Small Mammals, Big World: Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

So we had started moving into a new project in Fray Jorge since the team finished Megan’s telemetry project. We were going to start another stress study comparing the differences of stress hormones in degus between the predator exclusion plots and the control plots. We knew that a storm was going to come through and we might have a few rainy days in the house but we could not have predicted what happened next. We had one nice rainy day off where Alex baked cookies and we watched Slumdog Millionaire and read a lot. It was so great! The next day (Friday August 7) we realized we would be able to trap because the rain had stopped so we headed to the park. It started raining at my site so I went back to help the team with the stress project. It would start to rain and then stop so we stuck it out and actually caught degus! We left in the early evening and might it back to our house. We had a nice dinner and suspected that there would be a lot of rain the next day so we were thinking we would have another rainy day with more baking, movies, etc. We were so wrong! The winds really picked up and in the night it started raining. I was sleeping soundly when I started to here banging sounds. One of the windows in the house makes that sound when there are winds so I wasn’t worried. At 2:15 am I heard a huge crash that honestly sounded like something came through the house. I could tell Megan and Kendra were in the living room so I got my headlamp and went out there. Soon we were all out in the living room, scared but kinda laughing at the situation. We still didn’t know what the sound was, so Alex looked out the front window and saw that our patio roof had been ripped off!! It probably landed somewhere over by my window and that was the sound that woke me up (we did find it over there later). We decided everything was fine, just loud, and went back to bed. Later I hear Alex talking about parts of the roof dripping but I just drifted back to sleep. Then I hear the sound of water and Alex in the living room saying we might not be able to stay there much longer. When I go out there, there is a constant flow of water coming through the roof, and there is water running down the walls and through the door. Next thing we know, part of the ceiling has collapsed! We decided we couldn’t stay there any longer, since water was moving towards the bedrooms and other parts of the ceiling are also getting wet. I had never been in that kind of situation before so I was panicked while packing. We could only take the necessities, and valuable/irreplaceable field equipment. Oh, and our dog Zorro made the cut, too J We didn’t talk much in the moment but later discussed how we were all terrified. We drove to the nearest town, Ovalle, and saw a decent amount of damage along the way. We made it to the hostel at around 7 in the morning.

We had to sneak Zorro in and out while we were staying there since they did not allow pets. Luckily he is one of the most well behaved dogs I’ve met so we knew he wouldn’t damage anything in the room. One of the funniest Zorro stories was when Alex snuck him in at first covered in jackets, and then saw in a hall mirror that his tail was hanging out!!! I suspect that the staff knew our secret but didn’t say anything. One time he was stuffed in a backpack and they asked Alex what she was taking with her and she just said quickly over her shoulder “equipment”. We went around the city for multiple days trying to find him a home, and had some very interesting cultural experiences. It was weird trying to get people to adopt him as we passed dozens and dozens of homeless street dogs, but he is definitely from a house and is not able to live as a street dog, which most people understand. Some people told us about a guy with 40 dogs and directed us to his place. There was a sign that said Peligro: Perros Bravos which means Danger: Vicious Dogs. It wasn’t a joke sign. We met the guy and he said he has 100 dogs on the property. He said he could take Zorro but only on a day when he would be around to walk with Zorro and get the other dogs accustomed to him. Otherwise they would flat out kill him right away. And the guy was going to the mines that day so he couldn’t take him right then. We weren’t sure that would be a good fit for Zorro since he shows some aggression towards other dogs. So we finally told the hotel the truth and said could we please keep him one more night, and the manager said yes. We just had to hide him when we brought him in and out (no problem-we’d already been doing that), and we had to keep him off the beds (not a chance). It worked out OK because the next day we went to check on the house so we brought him back and left food with a neighbor to feed him. The next day we ended up going back to get the students stuff, and head to Santiago until the house was fixed. I’ll be going back to the house tomorrow and hopefully Zorro will still be okay. We’re still working on finding him a shelter or a home.