard Dutra originally published on Tuesday June 1, 2010 in my MOM'S Blog by MOM in Hollister.
Copyright 2010/2011/2012
.


Leroy's memorial before we planted the ground cover and his Hens and Chickens.
.