Dog is my copilot

Yesterday I was in a hurry, running late, just needed two items at the grocery store. I rush into the old building with its narrow aisles and am immediately blocked by a very fat, slow, shuffling man.

I danced in place behind him, fuming, anxious, checking the clock above our heads. Finally there was room to squeeze around him and as I did so, I glanced at his face. He was not good looking.
For some reason this annoyed me too. I dashed through the store, picked up my items and headed to the checkout line, only to find this same man in front of me. Aaargh. Slowly, slowly, he fingered through his wallet, found his debit card, slowly, slowly he lingered over the little keypad trying to figure it out. He was friendly to the checker, let her help him. But mostly he was huge and slow and in my way, and as I said, not attractive. Why did that bug me so?

But for some reason, my irrational, critical, judgmental brain noticed it and filed it away as "unworthy person blocking my path".

Finally (finally!), he was done, and shuffled out the door. I paid for my items and hurried out the door. As I reached my car I noticed the man opening his car door. Inside his car, a dog waited. A big yellow labrador, its tail wagging furiously, greeted the man as he climbed laboriously into the seat. A big yellow lab, all smiles and love. The man laughed and stroked the dog's head. The dog's mouth opened in a huge grin.

And my heart softened and all the judgment went out of me.

What the dog noticed about the man is this: he is worthy of being loved.

Bye bye Lulu

So I had to say goodbye to Lulu last week. She got adopted by a good family, I hope.

For the last few months I have been volunteering at our new local animal shelter, and for as long as I have worked there, Lulu has been a resident. She was in foster care before the shelter building opened in the fall, and she's only 11 months old. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, her beautiful red and white markings, her long floppy, silky ears, her lithe, bouncy body and her sweet nature.

Lulu is an English coonhound and she is beautiful. None of her pictures really captured her eager, friendly, bright spirit. I could never understand why she lingered so long in the shelter. Hunters didn't want her because she'd been spayed. "If the dog's a good hunter, you want to breed it," they said. Families didn't want her because she's a hound dog, and apparently hounds don't make good pets..?

Well, finally someone did want her, and he wanted her so much that he drove over a hundred miles to get her - okay so that doesn't sound like a lot, but he drove the miles the day after a blizzard, in which travel was not advised. The 2+ hour trip took about 4 hours. Nasty, icy, slippery, snow covered, ground blizzards, cars and trucks in the ditch type travel. For a dog. So that's a comfort to me. He really wanted this dog. My Lulu.

So I am happy for Lulu, but also a little sad for me. If I hadn't already had 6 dogs, I would have seriously considered adding Lulu to my family. There was just something about her that went straight to my heart. Now when I drive out to the shelter, and I see the dogs bouncing around in their kennels and my eyes immediately start to search for that little red and white, floppy-eared form, I have to stop and remind myself: she's not there. She's home now. She's home.

Bye bye Lulu. Be a good girl and have a wonderful life.

(be sure to click the link on Lulu's name, and watch the video of this happy girl.)

The Vomiterrier

One of the lovely things about mutts is that you can make up breed names for them. Yogi, formerly known as the Boxspringer (Boxer/Springer Spaniel mix), has become the Vomiterrier.

Dogs barf. This is pretty common behavior for dogs, probably because dogs are eager to put pretty much anything into their mouths. (Occasionally when a dog vomits, it's because he is actually ill or poisoned, as we learned to our dismay a few years ago, and lost one of our dogs.)

Yogi is the champion of putting bizarre things into his mouth, getting a tummy upset, and then trying to quell his nausea by, are you ready? - licking the carpet. Lick, lick, lick, lick. He will also lick upholstery. He cannot be stopped in his licking. Eventually, he vomits. Sometimes, he vomits while people are awake and can take instant action to remove him from the interior of the house. But usually, he waits until the wee hours of the morning, and then ...

Well, if you're lucky, he's not in the bed beside you. I have not been very lucky in this regard.

Or, you stumble around in the morning in stocking feet and - squash- step into something.

