Variety is the Spice of Life

Lately, I've been volunteering at the animal shelter on Monday and Friday mornings. My schedule is really tight, but I tell myself that I can give up a few hours a week. Sometimes, it can be difficult to get there, but the variety of dogs I'm exposed to at the shelter keeps me going. No surprise, this tiny chi was adopted right away. Good thing because I was tempted to take this little flower bud home myself!

Juju is a 10-year old pug. Lucky that I don't know who her previous owner was because I wouldn't have been nice to him/her. Juju is about twice the size she should be, and her nails were so long that she had to walk on the sides of her paws. I'd like to meet Juju's previous owner alright--in the back of a dark alley! But a dog park friend of mine, already a pug owner, has taken Juju home as a foster--thank goodness for kind people like her! Juju has been bathed, her skin folds have been swabbed out, and her nails have been clipped. Going forward, she'll get the daily exercise she so badly needs and hopefully get down to a healthy weight.

The area around the shelter is very industrial and run down, not the prettiest scenery. But I've come to appreciate these big cement blockades--they make a great leash walking practice course. I like weaving back and forth through them, changing directions unexpectedly to keep the dogs' attention on me. Pictured is Bo, a 9-year old Gordon setter who is recovering from Lyme disease.

I'm always surprised by how scared dogs are of this car wash balloon guy. Big, tough pitbull Major was completely freaked out by the blowing advertisement. I could not get him to walk past it, so we ended up having to cross the street to get around it. Makes me realize how important guide dog puppy training was--I know Cabana could walk by it without a flinch.

This is 12-year old Chili. He walks on 3 legs but gets around well in spite of his handicap. The shelter is paying for surgery to correct his hind leg, and he'll need a 6-week recovery foster. I think it's awesome that they are willing to spend the money on a senior dog like Chili. He deserves to live the rest of his life in comfort and good health. Yep, volunteering is definitely worth any time I can give.

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I Miss That Crazy Dog

I took this completely un-Photoshopped photo a few days ago, using a slow shutter speed on my camera. I love the way it makes Francie look like a ghost or fading memory as she walks through our house. While I'm still rejoicing about Francie getting adopted, I absolutely cannot believe how much I miss her. She was only at our house for a week, but she was a part of my daily life for the past three months.

Want to hear an interesting story? The first night of our foster, I put Francie's red "adopt me" jacket on her and took her for a walk at a park near our house. I was desperately trying to get her as much exposure as possible. That day, I had contacted numerous rescue groups, pit bull organizations, and made the Craigs List post--everything I could think of to get Francie out in front of people and hopefully, that one Right Person. As I walked through the park, I saw three grade school-aged kids watching us. When we got close to them, the oldest, a girl of about 13, pointed to Francie and said, "That used to be our dog." I had to ask her to repeat herself three times because I couldn't get what she was saying through my thick head! She said that Francie, who's name used to be Carly, was owned by their 23-year old brother. Carly ran away when she was 8-months old and was picked up as a stray. They eventually went to the shelter and saw that she had been renamed Francie (they must have waited for a long time for her to have been given a name by then), but their parents didn't want to pay the $400 to reclaim her (it actually only costs $40, but the girl had apparently been told that it was $400).

She ended by saying, "Well, at least she has a good home with you now." I pointed to Francie's "adopt me" jacket and said, no, she does not have a home, that she has been at the shelter for over 7 months, and that she was almost euthanized. I said it as gently as I could, but I didn't want to sugarcoat the situation either. I felt they needed to know that the choices their family made had huge ramifications, namely, making their dog's life a living hell. Hopefully, if they ever get another pet, they will not repeat their mistake.

But I just got off the phone with Francie's new owner, who reports that Francie has slept on his bed for the past two nights. He told me initially that she would be sleeping on her own dog bed on the floor next to his bed--I've never been so glad that someone's resolve caved! It's a good sign that Francie will be living the spoiled life she deserves.

Francie's owner plans to make Francie her own Facebook page so we can all follow along in her adventures. He says I'll be jealous when I see the amazing life she's living. I'll be sure to share the link so we can all jealous together!

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Two Days In

Two days into fostering Francie, and we are settling in okay. It's not easy, but it's not terrible. This morning, I fed the dogs near each other, which was a baby step in the right direction. Neither of them are food guarders. Francie was only eating about half her food when we first brought her home (she never ate much at the shelter either), but I'm happy to see that her appetite has improved greatly. She still leaves a bit of food in her dish, which I've been letting Cabana finish eating--I want her to feel there are at least a few perks to having Francie in the house.

I took these photos a few minutes ago, and in reviewing them, Cabana's discomfort is evident in each one. Cabana tolerates Francie, but she doesn't enjoy her one bit.

