HinesSight

When life goes wrong, it can happen in bunches

Anticipating how some people are going to react to this blog post, I want to start off by making one thing clear:

While my wife Laurel, our dog, and I are going through a stretch of more problems in our lives than usual, we're fortunate to have a decent income, good health insurance, and a pleasant home.

Lots of people have worse problems than we do, with fewer resources available to deal with them. Like, anyone homeless.

Having hopefully defused the "privilege" objection to what I'm about to say, my main point is simple:

Life can be tough, no matter who you are, and when things go wrong, it's unfortunate that sometimes those problems occur in bunches.

Mooka is our 5-6 year old Husky mix. She came from a shelter, so we don't know her exact age. As I wrote about in January, her hip dysplasia diagnosis worried us. 

She's an active dog. We live in rural south Salem with hardly any flat areas. Our home has several sets of stairs. Long walks and trips to the Minto Brown dog park were favorite activities of Laurel and Mooka.

That was threatened by the hip dysplasia. But in February Mooka started limping badly after playing with a dog she encountered on a walk. At first she wasn't putting any weight on that paw, though now she can, at least when walking slowly.

However, today a vet told Laurel that Mooka probably has an ACL tear in her knee. There's treatments that we're pursuing. However, knee surgery would involve a lengthy recovery period, which for a dog like Mooka, who really enjoys her twice daily walks and other excursions, would be hard to take.

Laurel had to spend many hours dealing with a screw-up by Best Buy after she ordered an induction cooktop and got something else. Fortunately Kelly's came to our rescue, so that problem has been resolved.

But a few days ago Laurel had a lengthy dentist appointment to have a broken crown replaced, after getting a temporary crown about a month ago. Now she has a toothache in that tooth, which shouldn't happen after a crown replacement.

That tooth has been worked on a lot over the years, so Laurel is worried that the root is damaged, which could require an implant. Not a fun prospect.

As for me, I'm scheduled for eye surgery next Monday at Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland. This is related to the glaucoma diagnosis I got about a year and a half ago. I'm very nearsighted in my right eye, which is where almost all of the optic nerve damage has occurred to my peripheral vision, which happened surprisingly rapidly.

So even though two types of eye drops have lowered my eye pressure from the low 20s to about 10 in each eye (lowering pressure is the only way to slow down glaucoma from progressing), the Portland glaucoma specialist I was referred to wants me to get a Trabeculectomy.

I'm pleased that I can spell the procedure. Not so pleased at having eye surgery, a first for me. It'll be good to get it over with, though, since I had to cancel a February surgery appointment when I got Covid last month.

Anyway, while the health problems of my wife, dog, and myself aren't as serious as many people have to deal with, it's been stressful for us to have to cope with them all at once. But that's the way life is: unpredictable.

We just wish life could have spaced out those problems. Sadly, life isn't a conscious being that demands can be made of. Even so, we look forward to life giving us a break as spring approaches.

How our dog drives me crazy: Example 1 of 1,000

I keep reading about how modern dogs are evolved from wolves who became domesticated when people realized that they could be useful, and stopped chasing them away from their prehistoric camps.

That's probably true. But now the dog-human relationship seems to have swung almost totally in the direction of dogs benefitting from living with us. 

Sure, I enjoy the company of our Husky mix canine, Mooka. However, she doesn't contribute very much around our house. The most useful thing she does is occasionally catch a mole or vole that's burrowing in our yard.

Meanwhile, she regularly drives my wife and me crazy. I guess that's her job -- challenging us to stay as sane as possible in the face of her antics. 

This morning Laurel took her for a walk around the community lake in our aptly-named neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates. Walking ahead of Mooka, Laurel realized she was nowhere to be found. And she wasn't coming when called, a sign that something has seriously grabbed Mooka's attention.

Eventually Mooka appeared out of some brush near the lake. She was carrying something. Laurel thought it might be a tennis ball thrown and lost by another dog owner. But no, it turned out to be a goose egg.

It was impressive that Mooka could gently cradle an egg in her powerful dog jaws. Laurel wanted to return it to the goose nest, though. Which Laurel never found. What she did find was newly sprouting poison oak growing in the area Mooka had been rummaging around in. 

So Laurel had to wash her clothes, since we both are allergic to poison oak, and Mooka got a good hosing down.

My afternoon walk with Mooka wasn't so eventful. Just the usual way Mooka drives me crazy on our mostly leashless walk along some Spring Lake Estates trail easements, then on Lake Drive back to our house.

Much of my time on a dog walk is spent staring at a motionless dog obsessing over a rodent hole. Or, some other place where Mooka smells a small critter that she really wants to catch. 

Me, I have the strange idea that a dog walk should mostly consist of walking along with our dog. Mooka has a different understanding.

Pretty clearly she views walking as a means to get from one captivating scent to another captivating scent, spending as much time as possible engrossed in the smells, with as little time as possible actually walking.

