Chalupa

 In 2008 a large number of animals were seized from a residence in Brandon, VT. One of those victims was a tiny, timid long haired Chihuahua.  I was instantly in love and signed up to foster to adopt.  Because there so many dogs seized I offered to foster a short haired Chihuahua as well.  That is how Chalupa (aka Lupie aka Ese) came to live with us.  Not as a chosen pup but as a good deed. 

When the dogs were finally allowed to legally be adopted we placed Little One (the long haired Chi) with our friend Joanne from our vet clinic.  It turned out that Little One was terrified of Brian and intimidated by our bigger dogs.  Joanne was single and had a family of “littles”. It was a much better fit for this dog I fell in love with and Joanne helped heal my broken heart by giving her what we couldn’t.  With Little One gone, we decided, what the hell, we should keep Lupie.  She was spunky and nonplussed by our multi pet household. And it didn’t hurt that she was cute as hell.

Lupie was trained on agility equipment and took to it with her usual confidence. Unfortunately, due to her independent nature she was never completely trustworthy off a leash outside, so we tabled my competition plans. Instead she went to work with me at Red Dog Solutions.  She was the queen of my small dog playgroup.  She learned tricks and performed in our variety show fund raiser. Her performances were often comical, as she had her own agenda… always.

At home Lupie held a commanding position.  She felt it was her duty to keep the other dogs well groomed, which she did by licking their faces often and obsessively, whether they wanted her to or not.  Lupie peed on our rugs constantly and left poop on the floor for us to step on in the morning. She was independent, pushy and a bit of a brat. She basically did whatever she wanted for 14 years. 

A collapsing trachea took away Lupie’s quality of life.  And rather than watch her cough and cough and cough and eventually struggle to breathe and lose her  lifelong confidence, we let her go today.  We will miss the little shit more than I could ever express.

A glimpse at the future

If there is a god...
Mamacita will be joining me on the agility field
 For many many years to come.  She and I are just hitting our stride, feeling like a formidable team. I adore this quirky little beast. She has come so far and She's only eight. 
Surely we have four years...five...more?
Hundreds of start lines to walk up to together.

Crazy Soli has mad skills on the agility field too, but she is a combustible combination of aggression and insecurity.  She a cheeky little dog in familiar territory,  but a worrier outside of her comfort zone.  Frankly she's a lot like Mamacita, but where as
Cita has learned to tune out the demons while competing,  Soli still loses her mojo at a trial.  Our team is a work in progress.  Ironically that is Mamacita's official, registered name:
                     "My Work in Progress". 
        With any luck history will repeat itself.

Some days when I see these two together I wonder if I am watching the past and the future battle for the present right in front of my eyes. 

You are here

Recently on Facebook I saw a post with the following quote:

"Look around and appreciate what you have.  Everything will be different a year from now"

That has never been more true than it is right now in my life.  Over the past five or so years  I have watched my family go through drastic changes.  Holiday traditions I took for granted are simply gone now.  Sustaining relationships are no longer sources of comfort,  instead requiring my strength going forward.  My big brother is dead.

Yeah...I'm a little depressed.

And as I look around at my canine family the sad fact is that things definitely will be different a year from now.  Our "baby girl" is four.  Crazy Goose is five. Kenzie and Mamacita are eight.  Cubby and Lupie are
ten-ish.  Tawnie is twelve-ish.  Suzie and Ziggy are fourteen.  They are plagued by a myriad of health issues.  We will lose someone in 2020.  Perhaps more than one.

So today I would like to take a moment to appreciate each and every perfect little face.
You are here.  I love you.

Why is that so much easier with dogs than people?

Second chances

I am not opposed to euthanasia.  Not for aggression...not for illness...and not for emotional well being.  I'm other words I have never been a "every dog MUST be saved!" kind of gal. Sometimes a dog is so damaged that he is dangerous.  Sometimes a dog is so ill that he is suffering too much to keep trying to save him.  Sometimes a dog has been caged too long waiting for a miracle adopter and he has disappeared into an emotional hell.  In those cases, give me the needle.  I'll do it myself.  I HAVE done it and I'm not ashamed of that. 

Two vets recommended euthanasia for Suzie and they were not wrong.  She was emaciated, pissing  blood, had glucose levels off the charts, had a pretty severe heart condition, was blind and elderly and had no current owner. Euthanasia made sense frankly.  But when this little dog lifted her bony, sunken head and turned her sightless eyes toward me and wagged her tail...I was a goner.

Eight months have gone by since we picked up Suzie from my friend Sam at Random Rescue. She has gained 12 lbs.  Her diabetes is under insulin control.  Her urinary tract infection is healed. She AROOOS like a wild thing at suppertime and eats like a lumberjack. Her heart may not work very well but the love it carries is pure and flawless.
She still wags her tail every time you speak to her.

Thank you Sam.
Thank you Dr Rob Macpherson.
Thank you Suzie for keeping my faith and optimism alive in a harsh world.

It takes a village

They say it takes a village...

