Getting Our Pet Fix

No matter where we housesit, we inevitably get attached to the pets.
We frequently bring up pets that we have cared for and laugh at the dachshund that wanted to attack swans twice his size

or the one-eyed English dachshund that disappeared into a badger hole, 

or the puppy that grabbed a frozen squirrel and ran away from us. 

It's no different here in the Berkshires where we're caring for a 15-year-old, arthritic yellow lab and two cats.
We were warned before we arrived that the dog, Jenny, is having trouble with incontinence. And that has proved to be true. Most mornings when I come downstairs to teach at 6 a.m., I have to clean up the floor where she has left her pet nuggets overnight. But that's part of pet ownership, isn't it?
The cats are quirky in that they follow us when we walk the dog.

We don't go on real roads, but we do walk along a dirt road sometimes, and if a car should come along, the cats are smart enough to disappear into the ferns and plants along the road. The problem is, they don't always come back out.
There have been plenty of times that Earl or I have had to go back searching for them, and there they are, hunkered down in the same spot where they jumped off the road, as if they couldn't possible find their way back.
One day last week, the pet's dinner time arrived and the cats were not milling around underfoot. I fed Jenny and asked Earl if he had seen the cats. They're indoor/outdoor cats. We lock them inside at night because there are so many predators that would like a tasty cat morsel.
We both tried to recall when we'd last seen the cats.
That morning, Earl and I had gone for a 5-mile walk, but Jenny hadn't come and the cats usually only followed when the dog was along.
Earl went onto the front porch and started calling for the cats (they do come when they're called sometimes).
Jenny ran to the front door to be let out. I opened the door and she raced past Earl and up a path into the woods, barking crazily. She barked and sniffed and ran a zigzagging path until we couldn't see her anymore but we could still hear her.
After a bit, she came into view still barking and running.
We couldn't believe the way she was moving. This is an arthritic dog that gets medicine every morning and evening. But we had been out of her meds for three days.
"I feel like I'm in an episode of Homeward Bound," I muttered to Earl.
He went in search of the cats, heading toward the grandparents' home down a different trail.
About 10 minutes later, as I stood on the front porch, I saw Kepler, the black cat come bounding down the same path that Jenny had gone up. He stopped and looked behind him in a paranoid sort of way. There came his sister Tanna after him down the hill.
They both came into the kitchen for food as if nothing had been amiss.
I could picture them up in the forest, lost, until they heard Jenny barking and searching for them. She led them home.
So, in a way, it was like the movie Homeward Bound, only the cats were lost because they just don't have a good sense of direction.
Not too long now, we'll be leaving behind these pets that we've grown attached to, but we know there'll be future pets to enjoy.

Dogs and Relatives

We were dogsitting this weekend for Earl's niece's dog. She and her husband went to Philadelphia for the weekend and asked if we could drive up to let the dog out three times a day. We said we'd just bring the dog to our house. Her name is Hannah and she's a beautiful creamy cinnamon color with a tail that curls up and around. She's about two years old. She jumps a lot, which leaves her skinny. She's medium-sized, coming up to my knees and she's a mutt with a longish snout. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, three incidents convinced us that Hannah may be a danger. Here's where I need your advice. Do we tell Earl's niece that her dog is antisocial in hopes of protecting future children and visiting pets?
Tucker and I brought Hannah home and the cats immediately took to the high road, climbing on the mantel and window sills to avoid the dog. Hannah barked at the cats, but seemed much more interested in hanging with the humans.
Saturday morning, Earl and I walked down to the post office to mail a package to Grace. Then we stopped at Caribou Coffee. We couldn't take Hannah inside so we thought we'd stop by Sheila's house to warm up.
Sheila has a dog about the same size as Hannah, but her dog is named Little Ann. Little Ann did not seem too thrilled for Hannah to visit. They sniffed each other for a few minutes and Ann began to gather her toys so she didn't have to share them with Hannah. After a few minutes, Ann climbed up on the couch next to Sheila. As we talked, the dogs settled down. Then before we could move they were snarling, teeth bared then biting. We grabbed Hannah's collar and pulled her back. Our visit ended there until Sheila texted me that evening to say they discovered an inch-long gash on Ann's belly. Hannah had drawn blood.
The neighbors have a dog named Rocky. Medium-sized, but furrier and sturdier than Hannah. Hannah and Rocky met through the fence. They ran back and forth along the fence barking at each other. The neighbor suggested we bring Hannah over to play with Rocky. Earl took her over and the dogs ran and barked for a few minutes. Then snarling and biting ensued. The neighbor was yelling at the dogs and Earl was afraid Hannah would bite him. He dove into the dog pile, which happened to be in a rosebush, and pulled Hannah away from Rocky. Earl came away with a gash from the rosebush. Hannah had drawn blood again, although inadvertently this time.
Earl and I sat on the couch discussing the dog incidents. He suggested that Hannah is an alpha dog and tries to dominate even when she is on another dog's turf.
Tupi had climbed into my lap. Hannah came toward Tupi and got too close. Tupi reached out and swiped the dog's nose. He didn't draw blood or leave a mark, but Hannah yelped and jumped back then came toward me and Tupi with her teeth bared. Earl yelled. I mean really yelled and pulled the dog back.
Usually, when a dog gets swiped by a cat, it backs off. Hannah instead moved to attack.
We returned Hannah this afternoon, leaving her in her kennel in the family room before Earl's niece and husband flew home. She called and told me they were home and asked if everything went okay.
"It was fine," I said. "She didn't get along with the cats." We both laughed.
I know. Grace has already told me that they need to get busy socializing the dog before she gets older. But they're a young couple without kids and their dog is their baby. I especially didn't want to go into a litany of the dog's misbehavior when they were just off the plane.
So what do you think? Do I call them and non-chalantly give the details. Do I say I'm worried about the dog and go into details? Do I just let it go and refuse to keep the dog next time?
We always had kids climbing all over our dog. She knew she was at the bottom of the pecking order -- even under the cats. She barked a lot, but I don't remember her baring her teeth at anyone or another animal.
Is Hannah a danger to other animals or people, especially children? Do I tell the niece?