I'm fine with this up to a point.

That point has a limit when I start thinking about how much I want to get home and eat dinner, along with watching my recording of All In With Chris Hayes on MSNBC so I can keep in touch with my own obsession: politics and current affairs.

So after waiting for what seems like ten minutes for Mooka to cease her sniffing at some spot, but probably is more like 45 seconds, I start issuing commands to our dog: "Mooka, let's go!" Though her hearing is excellent, Mooka ignores me until, maybe the fifth time I say this, I try to sound more like a stern Alpha pack leader.

"Mooka, let's go, now!" She then ambles slowly away from whatever she was smelling to find a new scent, after which we repeat our little game of me commanding and Mooka very reluctantly complying.

Part of our walk is along a wide grassy part of the trail where it is easy for me to see what Mooka is up to. 

But out here in the country there's plenty of places for a mischievous dog to hide from sight. Like behind this impressive pile of wood from the February 2021 ice storm that hasn't yet been split and hauled away. 

Eventually, though, I put on Mooka's leash when we reach Lake Drive, a lightly travelled road where you can walk along the center line as if it were a yellow brick road that leads not to the Wizard of Oz, but ...

To another thing to stop and smell.

The good news (for me) is that now I have Mooka on a leash and can pull her away from the enticing garbage can. Our house is just a few hundred yards away, so I know that I've survived another attempt by our dog to drive me crazy.

Tomorrow will be another day.

For the love of dog, pave the Minto Dog Park parking lot!

Laurel Hines, my wife, is on a canine crusade to get the City of Salem to pave the horribly decrepit parking lot next to the Minto Brown dog park.

As Laurel describes in the message below that went to city officials yesterday, the parking lot is unpaved, muddy, and full of water-filled pot holes. Every other heavily used area in the Minto Brown park has a paved parking lot.

But not the dog park. 

If you agree that the parking lot should be paved after reading her message -- which includes photos showing how bad the lot is -- send an email to the Mayor and City Councilors urging them to pave the lot as soon as possible: [email protected]

Dear Mayor and City Councilors:

The City of Salem is not being fair to Salem’s dog owners! There is only one usable dog park within the city (minus an apparently small dog park only for small dogs far off on the other side of the river in West Salem). The very small and unkempt Cascade dog park is not currently open. Having only one dog park for all of the main part of Salem is a shame! 

The Minto Dog Park, our only dog park, is beloved and highly used all year around, but the parking lot has long been a muddy, rutted mess in the wet part of the year. It is the ONLY area of the park without a paved parking lot. For years we have been told that the lot will eventually be paved, but that never happens. 

Therefore, the only place to let your dog chase a ball, exercise with your dog off leash, or let it socialize with other dogs, involves a very muddy experience for you, your dog, and your car. Your car’s alignment may also take a beating from the deep potholes.

Also, in the past, the big loop trail dogs and owners use within the dog park has usually been mulched, but that hasn’t happened this year. It is currently so muddy and puddled, that walkers avoid it and trample the grass nearby instead, damaging the grassy areas. 

The parking lot has been full on recent weekend days in January that I have been there, (and quite full  even on weekdays when not raining). It is severely rutted, puddled, and dirty. Dog owners have nowhere to clean off their dogs (or shoes) before putting them back in their cars. Entrances from the field back into the lot are wet, sticky mud. 

MANY COMPLAINTS TO THE CITY

I have asked a number of other Minto Dog Park users if they have complained to any city staff about these issues. Many claim they have complained over a number of years, and all said they were frustrated that it seemed to do no good. 

When I first called the parks department myself, over 6 years ago, I believe, I was told the same thing others are still being told: that the City is aware of the problem, and that plans were in the works to do something about it. But nothing ever happens other than the addition of a water spigot and designated handicapped parking spot several years ago. At least they service the ugly portable potties. 

OTHER CITIES PUT OURS TO SHAME IN DOG PARK SENSE

The Portland area dog parks that I have visited put ours to shame, as does the Keizer Rapids dog park. Most others have rest rooms nearby and fenced areas. Salem’s Minto Park has a big advantage in size and the walking/jogging path within the dog park, but not in facilities or maintenance. All the other dog parks I have been to, other than the Independence dog park, at least have paved parking lots. 

Most Minto Dog Park users like the big dog area, with plenty of room to throw balls a long distance to exercise dogs, to let dogs run and play in a large area, and the circular path to walk or run with your dog. Most Minto Dog Park users probably prefer having no fence, so that only trained dogs are brought to the park. That factor seems to lead to fewer problems with aggressive, out of control dogs. 

But, we sure would like a decent parking lot and mulched paths, and maybe some decent restrooms. 

SMALLER YARDS INCREASE NEED

With new homes being built with smaller and smaller yards, the need for dog parks to exercise dogs has increased. How can you throw a ball or frisbee very far to exercise a large dog in a tiny yard? Leash walks aren’t enough exercise for many active breeds, especially those who need their chase instincts fulfilled by chasing balls, or playing with other dogs. 

