Hot water bath is usually used to speed up the separating of layers. Just boil some water and then take the pot off the heat and partially submerge the container with your cactus solvent mix. Warmer it is the faster / more it separates.

Your dog can clean up his xylene / cactus goop contaminated mescaline. He might wish to try a freezing cold IPA wash or a freezing cold acetone wash, but for both of these he would want to dry his solvent with baked epsom salts first, or else risk a loss of goodies. Regardless the mescaline is still in there and is good, but your dog shouldn't eat it as is with the remaining xylene and lime nasties.

I always mix the lime with the cactus powder before adding water. That way it is distributed evenly by the time the water works join the party. Good luck.

1 part calcium hydroxide should be just fine to 4 parts cactus. It shouldn't be too "gloopy", definitely not like the brewed tea method which is aptly described by the term "elephant snot". If it that nasty textured stuff then you probably should add some more base. The gloopiness should be mostly broken by the high amount of base. I heard the proper texture described as "runny guacamole" or "thin oatmeal", and that sounds about perfect.

If the hot water bath doesn't help separate the layers, then it doesn't hurt (and will probably help) to increase the ratio of base to water. So try 1 part calcium hydroxide to 2 parts cactus (so 50g CaOH2 for 100g cactus, I know some people even go up to 1:1). It's probably best to mix the lime with water and then add the limed water to the cactus gloop, that way it mixes up evenly and completely and you aren't left with any dry clumps floating around.

So ya, double the base and stir for a bit. That should break down the snot and let the xylene mix a little better. Depending on the extraction (seems random) sometimes the layers will separate for me in 10 minutes and sometimes it takes a few hours for most of it to come out. Adding extra base can't possibly hurt your mescaline, so go ahead and add a bunch more. It should then mix well. If it doesn't separate quick, try the hot water bath too. One of these two things should definitely work.

It is very easy to dry a solvent. Take a quart of solvent and put it in a mason jar or something with a lid. Add a small handful or two of epsom salt (from the local pharmacy) that was baked at 400 degrees F for two hours. Then cap it and turn it end over end / shake it every ten minutes or so for a couple hours followed by an hour letting it settle / sit undisturbed. In a few hours (probably less, but this is safe) your solvent will be dry. Just pour it off through a coffee filter or something similar and let it drip through -- voila! Dry solvent!

edit: Oh! You know it occurs to me for the first time (dummy) that you are doing the very low water tek. I tried this myself -- even with a french press I could only get back 150 ml of my solvent (was d-limonene but should act the same). Then I broke my french press pushing! Luckily I had a second. I ended up adding more solvent to be able to pull off a decent amount. I don't even think it worked particularly well (low yield), but I don't know because I used the wrong vinegar and the product was super sticky and not very potent. It seemed like the cactus gloop sucked up half my solvent. So I'm not really sure what the best way to proceed is! D'oh! If you add enough CaOH2 water to come just above the cactus gloop then I think more of your xylene will separate. But you will lose a similar 50-100 ml or so from the layer just being too thin to pull (at least in the containers I used, a wine bottle or graduated cylinder could get that down pretty low). Sorry if I gave inapplicable advice before.

i think its far more efficient if enough base has been added so its fully broken down and watery. no need to make tea/etc if enough base is used. settles rapidly, and requires fewer pulls.

1part base(lye or koh) to 2 parts dried cacti is a good place to start with wet or stb extractions imo