Francie is just so bossy. If Cabana is sitting near me, Francie comes over and makes Cabana move, then she lays all over me, trying to claim me. Whenever she does stuff like this, I put her on tie-down or in her crate. It seems to be working because Francie is getting slightly less bossy. Just slightly, though.

I feel bad when I restrain or confine Francie, but that's the only way that Cabana can relax. (FYI, I never leave the dogs alone together.) I was telling my shelter volunteer friend about how guilty I feel, and she reminded me that up until two days ago, Francie lived in a concrete cell with one hour of exercise and interaction if she was lucky. Now, she has a soft bed, a doggy door leading out to a yard, plenty of exercise, lots of cuddles, and a clean, quiet, stable environment.

Another volunteer told me that the dog above got put down at the shelter today. He bit someone the day after Francie did. The story is that someone stuck their fingers through his kennel bars, and he bit them. I don't know how much damage he did. Francie's bite was accidental, but this dog's was on purpose, I guess you could say. I still don't think it warrants losing his life, but that's the way the shelter is doing things now. So I'm glad Francie is out of there; otherwise, she'd be in their freezer.

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Quarantine for Francie

For the past two months, I have been going to the animal shelter six days a week to work with Francie. Sometimes, we go for a hike, other times we play Chuck-It at the park. When it's too hot to walk or play fetch, we mostly snuggle in the shade of a tree. I started doing this because Francie was floundering. She had lost a lot of weight (she was already skinny to begin with), wasn't eating her meals, didn't wag her tail, rarely sniffed anything, and seemed to be constantly pacing.

I knew what Francie needed was consistency and plenty of exercise, so that's what I tried to give her. Now, she is eating her meals and seems truly happy when we are out together. She is extremely affectionate and sweet. Look at that happy face in the pool!

The first three minutes with Francie have always been a challenge because she is beside herself with kennel stress, excitement that someone has come for her, and anxiety from all the other dogs in the adjoining kennels barking and going bonkers. She doesn't know what to do with herself, and so she bites the leash. After all this time, I know exactly what she's going to do, so I don't allow her to do it. I grab her collar before she can go after the leash in my hand, I clip the leash on, and we exit the kennels as quickly and safely as possible. We've got our routine down pat.

Today, as usual, I went to walk Francie, and as I started to go into the kennels to get her, one of our animal control officers stopped me. She said Francie had bitten her arm and had to be quarantined for 10 days because of rabies or whatever. The bite was purely accidental (as usual, she was trying to bite the leash), but still, due to rules and regulations, I am not allowed to be anywhere near Francie for the next 10 days.

So I went home and showered. But then, because there is a lot of ugly political stuff going down at the shelter this week, I got scared. There has been talk about having to euthanize half the animals at the shelter due to budget cuts. In a panic, I quickly got dressed and drove back to the shelter to make sure Francie was still there and still breathing.

Thankfully, I saw that she was alive, in the quarantine kennel behind the building. I found the shelter director, and I asked her to promise me that they would not put Francie down. She assured me that they would not euthanize her, but it broke my heart to see Francie back there, cooped up and not able to do much of anything. Francie could see me and hear my voice, and she started yelping and whining. The one hour that she looks forward to each day has been taken from her. She's being quarantined for a behavior that is caused by kennel stress. And yet, the consequence for that behavior is to confine her and cause even further kennel stress. How is that right?

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Baby Steps for Francie

Fresh on the heels of getting a successful home for Seamus/Buster, in my "out to save the world, one dog at a time" zeal, I decided to hone in on my training efforts with Francie, the young white pitbull at the shelter. All we know about her is that she's very smart and loves to snuggle, but she also tends to freak out and grab her leash with her teeth (which my poor thigh still bears testimony to from nips several months ago). She is absolutely ball-obsessed and INTENSE in everything she does. For example, Francie doesn't just drink water--she DRINKS water, frenetically lapping up everything in the bowl, splashing and dripping, as though she hadn't had a drop of water in the past week.

Because of Francie's intensity and unpredictability, I can't bring Francie home to foster. Until I know more about her, I don't want to risk my family, Cabana, our cat, or our home. Still, I felt I could do more for her than just taking her for a short walk and playing 20 minutes of Chuck-It with her until she was too pooped to go after the ball anymore, whereupon she would lay down in the dirt and gnash the ball into shreds.

So yesterday, I asked for permission to take Francie offsite, to give her a change of scenery, see how she behaves in the car, and eventually, in weeks to come, maybe I could even take her to my house for an hour or two. After all, how a dog acts in a house is what potential adopters want to know--is she house trained, does she get on furniture, does she chew shoes, can she be left on her own, etc. We don't have any answers to those questions right now, so how many people are going to be willing to adopt her? Although I guess it only takes one.