DOGS NEED SOCIALIZING AND EXERCISE

Much recent documentation and knowledge has emerged that dogs who socialize with other dogs and other people, and get needed exercise and stimulation, are usually less dangerous, destructive, and problematic. Due to this, Willamette Humane Society and other shelters began having play groups for shelter dogs, even using them therapeutically to assess and improve dog’s behavior and well being. 

INFORMATION FROM SALEM PARK MAINTENANCE

On January 26th, I spoke to Jake Snell, the head of maintenance for Salem Parks. He said that the parking area has been periodically graded to reduce ruts (but not lately), and that the need for paving has been discussed but is not in the purview of park maintenance. He said it would be a capital expense requiring extra funding. He did not know why it was not paved long ago when the other areas were, but did say that new regulations would add some to the cost. 

He said that in the past, the path mulching was done by volunteers, but due to the pandemic or whatever, no volunteers have come forward to do it this year. I asked why the city could not pay to have that done, since there are some piles of chips already available from tree work. He seemed to say that it could be done if they now waited until a drier period to not cause more damage applying the mulch, (however, I saw some recent tractor markings on one trail, but no mulch). 

He did say that although they can’t erect permanent outhouses at the dog park due to it being in a flood plain, they could erect the wood structures around the portable potties that the other parking lots have. 

IN SUMMARY

Don’t dog park users deserve at the very least a paved parking lot and bark mulched walking path? Haven’t we dealt long enough with having the dog park be the only unpaved parking lot in Minto Brown when having pavement is even more important for leaving a wet muddy area with a dirty dog and muddy shoes? It would not be a huge expense for the City of Salem. 

Why after all these years, is it still the only highly used Minto Park area with such a horrible parking lot? Why are the portable potties not surrounded by the wooden structures like the other areas? Why can’t the city have the maintenance crew mulch the trails?

I would really like some answers to those questions.

Sincerely, Laurel Hines

Below are photos from a January 20, 2022 day at the Minto Dog Park. The first three are of the rutted, puddled dog park parking lot. The second is the muddy walking path. The last photo is of the paved lot just inside the Minto Park entrance about a mile from the dog park area, to show how different a paved lot was on the same day. 

(Imagine the difference of being able to change shoes, wipe and load up your dog on such nice dry pavement like that paved lot at the east entrance of Minto Park, as opposed to the puddled muddy ruts at the dog park lot)

 

Mooka, our Husky mix, is obsessed with hunting moles

All dogs are strange. Every dog owner knows this. That's part of what makes them so interesting and adorable -- their strangeness.

Of course, if dogs could talk, I'm pretty sure they'd say, "Hey, you humans are even stranger!" No argument there.

I wasn't a dog person until after a divorce I got married again to a woman who had a purebred German Shepherd. I had a cat. But not for long, since the dog and cat didn't get along. Fortunately, we were able to find a cat lady on the Oregon coast who was able to adopt my cat.

Following the purebred German Shepherd, we've had two Shepherd mixes and, most recently, a Husky mix. Here's a photo of Mooka, taken shortly after we adopted her from a Texas shelter in 2019.

Even though Mooka only weighs about sixty-five pounds, right away I could tell that her Husky'ness translated into an impressive pulling ability. I'm six feet and 175 pounds, but when Mooka pulls on a leash attached to her halter, it's a bit tough for me to hold her back.

That part of being a Husky mix obviously made sense to me, since Huskies pull heavy sleds. And she's good natured, a real people lover, which also fits, given that Huskies traditionally worked closely with humans in an inhospitable environment.

What my wife and I find difficult to understand, though, is why Mooka is so obsessed with hunting moles, gophers, voles, and indeed anything else that lives underground.

When I take her for a walk in the morning, she's had her doggy breakfast. Yet today, like most days, as soon as she got out of the door, Mooka headed right for her favorite mole hunting area on our ten acres in rural south Salem, Oregon.

Catching up to her, I found Mooka carefully sniffing each of about a dozen mole mounds in a grassy field below our house. She inspected each one, eventually focusing on what I assume was the hole with the most recent mole activity.

I've never had the patience or the inclination to wait and see how long Mooka would keep on obsessing over the mole mounds. She never leaves them on their own. I have to call her away from them with increasingly loud calls of "Mooka, let's go!" 

She'll reluctantly walk away from the mole area with a wistful look backward, and an aggrieved attitude of a dog who was having ever so much fun until her killjoy human pulled her away from a joyful activity.

I've read that Huskies have a high prey drive.

OK, that explains why Mooka also is very interested in squirrels, deer, raccoons, and other creatures on our property. It just surprises me that a Husky mix would be so obsessed with hunting ground-dwelling animals.