Furry Visitor

This spring Grace has been walking the dog of a friend who I teach with. The woman has a stress fracture in her leg and can't walk her five-year-old golden retriever. She pays Grace to walk him five days a week. On days when Grace has to work and has swim practice, or during the craziness of graduation, I would sometimes walk him. He's a nice dog and I didn't think twice when she said she needed someone to watch him while she goes on vacation. (She has a husband and an 18-year-old son who are both home but won't help with the dog.)
I agreed to keeping the dog here and didn't think about it again, until I mentioned it to Earl and he said, "I don't want a dog in the house."
That put me in quite a pickle. I felt like I had committed to keep the dog, so I told Grace we would have to brush the dog and clean up dog hair everyday to alleviate the hair situation.
Grace drove his gates and bowls and foods home in the car while I walked him the mile and a half to our house. He got a bath in the backyard and quite a bit of brushing before we let him inside. Here are the clumps of hair we removed from him.

He's a good dog although he has gotten us up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom both nights. I think he sleeps in my friend's bed, so isn't used to being alone at night.
Well, he isn't exactly alone. He has the cats, who, as you can see, feel right at home with him.

Lucky Me

This little guy has kept me busy this weekend. No, I haven't lost my mind and adopted a puppy. The first few minutes of holding this wriggly guy, my thoughts were, "Oh, he's so cute."
But by the fourth time he peed on the one rug in the house and pooped on the wood floor behind the chair, I remembered why I don't have a dog.
Lucky is his name. He's a miniature beagle and pug mixture.
"What do they call that?" Spencer asked. "A bug?"
No actually they call it a puggle and Grace is dogsitting him. Of course, Grace has a very busy life, so while she's gone to swim practice and concert competition, I get to keep an eye on the dog. At first we let him run around the house. Then we figured out we needed to keep him confined to his kennel or outside. Last evening, I took him out twice and he peed twice within the span of half an hour. Fifteen minutes later, he peed on one of the girls at Tucker's birthday party while she was holding him. Back to the Kennel for Lucky.
He's 10 weeks old and about five pounds. I'll try to get a picture of him next to the cats so you can see how tiny he is, and so he doesn't look so evil.
We're making progress, I guess, because when I got up this morning, he hadn't peed in his kennel, which he did yesterday. Right now, while I have my morning coffee and check my favorite blogs, he's outside in the yard alone and he has stopped scratching on the door. I'd better go check on him. He goes home today. What a relief!