That something is often an incredible and unusual collection of really weird stuff that Yogi has managed to ingest. Dogs are just pretty damn weird, not unlike sharks in their ingestion habits.
If it fits, it's in. If it doesn't fit, I'll just chew it up into small enough pieces until it does fit. Plastic toys and cups, stockings, blankets, beanie babies, leather, plants, rugs, cardboard, rope, crayons, markers, pencils, pens, wooden and plastic spoons, well, the list is endless.

So for now, when we see Yogi licking the carpet, he's off to the basement for the night. Actually,
he's off to the top of the stairs next to the basement door to cry and whimper and whine all night. Except when he's licking the basement floor or vomiting.

The Dog's Mind, by Bruce Fogle, DVM

So I'm doing everything wrong. I read about dog-on-dog aggression in Bruce Fogle's book, "A Dog's Mind" last night and catering to the submissive dog is a big No-No. Well, I suspected that, but it's so hard to overcome my soft-hearted human impulses.

So for now:

• no squeaky talk - dogs think you're a puppy, and low in the heirarchy
• speak in a soft, low, authoritative voice
• no greeting them when I come home - ignore them until they calm down - the human initiates the contact
• greet the dominant dog first - commanding officer to subordinate officer, leave the NCOs and privates till later (I'm a military brat)
• make them work for their affection - sit, down, stay

This is supposed to help re-establish the heirarchy, with me as pack leader

I need to always remember that dogs are dogs, they are not human children, and even though my dogs live in America, they are not "free". They live in Dog World, and it's not a democracy.

Peering into Dog World

For the last few months we've had a problem with our dogs. We always have little problems, but this is a big problem. Fighting.

Beau, our big 90 lb. black lab, attacks the other dogs. Mainly, he attacks Tipper, but he has attacked each of them one time or another. But when he attacks Tipper, he is ferocious and wild. Beau lunges and knocks Tipper down, Tipper shrieking in fear, Beau's jaws around Tipper's neck. Often Rocky and REO will jump in and attack Tipper too. The dogs are all in such a state of arousal, that we humans are nothing to them, we don't exist. And Beau won't quit. It's not enough to knock Tipper down - Beau acts like he wants to kill him.

Tipper is the oddball, the social outcast. I cannot decipher why - it's a different culture and language - in Dog World. The other dogs have never liked Tipper. Sometimes when they are playing, he gets excited and forgets himself. He dashes to them and does a play-bow, then the others stop playing and stare at him, "Who invited you?" It's painful to watch. He's the weird kid on the playground, and he tries so hard to fit in. But my human feelings can't transform the other dogs. "Come on guys, play nice!" Dog rule may be fair in its canine way, but it's not the Golden Rule.

But generally the other dogs don't attack him. They just ignore him. Except for Beau. Beau hates Tipper. A human word, but it's the only way to describe what I witness. It's possible that Beau is jealous of Tipper - because I feel sorry for Tipper and I play with him when the other dogs won't. I give him attention, I tell him he's a good boy, even if the other dogs don't like him. I feel sorry for him. And there's Beau, watching this - trying to figure out why I don't get it, why is the human fussing over this dog-retard? In Dog World it doesn't make sense. On the other hand, I am supposed to be the leader of this pack. Beau's behavior makes me feel like he doesn't believe I'm the boss. Doesn't the leader decide who's worthy and who's not?

We have talked about "getting rid of" Tipper, or "getting rid of" Beau - both should probably be in one-dog households. But what does "getting rid of" mean? Finding a new home for each of them? I volunteer at a shelter - there are not enough people who want homeless dogs. How can I add two more? Our shelter is full of very nice dogs that nobody seems to want.

Just thinking about this is giving me a headache. I have to figure this out. I have to go read some Cesar Millan now.

Last night I lost Yogi

I let the dogs out about 11:30 for a bedtime pee and when I let them back in and counted heads I only counted five dog heads swooshing under my hand. I counted again. No Yogi. I looked in the main part of the house where I thought he had been tucked up under the table where I was reading. Hmmm. Yogi has a bad habit of jumping the fence and going walkabout, but he hasn't done that since June, so I have gotten lax about keeping a keen eye on him.