Doesn't seem like something an Arctic dog would do. However, I suppose moles and such are common in Alaska and other points in the far north during the warm months. Regardless, this is probably Mooka's strangest habit.

She also is an anti-retriever, liking it when I throw a stick and she runs away with it, wanting me to chase her. That's strange, but our last Shepherd mix did the same thing. So maybe I'm the strange one, since I play the dog's game and try to catch them when they race away with a stick.

Fireworks should be shunned like cigarettes are

I'm not delusional. I don't believe fireworks are going to be banned anytime soon.

Heck, here in Salem, Oregon, the City Manager ignored pleas from the public and several city councilors to ban the use of fireworks this year given a severe drought condition and recent record-breaking high temperatures.

But I'm hopeful that with enough citizen education, the downside of fireworks will be understood so well, anyone setting them off on or around the Fourth of July will be viewed by most people with the same don't you know better attitude a cigarette smoker is these days.

I've been familiar with the obvious problems fireworks cause. 

Like, fires. 

Fireworks started an estimated 19,500 fires in 2018, including 1,900 structure fires, 500 vehicle fires, and 17,100 outside and other fires. These fires caused five deaths, 46 civilian injuries, and $105 million in direct property damage.  

And trauma to pets. We've had dogs who were terrified of fireworks.

Many people enjoy the booming sounds and flashing lights of fireworks, but they can be terrifying and overwhelming for pets⁠—and possibly hazardous.

On the Fourth of July, many pets become so frightened by the noise and commotion of fireworks that they run from otherwise familiar environments and people, and sadly become lost. 

Along with scaring wildlife. 

As we enjoy the bright colors and thunderous explosions, it's easy to overlook the impact to wildlife around us. We know what to expect, but wildlife don’t. The abrupt lights and sounds are often seen as a threat by nesting bald eagles and easily startle great blue herons and other colonial nesting birds.

The shock of fireworks can cause wildlife to flee, ending up in unexpected areas or roadways, flying into buildings and other obstacles, and even abandoning nests, leaving young vulnerable to predators. The threat to wildlife doesn’t stop at startling lights and sounds; fireworks also have the potential of starting wildfires, directly affecting wildlife and destroying essential habitat. Litter from firecrackers, bottle rockets and other explosives can be choking hazards for wildlife and may be toxic if ingested.

But when I Googled "why fireworks are bad" I learned that they're toxic, something I hadn't realized before.

Fireworks create highly toxic gases and pollutants that poison the air, the water and the soil, making them toxic to birds, wildlife, pets, livestock — and people — but there are environmentally-friendly alternatives available.

For some strange reason, people around the world have decided that the best way to mark important holidays and events is to have a public fireworks show. We choose to celebrate the birth of a New Year, the freedom of our nation, the triumph of good over evil, by blowing things up.

Most of us are aware that fireworks are dangerous: we either know someone, or know of someone, who ended up in the hospital emergency room due to fireworks, but most people are completely unaware of the more insidious environmental damages and health impacts caused by fireworks.

...But how much more of these heavy metals can just one fireworks show add to the atmosphere? Surely, not much? No, not so. A case study found that within 1 hour of fireworks displays, strontium levels in the air increased 120 times, magnesium 22 times, barium 12 times, potassium 11 times, and copper (Cu) 6 times more than the amount already present in the air before the event.

Pollutants released by fireworks travel far from their origin. Several studies revealed that in mild weather, tagged heavy metals used in pyrotechnics traveled 100 km (62 miles) downwind over a two-day period.

Among the pollutants traced were: strontium, vanadium (V), potassium, titanium (Ti), barium, copper, lead, magnesium, aluminum (Al) and zinc (Zn). These heavy metals add to the toxic pollution in the air. Further, the environmental impacts of these emissions are not confined to the air because these heavy metals are washed out of the air by rainfall, and accumulate in — and pollute — local watersheds.

I don't know if home-bought fireworks are as environmentally disastrous as professional fireworks displays are. They can't be good for the environment, that's for sure. And obviously they bother a lot of people -- including veterans with PTSD -- plus pets and other animals.

One day, I hope, setting off fireworks will be viewed with the same sort of raised-eyebrow disapproval as smoking a cigarette in a public place is nowadays.

There's plenty of other ways to express patriotism on the Fourth of July. Including becoming a super-patriot, my favored approach. 

Patriotism is way over-rated. At least, the way this word usually is defined makes it highly limiting: love for or devotion to one's country. 

OK. I love the United States. I'm devoted to this country.

I also love...

My neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates
My city, Salem
My county, Marion
My state, Oregon.
My country, United States (as already mentioned)
My continent, North America
My planet, Earth
My galaxy, Milky Way
My universe, which let's call Universe

So I'm super-patriotic.

I love and am devoted to so much more than just my country. Celebrating Independence Day (today!) by focusing on the American flag, fireworks, nationalism, our military, the Founding Fathers (no mothers, apparently) strikes me as an excessive attention to a small slice of what every person in this country should be devoted to.