Peaceful Passing

Sometime between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., our dog Rosie died.
She'd been a three-legged dog for about four months, getting used to negotiating stairs on three legs and licking her shaved hindquarters faithfully until the hair grew back. Amputating her leg was supposed to save her life, but the cancer had spread to her lungs, so she began coughing and started refusing all but the most delectable food tidbits. Yesterday, she turned up her nose at a hot dog and wouldn't take any medicine. Her last week was spent mostly lying under the porch swing as the flowers in the backyard waved gently in the breeze and the finches alighted on the bird feeder. She would lift her dry nose to feel the air wafting past and wag her tail at the approach of her family.
In spite of our coaxing, last night she wouldn't come in the house. While the kids and I went to the book store to retrieve the latest Harry Potter book, my husband sat on the ground beside her and she burrowed her nose into his lap, perking up her ears at his voice. He thought she had weeks to go. I thought otherwise. I watched how she wouldn't make eye contact with my daugher when we returned home. Grace sat with Rosie in the dark until friends arrived, taking Grace to an all night reading party.
I asked Rosie again if she didn't want to come in the house. She lapped at the water Grace had placed beside her and settled her nose on her tan paws. The clock read 1 a.m.
At 6 a.m. I wrenched myself from my bed. I was meeting friends for a run. Our black and white cat raced ahead of me down the stairs, anticipating his breakfast. I poured the dry food into his bowl and stepped to the sliding glass doors. Rosie lay on her side in the grass, her paws folded in front of her, no longer breathing.
I am sad she died, but I appreciate the way she lived and how she spent those last weeks of her life. I could learn a lot from her.

Good Dog

We have lived in this house for six years now and my dog still stands at the wrong side of the door waiting to get out. Like a misbehaving toddler from the 1950s, she stands with her nose in the corner. I have to scooch her back as I open the door at the other side and herd her around to that side, avoiding snowflakes and blasts of cold air that are gaining ground in this bizarre spring.
The dog was a bribe to the kids, brought by Santa the year we moved from Michigan, leaving behind a tight group of friends and godparents. In this friendless city, my husband drove to a farm and picked a chestnut brown puppy with floppy ears. She slept in an oversized dog kennel under the Christmas tree that night with a big red bow around her neck. The next morning she never left my 6-year-old daughter’s arms. My daughter named her Rosie, because she thought that brown fur had a reddish tint to it.
Rosie is eight years old now and mostly my thoughts of her have to do with vacuuming up dog hair and picking up dog doo in the backyard. She barks if anyone has the audacity to walk along the street in front of our house and she remains at the bottom of the pack, even under the paw of the kitten we got last summer.
My daughter Grace was certain she could turn this mutt into a show dog. She set up obstacle courses and ran her through them, along balance beams and through tunnels. Grace tried making her a sled dog, attaching the wagon to her ample sides and having her pull small children through the streets. Grace’s last efforts were teaching the dog to be a jumping dog. Grace would pull molded plastic chairs into the center of the backyard and place a long hockey stick across the seats. With pockets full of treats and a long leash, she would jump the stick, her newly elongated legs flying through the air. Rosie would follow sometimes, her belly barely grazing the stick. Other times she would simply stop, nearly pulling Grace’s arm out of socket as the leash jerked to a stop.
This fall, Rosie started limping. We probably waited a month before we took her to the vet, thinking it might go away. The vet diagnosed an old knee injury that was probably getting arthritis. He gave her a cortisone shot and sent us home. We went back two more times for pain medicine as her limp became worse. In March, the knee was so swollen and she was in obvious pain. This time, the doctor did an x-ray. He called me and my now 15-year-old daughter back to look at the x-ray.
A bone tumor.
Where her femur should have been straight and white, the bones seemed to wander off into their own curling paths.
Grace held it together until we returned to the examining room. She sat down, refusing to look at the dog. Tears streamed down Grace’s face as I petted the dog’s soft fur around her ears and neck.
“She doesn’t know why your sad, Grace,” I said.
My husband and I took her to the Veterinarian Oncologist and our very sensible friends refrained from laughing at us. But after two hours listening to the doctor explain chemotherapy treatments and the cost of amputation, we walked out having decided to make Rosie’s life as comfortable as possible. With all of the treatments, they could predict a 10- to 16-month life expectancy. She had already beaten the odds. A dog with this type of bone tumor normally only lives five months. Rosie had been diagnosed six months previously.
So, now I think about the dog much more. I give her medicine every morning and evening. I let her sleep on the living room rug rather than in her kennel. I feed her treats and trip over her chew bones. I’m careful when I open the door to let her out, trying not to brush her sore leg and leaning way into the spring snow to avoid hitting her with the screen door.
She has been the best bribe I ever gave my children.