It took a home health care worker to call animal control about a skinny Beagle she saw while caring for an elderly woman.

It took an animal control officer to step in and pull this dog out of a bad situation.

It took the examining veterinarian to vehemently recommend not returning this emaciated, very ill, neglected dog to an owner unable or unwilling to care for her.

It took a incapacitated woman to show decency and agree to sign the dog over and relinquish ownership, so she could get the care she needed.

It took a rescue group willing to go the extra mile for this dog in spite of recommendations to euthanise her.

It took me to say "Yes I'll try" when they called me.

It took my veterinarian to say "Yes, I'll try with you".

And yeah...it took my husband to understand why I had to do this and it took my other dogs' amazing capacity to accept yet another old and infirm creature into our home.

Suzie came home with us on Saturday August 4th. She was so thin it made my stomach lurch to pet her.

Untreated diabetes had taken its toll and turned this once pudgie Beagle into a walking skeleton.  Suzie's heart didn't work quite right either, causing labored breathing and some dizziness.  Her urinary tract was inflamed and infected. She was blind.
And yet this little dog wagged when you spoke to her and wagged harder when you touched her.

On Monday August 6 we started her on antibiotics.
On Wednesday August 8 we started her on insulin.

And now we wait and we hope and we love her as hard as we can. 

Suzie eats like a lumberjack.  She walks slowly around outside, following my voice.  She wags her tail when the other dogs approach her.  They sniff her gently and keep their distance.  They are so good. Suzie has an old dog bark, sounding more like a seal than a dog, but it is distinctly a Beagle voice and it fills my heart to hear the hound song in our home again.

I do not know if we can reverse the damage done to this little dog.
I do not know how long we will have her.
But I do know I am a better person for having met her. Goooo Suzie!

 

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Rain, agility and finding my tribe

It is 4:00 in the morning.  It is dark and I am tired, but I drag myself out of bed and finish loading the car.  The dogs are let out, fed and happily go back to bed, sleepily confused at the change in routine.  All dogs except one that is. She is waiting by the door.  She knows.

My phone's weather app is talking about rain.  I turn on the radio as I head down the road in the darkness.  I am hoping for better news, but the weatherman's forecast is the same - rain.  I sigh.  My dog lifts her head and looks at me.  I can't help but smile in spite of feeling more than a little bit sorry for myself.
"Sorry girlie.  We're gonna get wet today".

Vermont Public Radio is broadcasting an interview with a woman who has written a book about seeking desperately for somewhere to belong.  The author comes from a mixed race family and sets out on a journey to find her people... her tribe. She does DNA testing on her family members.  She travels to Burma and Ireland.  Long story short, after a lot of searching, she finds out that, as a person with such a crazy mixed up heritage, she will never truly find "her people" by looking at her past or her future.  She comes to the realization that her tribe are the people that she spends her days with.  That her people are the ones that share her experiences today.  It is an interesting piece and it keeps my mind off the weather forecast.  Before I know it the two hour drive is done and I'm pulling into the campground where our agility trial is being held.  And it is starting to rain.

There is some good natured grumbling as we all don our rain gear and try to convince our dogs to go potty on the wet grass.  We huddle together under tarps and canopies if our dogs will tolerate the close proximity to other dogs.  If not, we alternate between visiting with friends and hanging out with our own dogs in our cars where they are comfortable.  We study the courses.  We discuss the best footwear in the rain.  We run our dogs and we watch each other do the same.  We cheer each other's successes and we commiserate our failures. We get pretty wet.

At the beginning of the trial, the judge (who truly will be standing out in the rain ALL DAY)  greets us with a huge smile.   "We are here with our dogs and our friends and we are playing agility.  What's a little rain?"
And of course she was right.

As I look around at all these people milling around in funny looking rain hats and wet sneakers I realize that this is MY tribe. These are MY people.  We are a very diverse group.  We are men and women; grandmothers, sons and sisters.  We are straight and we are gay.  We are Democrat and Republican. We have big dogs, little dogs, purebreds and dogs of mixed heritage.   But we are all bound together by one shared experience.

There is a moment of indescribable joy, of feeling that all is right with the world,  that happens when you do agility well with your dog.  It doesn't happen in every run.  Sometimes it a comes when a difficult sequence is cued and executed flawlessly.  Sometimes a perfect contact performance will bring it on.  And every once in a while you have a run in which you and your dog are completely in synch with each other, like dance partners in an intricately choreographed routine.  When that happens you leave the ring breathless and humbled and everyone watching knows without any explanation exactly what you are feeling.

This is what binds me together with my people.  This shared experience.  This is why the next time it is 4:00 in the morning and dark outside and it is raining,  my dog and I will get out of bed, I will load the car and we will go to join the rest of our tribe and we will search for joy together.