It was a good day for our dog to die

Don't get me wrong. I didn't want our beloved older dog, ZuZu, to die. But she did last night, put out of her misery by a dose of morphine at Salem's emergency vet clinic.

What made it a good day -- and now the tears are coming, as I figured they would when I set out to compose this blog post -- was how ZuZu and I got to have a pleasant day together yesterday, since she went downhill really fast, as I'll describe later on.

Monday ZuZu and I had come back from central Oregon a day before my wife and other dog, Mooka. So on Tuesday I didn't want to leave her alone when I went to exercise at the River Road Courthouse athletic club.

In the morning we'd had our usual walk through our rural property, across a creek, and along a community trail here in Spring Lake Estates. ZuZu seemed pretty normal at that point.

She was walking a bit less energetically than usual, which likely was a sign of what was to come. But when she spotted a squirrel, the old ZuZu came to life. Zoom! She raced ahead and excitedly stared into the branches of a tree the squirrel had escaped to.

I'm so happy that ZuZu was able to chase a squirrel on her last day alive. It was one of her favorite things to do. We also ran into some neighbors walking their dogs, so she got to greet them a final time. Nice.

What I'm most glad about is deciding to take ZuZu to the Minto Brown Dog Park after exercising. It was starting to drizzle. I thought about going straight home. But I thought, "ZuZu enjoys the dog park. I've got time. Let's do it."

Yeah, it's a cliche. Live every day as if it were your last. And usually it isn't practical, since we need to plan for future days. 

However, it's also true that we never know. When we will die. When a loved one will die. When a pet will die. I had no idea when I drove the short distance from our athletic club to the dog park that ZuZu would be dead in less than eight hours.

We had a good time at the dog park. ZuZu didn't play with any dogs, but she did a lot of sniffing and tail wagging. Some people patted her. She peed several times. ZuZu wasn't super energetic, and wandered a bit more than usual, but she seemed fairly normal.

I did talk to her as we walked through the large grassy field. ZuZu had been diagnosed with late stage liver disease. Back in June our vet thought she only had days or at most weeks to live. After I took her to the 2019 WillaMutt Strut event I wrote, "Our dog likely is dying, but we had a good time today."

ZuZu and me back in June

Same was true yesterday. Except the likely turned to certainly a few hours later.

At the dog park I patted ZuZu and told her what a great dog she was, how happy I was that she'd come into our life after our previous dog, Serena, had to be put to sleep. (Another way of saying euthanized.) My wife and I had six good years with ZuZu, for which I'm deeply grateful.

It felt good at the time to tell her this, even not knowing what would happen later that day.

I'm also really happy about last weekend during a visit to our co-owned house in Black Butte Ranch. Laurel and I went to the Sisters Harvest Faire on Saturday without ZuZu and our other dog Mooka, figuring it would be distracting and difficult to enjoy the booths with two dogs in tow.

Sunday, Laurel took Mooka for a walk in the early afternoon. I decided to return to Sisters, browse some shops I didn't enter on Saturday, and take ZuZu for a stroll around the Harvest Faire.

Great decision.

I parked by Paulina Springs Books. We walked to an outdoor store, where I tied ZuZu up outside and she got to be admired by passers-by. Then we had a pleasant time strolling around the artsy booths. There were lots of dogs at the Harvest Faire. ZuZu got to greet them and enjoy the many smells.

ZuZu sat next to a chair I tied her to while a woman selling flowers at the adjacent booth patted her as I tried on a fleece jacket that I ended up buying. ZuZu loved attention from strangers. At dog parks she ran up to people as much as dogs.

It's wonderful, really, that ZuZu went downhill so rapidly. We were able to have some very good days with her just before her death, which wasn't unexpected given her liver disease, but shocked us by the suddenness of ZuZu's decline.

Yesterday around noon she threw up her breakfast. I was worried this was related to her disease, but hoped it wasn't. After we went to the dog park I gave her some white rice and canned chicken. She ate a few bites, the last food she'd ever eat.

Then ZuZu started pacing and panting in an agitated fashion. She'd sit for a minute or so, then walk aimlessly around the house, as if looking for some comfort she couldn't find. I noticed she was stumbling at times. By the time Laurel got home with Mooka around 7 pm, it was clear that ZuZu was in bad shape.

She would press her head against a wall, or against my leg. The emergency vet we took her to said ZuZu probably was having severe headaches caused by a build-up of toxins. The vet thought that the last few months was a rally from her end-stage liver disease.

ZuZu had been on antibiotics, cortisone, a diuretic, milk thistle, and CBD. Thankfully, we had about four good months with her before yesterday. 

Our previous dog, Serena, declined gradually before she had to be put to sleep. That made the decision to euthanize tougher, until it became clear how much Serena was suffering. With ZuZu, there was no doubt. She was in extreme distress, though she didn't utter a sound.