For the next two hours I walked around the neighborhood, waited and looked and tried to read and worried and fussed. It was late at night, therefore the neighbors probably wouldn't notice him and get mad. It was late at night and I couldn't walk down the sidewalk yelling his name. It was late at night and traffic was light, so chances are he wouldn't get hit by a car. It was late at night and Yogi loves to sleep with me on the bed, surely he will come home to his bed. What if he doesn't come home by morning? What if he comes home mid-morning while I'm at work and he sits on the porch and the mailman comes and Yogi jumps up and chases him? Then we'll get in trouble.

Finally about 1:30 a.m. I gave up trying to worry him home and went to my bedroom. I stumbled through the dark and changed into my pajamas, then I turned around and looked at the bed. There in the darkness, I saw something white glowing on the blanket. A large solid donut-shaped object. I reached out my fingers and touched warm fur. "Yogi?" He lifted his head a fraction as if to say, "Dude, it's 1:30 in the morning, let me sleep," then tucked his nose under his tail again.

I started to laugh and had to leave the bedroom lest I wake up my husband. I laughed for a good long time, snorting included, then I went back to bed, I had to work in the morning.

Beau : Chapter 2 : A Cat-Herding Dog

Late one night I let the dogs out for one last romp and pee in the back yard. The light was dim from the house and I could just make out their black shapes moving about in the darkness, except for Yogi of course, who is mostly white. Then I heard a meow behind me. I turned and there he was, Tommy the tubby gray tiger cat, strolling out of the basement door. At this time, the cats were restricted to the indoors. We had just moved to this house, on a busy highway, and we didn't want to risk losing our cats to tire treads.

Anyway, here I am in the dark back yard at midnight with 6 busy dogs and 1 loose cat. One wily loose cat. I scooted over to pick him up, but he darted away, with more speed and agility than his rotund body might suggest, his dainty paws scurrying under his fluffy round self. I called his name, hoping he'd come to me, but he just kept moving into the darkness, tail held high, rear end winking back at me.

I called the dogs in and they all came swooping by me and into the basement and I counted tails, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, while I tried to keep an eye on the cat in the yard. I would have to stumble out into the darkness and try to catch him. "Tommy!" I yelled, then remembered it was midnight, and I had neighbors who already disapproved of my menagerie. I would have to try to outstealth a cat. "Tommy," I sang, hoping to lure him to me. This was stupid, and I knew it, the cat would come or he would not come, but only the cat would decide. Stupid human. Beau had ambled back out of the basement and paused next to me while I called softly a few more times and grumbled to myself, "damn cat, stupid Tommy." At those words Beau looked straight up at me, then out into the dark yard, then back at me. "Oh, you want that cat? Why didn't you say so?" And off he loped into the darkness, heading straight for a murky gray shape at the base of a tree. "BEAU!" I yelled, then shut myself up. Shaking my head and picturing Beau chasing Tommy clear over the fence, I quickly closed the basement door before the rest of the pack came tumbling out, then turned to look for Beau and Tommy.

The yard was murky, I couldn't see anything. Then Beau's form took shape again, loping along the back fence, then stopping suddenly. I could just make out his fur gleaming in the dim light. He was standing still and pointing his nose at a fuzzy gray shape on the ground. The fuzzy gray shape bobbed away, and Beau bounded after it, made an end run around it, and stopped again, pointing. Then he swung his big head up toward me again and I could see his white teeth smiling. Beau was herding the cat! Holding him for me. Good Beau! I grinned.

I made my way carefully across the dark yard. I'm clumsy in the daylight, walking on smooth surfaces, walking across a sloping yard pitted with dog-dug holes and branches and dog toys was intimidating. But Tommy still squatted, obviously annoyed, and Beau still held the cat in his gaze. I approached Tommy, and he scooted quickly right by me. Just as quickly Beau loped around me and the cat, turned and held him with his eyes. The cat's ears pressed back against his skull and he turned and ran the other way, in his ridiculous little mincing steps, followed immediately by Beau, with his great long strides.

After a few more turns, Tommy gave up and allowed me to heft his fatness up into my arms.
"Good dog, Beau!" I whispered, "what a good boy!" Beau bounced merrily at my side, bounce, bounce, bounce! What a good dog, a cat herding dog.