Francie was okay in the car, definitely not as stressed as Seamus had been. I put her in Cabana's usual spot in the back of the car. Looking in my rear view mirror, I could see the top of Francie's back convulsing and convulsing. I thought she must be vomiting, the way her back was undulating like crazy--is she car sick? No--she was just humping the dog bed. Humping and humping and humping. What's with that?!

I made Francie a purple front-clip harness, to keep her from yanking the dickens out of my arm. At the shelter, Francie tends to pant and pace. If she's within 100 yards of the Chuck-It area, she pulls like a draft horse to get over to it. She doesn't sniff, rarely wags her tail, and can't seem to relax.

The road in front of the shelter is super ugly, not many good smells, and lots of trucks. I took Francie to a nearby lake with a pretty path encircling it, where we ran and walked for 2 miles and then did a bit of training (sit, down, come) with a retractable leash. Francie heeled very nicely in the harness and seemed generally happy and calm to be away from the shelter. Good things!

That was yesterday. Today, I decided to change things up a bit with Francie. Again, I ran/walked with her for 2-3 miles, then we stopped at the park where I always take Cabana. It was raining, which was ideal because it meant the fields were totally empty. Since there's still a lot I don't know about Francie, I didn't want other dogs around to create potential problems.

I thought Francie would look at the big green field, full of soft grass, and think, "Wow, this is awesome!" But instead, she was tentative. She stuck close to me, even though I had put a 10-foot drag line on her so we could do some recall work (with me still holding the drag line, just in case something made her bolt).

After about 10 minutes of walking on the field and practicing "come", I let Francie have the frisbee that I had been holding. I didn't want to bring a ball since Francie is already so ball-obsessed, but I thought a frisbee might be a nice alternative for her. Holy guacamole, was I wrong!

Francie took the frisbee in her mouth, and it was like a switch went off. She became frenetic, growling and thrashing. She wasn't being aggressive toward me, yet I couldn't tell if this was her way of playing or exactly what she was doing. But it was undesirable behavior, to say the least. I got the frisbee away from her and hoped we could go back to just walking calmly...toward the car! But Francie started biting and pulling at the drag line, which suddenly became exceedingly long and cumbersome and impossible to pull away from her.

The one thing that has always made Francie stop this kind of behavior is a squirt bottle. A couple squirts of water in her face, and she stops whatever she was doing--so I ALWAYS have a squirt bottle with me when working with Francie. And I had a squirt bottle with me now--but maybe because it was raining, the squirt bottle tactic didn't work! After all, she'd been "squirted" by rain all morning.

Suddenly, I was vexed that no one else was at the park, since no one would hear me calling pitifully for help. Finally, I had to unclip the drag line, drop it and everything else I was holding, grab Francie by the collar and drag her to the car.

(Sorry this post is so long. Thanks for hanging in there with me!)

In retrospect, I don't know if it was the frisbee that triggered something. But what I do realize is that Francie is a dog who has done nothing new in the past 60-120 days (however long she's been at the shelter, I don't know how long she's been there). She's been looking at the same four walls for 23+ hours a day! I was being overly ambitious in exposing her to new things. A car ride and a 45-minute walk would probably be more than sufficient, and I should have been much more gradual in doing more. She's just so muscular and athletic, I thought she could handle and would be craving more physical activity--but I forgot to consider her mental capacity. Some dogs may have been fine with what I did, but since I don't have any idea what Francie's past was, I should have been taking baby steps, not leaping vaults.

I learned a lot today, and thankfully, I don't have any new teeth marks on me. And I've made it through to try to save the world again tomorrow...or not.

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Can Somebody Play with Me...PLEASE?!

Hello?! Is there anybody over there who wants to play with a nice little Lab like me?

What about over on this side? I'm an EOD (Equal Opportunity Dog).
I'll gladly play with any breed, age, size or color! Hellooooo?!

Nyah!! Dog parks are boring when there's no one (except Mom) to play with.

I mean, Mom's great and all, but I can play with her any old time. Sigh. Poor, poor little puppy me.

Hold your dobies and doxies, I think I see someone coming. And he's all dressed up...in a tuxedo!?


C'mon, let's party! (I finally get a friend to play with, and Mom can't even take a properly focused photo.)

Okay, this is much better on all counts. You may be fast, Mr. Tux, but you can't catch me!!

Now it's time for a game of leap-dog! You can go first.

Awww, thanks, I had fun, too. I do like dogs of all kinds, but next to Labs, pit bulls are one of my favorites. Let's play again soon, but next time, you don't have to get so dressed up!

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