The emergency vet said the fluid build-up could be drained, but it would come back right away. We didn't want to put ZuZu through more misery, so last night the morphine was administered. 

I'm sad. I'll probably be sad for quite a while. 

Yet I'm also glad. ZuZu and I had some good days together, including her last day. Death sucks. But it sucks less when the end comes fast, and pleasant recent memories balance out the pain of losing a beloved pet. 

And it's good to have our new Husky mix, Mooka, to pat and talk to. She can't speak in words, but I get a sense that Mooka is missing ZuZu also. 

CBD drops seem to be helping our dog's liver disease

About six weeks ago my wife and I were told by our vet that our nine year old Shepherd mix (ZuZu) was in the late stages of her chronic liver disease and likely only had a few days or at most, weeks, to live.

Her belly was filling up with fluid. Her eyes were yellowish. She was lethargic and didn't want to eat. 

Along with having the fluid aspirated twice, putting her on milk thistle drops, diuretic, antibiotic, and a cortisone medication, I decided it wouldn't hurt to get some dog CBD -- the non-psychoactive component of marijuana. 

Twice a day we've been putting a dropperful of Select Pets CBD drops, chicken flavor, in her food. 

Naturally this isn't a controlled experiment. I can't prove that the CBD drops are helping ZuZu. All I know is that her vet has told us that she's amazed at how well ZuZu is doing, given how dire her recent prognosis was.

And keep in mind that when the vet told us ZuZu only had days or weeks to live, that was with all the medications the vet had prescribed. Which didn't include CBD, as that was my decision.

ZuZu (photo taken just now above) has pretty much her old amount of energy. Her appetite is strong, though this could be a side effect of the cortisone. There's been no return of the fluid buildup. 

My wife and I are grateful for ZuZu's recovery, even if it is temporary. Maybe the CBD drops are partly responsible for her improved health. Heck, it could be more than partly. 

I'm a believer in CBD myself.

I take CBD drops several times a day for general health promotion. I've read enough about the therapeutic effects of cannabis in general, and CBD in particular, to conclude that the risks of taking it are hugely less than the potential benefits.

So it was easy for me to believe that CBD could benefit our dog, with little chance that it would hurt her.

2019 WillaMutt Strut photos

Today's WillaMutt Strut at Salem's Riverfront Park (put on by the Willamette Humane Society) was a poignant dog event for me. Our dog, ZuZu, is in the late stages of chronic liver disease. Her vet has told us that likely she will live weeks or months, not years.

So this probably was ZuZu's last Mutt Strut -- which she and I have gone to quite a few times. We had a good time, though. I was grateful for that. I'm also grateful that while we humans can grasp impending death, dogs can't.

Yikes. Our dog is becoming more catlike. Not good.

Fortunately, we live out in the country. Thus only a few people would have wondered why we spent well over half an hour yesterday screaming "ZuZu, come!" into increasing darkness. 

However, the bad news is that some of those few people are cat lovers, and our dog's name is ZuZu, so they might have been listening smugly, thinking, "I'm glad we don't have a disobedient dog."

What perplexed us was that until recently ZuZu didn't behave weirdly. Basically she was a normal dog. I mean, look at that sweet face. Could this canine drive her owners into, not quite madness, but definitely major irritation?

Yes. She could. 

ZuZu is becoming more catlike. Now, we don't have anything against cats. I'm more fond of them than my wife, but aside from their bird-killing habit, Laurel is OK with cats. She just doesn't want our dog to act like one.

Yet this is what's happening. Hopefully we're not going to wake up one morning and find a snarling 65 pound feline stalking us, but that's the trendline ZuZu appears to be on. Here's why I say this.

Refusal to come when called. Yesterday, like I always do prior to our evening dog walk, I put ZuZu's harness and blinking light on her, then opened our front door to let her out while I put on my dog walking shoes and clothes. When I went outside just a minute or two after ZuZu, she was nowhere to be seen. 

Which was unusual. Usually she's sitting right there, waiting for me.

I called her. Then I called some more. Hearing me, Laurel came outside. Laurel is the alpha human in ZuZu's eyes, as she does the dog training. So when Laurel yelled in a commanding voice, "ZuZu, come!" and no dog appeared, we knew there was a problem.

We kept calling ZuZu for a long time. We walked around a good share of our ten acres, yelling "ZuZu" and "ZuZu, come!" We got worried that our dog had been attacked by coyotes, or wandered up to the road and been hit by a car. 

Then, when it was almost completely dark, I turned around in our yard and saw ZuZu trotting up, blue light blinking, as if nothing was wrong. Ready for my walk now, was her expression. 

Our theory, based on some sleuthing by Laurel this morning, is that ZuZu was happily chewing on some remnants of a dead deer in the brush not far from the fenced dog yard at the back of our house. Which means, ZuZu must have heard us calling the entire time. 