I

Redemption

Wow...its been a LONG time since I blogged ANYTHING.  A lot has changed in my life.  I no longer operate Red Dog Solutions (dog training).  I consider myself a Dog Walker now and I enjoy the simplicity of that.  My dog family has changed, as it always does.  We adopted a 16 yr old Beagle whom we named Mr. Beagle.  Sadly we lost him to lymphoma after only 4 months.  But seeing as his previous 15 years were spent tied to a dog house...it was a GOOD 4 mths for him.  Following Mr. Beagle we adopted an elderly Chihuahua named Edgar.  Caring for Eddie, as we came to call him, is what has prompted me to come out of hiding and post after such a long hiatus! So, whether you missed me or not - here goes.

Eddie was picked up by Animal Control as a "stray" in Worcester MA. The humor in that still makes me giggle. The image of this deaf, blind, barely mobile, 6 lb, old dog "running at large" in the mean streets of Worcester is ludicrous. In reality he was likely dumped or left behind when he became inconvenient or too hard to care for.  On one of my good days I imagine that he belonged to an elderly person who passed away and somehow Eddie got lost in the shuffle.  On darker days I create a special hell in my mind for the monster that allowed dental disease to eat holes through Eddie's facial bones...then left this poor creature to fend for himself.

I met Eddie a couple months after his "capture" off the streets - ha ha. He was lucky enough to have found his way into the care of Forever Homes Rescue in Walpole MA.  They spent the considerable amount of money needed to pull all of Eddie's rotting teeth, pump him full of antibiotics and try to get him healthy.  I give FHR a lot of credit for taking him in.  In Rescue when you decide to take on an elderly dog like Eddie you know it may be a permanent foster dog, in essence, a money pit.  Not too many folks are trolling Petfinder.com looking to adopt a deaf, blind, toothless, ancient Chihuahua.   But this is where Eddie's luck continued, because that's pretty much exactly what I was doing at the time.

Mr Beagle had passed away and my heart felt empty.  Certainly our home was not empty with 7 other dogs living here, but the old dogs...ah...they are different.  So in December of 2016 we picked up Eddie in MA during our Christmas visit to family.  He was best gift I got.

People have two reactions when they hear that I've adopted an old dog like Eddie.   The first reaction is "How could you do that?  I'd be too sad to lose them so soon!"  The answer to that question is simple in my mind.  "How could I not?"
The second reaction is "You're such a wonderful person - you're a saint!" This is where it gets more complicated.  Though I appreciate the kind words, they really couldn't be further from the truth.

I'll let you in on a little secret.  I adopt old dogs because I am selfish.  I adopt them because I am impatient...and quick to anger...and petty...and...imperfect. In my marriage, my friendships, with my family, even in my relationships with my other dogs I sometimes fail miserably at being the person I strive to be.  I am rarely the person I want to be. The person who never snaps at someone they love or gets resentful or angry or frustrated.  The person who puts other's feelings and needs above their own.  I sometimes really suck at all of that. 

But not with Eddie (or Mr Beagle or Pistachio or Muffin or any of the others that came before him).  When I make the commitment to take in an old dog, I do it with no expectations, no hopes or dreams or preconceived notions of who that dog may turn out to be. There is never any disappointment.  It is what it is. 

Eddie's sightless and silent world made it difficult for him to interact in any meaningful way and his dementia contributed to his isolation.  But this made it more important that I handle him gently and often.  He needed to be guided to his food and water and carried outdoors to go to the bathroom.  He needed his face cleaned and his nails trimmed.   He needed soiled bedding replaced with clean.  He needed special food and sometimes he needed to be hand fed.   The fact that he never acknowledged any of my care did not matter. I  had vowed to make what ever time he had left on this earth safe and pleasant.   This was my purpose and it was enough.  I loved him completely with no thought of reciprocation.

When I am with a dog like Eddie I am fully present.  I am patient.  I am thoughtful.  I am gentle.  I am forgiving. I am kind.  I ask for nothing and I give everything.  I am the best person I know how to be.  I feel whole. There is no doubt or worry or insecurity or self hate.  I know what I am doing.  I've "got this".

I rarely feel like that in other aspects of my life.

Of course I realize that the reason I can achieve this 'zen like' state with my old timers is because it is usually a short term commitment.  Lets face it if you adopt a dog at 16, your time together will be limited.
I am able to give that dog everything I have, every time we are together.  That is pretty much impossible in a long term relationship.  There are just too many opportunities to be weak or screw up over years or lifetimes. Adopt a puppy or a young adult dog and trust me you'll made dozens of mistakes over the span of his lifetime.  Marriage?  Family?  Friendships?  Work situations?  Oh yeah you're gonna be a jerk sometimes and some mistakes can never be made right again. 

But not with Eddie. With Eddie there are no regrets.

So last Wednesday we said goodbye to Eddie.  He was in pain and it was my job to take that pain away. I had made a promise.  So I did - with the help of my vet, with my husband by my side.  And with Eddie's passing I felt the familiar tilt to my world, felt my feet grappling for purchase. I felt myself falling from grace.

There will be another.  Not today, but someday. Somewhere another tired old soul has already been left behind or cast aside. This fact is disgraceful and incredibly sad, and when the time is right, I will welcome another chance at redemption.