Her brain just was so engrossed in whatever she was doing -- again, likely chewing on a deer bone, or whatever -- ZuZu felt no desire to obey the "Come!" command that Laurel had taught her. Because she gets amply rewarded with dog treats when she obeys that command, until recently ZuZu reliably came when we yelled "Come!"

However, we'd both been noticing that it was taking her longer to come back to us. Hence, her behavior has been getting more cat-like.

In my first marriage, when cats were the family pet, I recall wandering around the house for many minutes, calling our cat's name,  because there was no sign of the cat and I couldn't be sure that it hadn't gotten outside somehow. Eventually I noticed the cat sitting on top of a tall bookcase that I'd passed by numerous times while calling for it.

It looked at me with the utterly catlike expression of, I heard my name, but I didn't feel any need to move since I was completely comfortable just sitting here. 

That's totally normal cat behavior. Dogs, though, are supposed to come when called. So that's one reason we're worried that ZuZu is turning into a dog-cat hybrid.

Fussy eating. Here's another sign of our dog's cattishness.

ZuZu used to devour her food extremely rapidly as soon as her bowl was put down on the floor. We theorized this was because she had been a stray before we adopted her from a Portland shelter. Eat when you can, as fast as you can, since it may be awhile before more food appears seemed like a stray's motto.

And ZuZu was pleasingly omnivorous. She liked broccoli when we mixed it in to her kibble and canned dog food. Ditto with canned pumpkin. ZuZu wolfed it all down. 

No more. Along with not reliably coming when called, our dog now looks upon her food bowl a lot like I remember how cats eat: fussily.

My recollection is that cats who have graced my life (I'd never say that I owned a cat, since that word implies a higher degree of control than cats I've experienced provide to humans) would turn up their nose if, say, I mistakenly bought some cans of "Fancy Tuna" rather than "Extra Fancy Tuna." 

You screwed up, bozo, our cat would speak wordlessly after sniffing its bowl. Then it would go on a hunger strike until Extra Fancy Tuna returned to the cat food cupboard.

ZuZu isn't quite that fussy.

She has, though, developed some eating habits that remind me of myself when I was young. Now our dog won't eat her kibble and canned food if broccoli is in her bowl. Ditto with pumpkin. Even if we put broccoli and pumpkin in separate containers, if they're close to her dog food bowl, she won't eat until the offending food is removed from the vicinity.

Hopefully ZuZu is just going through a catlike phase of her dog life, and isn't experiencing a feline transformation. If she starts purring when patted, we'll really worry.

For now we're working on restoring ZuZu's understanding of what "Come!" means. And she's been eating her food without much of a problem so long as we keep items like broccoli and pumpkin far away from her bowl.

It's difficult enough to understand why other people do what they do, and people can talk.

Dogs are much more of a mystery, since they inhabit a canine psychological realm that is off-limits to us humans. So we'll adapt to ZuZu's eccentricities, while trying to get her back on track on the come-when-called and eating fronts.

Putting our dog to sleep was a tough decision

I don't like euphemisms. But I still feel better saying "to sleep" in this blog post title than "euthanize," which is what we had done to our beloved dog Serena today. 

It's a really tough decision. I miss her a lot. It wouldn't take much for the tears to return. But one way I cope with emotional pain is writing about it. So, I will.

Partly because I want to share some thoughts that might help others deal with a similar situation. Before I do that, I'll share a bit of what this article says:

Here’s what you need to know about putting a dog to sleep. Veterinarian Marie Haynes shares the most important criteria for putting a dog down and offers help for healing.

Are you confused about putting a dog to sleep? You’re not alone if you feel devastated, guilty, sad, and lost. This information about pet euthanasia is from a veterinarian who had to put her own dog to sleep. She shares her story, and offers general information about the process of putting a dog to sleep.

Here’s the most important thing to remember: ”If you can save your dog or cat even one day of discomfort, you must,” says Dr Haynes.

That’s the number one, most important criteria for deciding you should put your dog down. If he or she is suffering in any way, then it’s time to say good-bye.

Our 14-year old dog, Serena, wasn't in great physical pain. 

Being a Shepherd/Lab mix, she was suffering from a form of hip dysplasia -- a common problem in older German Shepherds. She could still walk, but if she lost her balance and sat down often she needed help to get up again.

Going down stairs, Serena was like a runaway train, unable to slow herself. Going up them, she was like the Little Engine That Could: Serena usually could make it to the top, but not easily. We worried that one day she'd fall and break a leg.

Then there was her fecal incontinence.

Serena's vet thought she had some feeling left in her anal area, but that older dogs with weak hind legs find it difficult to squat for very long. So they just poop standing up, wherever they are.

Which, Serena did. 

We've done a lot of poop cleaning-up inside our house the past few months. Once I spent almost two hours in the downstairs dog room cleaning an amazing nightime mess that I can only describe as a "poop explosion."

Serena had left semi-wet poop in many different places, then stepped in it, laid in it, and spread it over virtually the entire room. Where much of it had dried. Cleaning it up was an experience that made me feel both compassionate and frustrated in equal measure.

Several weeks ago it made us feel better to hear from our vet, "You've put up with Serena's fecal incontinence for a lot longer than most people would have." 

Well, for quite a while we weren't sure what to do. A friend wisely said, "When the time is right, you'll know." A few days ago, we knew. 

Serena's rear legs were getting weaker. She hadn't been herself for quite a while, having joined the ranks of dogs with senile dementia. I'd open a door to let her out and she would walk to the other side where the hinge was, pressing her head against the wall, seemingly wondering why she wasn't getting anywhere.

She spent a lot of time blankly staring out of windows. Normally an affectionate dog, Serena often would walk away when we tried to pat her. In the evening she would pace around the house, unable to settle down. 

Here's what did the most to change my mind about euthanizing Serena. Maybe other pet owners will find this helpful in making their own tough "put to sleep" decision.

During a visit to the veterinary clinic after Serena had gotten diarrhea to go with her fecal incontinence (the cause of her aforementioned "poop explosion"), I told the vet, "I'm hoping that one morning I'll go down to the dog room to get Serena, and she won't wake up -- having peacefully died in her sleep."

He replied, "Usually it doesn't work that way. Dogs typically go through a protracted difficult dying process." 

Not good to hear. But those words didn't really sink in until Serena and I were on one of our slow-motion evening dog walks.

I was thinking about what the vet had said. Then I realized that the euthanasia I'd been resisting up to then was almost exactly like the "going to sleep and not waking up" that struck me as such a good way for our old dog to die.

OK, maybe this seems obvious to you. But it wasn't obvious to me until something clicked in my mind. 

I didn't want Serena to suffer before she died. I wanted her to go out like how I and most other people want to die: suddenly, while still in pretty good health, not after a period of protracted illness and pain.

So today we did the deed. Yes, there were a lot of tears. Yet it felt at the time like the right thing to do, and still does.

We had some good days with Serena the past week. She could still go on walks with us and her younger "sister dog," Zu Zu. Today she put up with patting for a considerably longer time than she usually did. When the vet walked in, she said "Looks like Serena is ready to go."

Maybe the vet says this to every grieving person who has asked for a pet to be euthanized. Regardless, it seemed true, not just kind words.

I'd thought to bring Serena's favorite pad, where she had spent so many hours sleeping or resting on while we watched TV in the evening. Good decision. She seemed comfortable as she "went to sleep."

We were also, even through the tears. Can't ask for more than that. 

Our 14 year old dog teaches me about thankfulness

Serena, a.k.a. our Wonder Dog, reportedly is a Millenium pup, born on January 1, 2000. We got her from a man in Portland when she was a year old. Great deal. Serena is priceless, yet cost us only $75. 

She doesn't look like she did in her younger days. But heck, who does? Surely not me. Being almost fourteen, Serena is something like 100 years old in dog time.

Serena is a Shepherd/Lab mix (her sisters looked like black labs; we were thrilled to get a kind-of German Shepherd-looking dog with a laid back Lab personality -- great combination). Her back legs are weak, a common trait in aging Shepherd canines.

Yet she still can go on a mile walk every evening with me and ZuZu, her four year old sister-dog. Not literally; they just look somewhat alike.

Serena chugs along, uphill and downhill, across two creek bridges, around a neighborhood lake, through grassy fields. I fired up an iPhone GPS app a few days ago. We meander along at an average of 1.8 mph. Hey, not bad for a 100 year old. 

Her pooper, which may not the precise veterinary term for what controls her bowel movements, isn't working very well.

Most mornings we get up to find roundish firm dark "presents" in the room where Serena and ZuZu sleep. A tiled room, thankfully, because some days the poop is mushier. Which, in case you're worrying, is all I'm going to say on this subject.

Because its my Thanksgiving Day thankfulness thoughts about Serena that are important. I'm grateful that she's helped me realize the importance of, so to speak, sniffing the heck out of life every single freaking day. 

No exceptions. 

I used to look upon our evening dog walk much differently. That was when both Serena and I were younger, when it seemed like an endless stream of dog walks lay before us. 

If Serena paused too long to smell something, inhaling the scent of what, to a dog, at that moment, is the most fascinating thing in the world, I'd get impatient.

Hey, Serena, I'd think, get a move on; I've got other things to do than watch my dog obsess over a clump of grass that, to my impoverished human senses, looks utterly meaningless.

Now, though, our walks have taken on some of the quality of the Zen "Enjoy the Strawberry" parable.  

The meaning of living fully in the present moment, neither retreating to the past nor anticipating the future, is wonderfully illustrated by a Zen parable about a monk being pursued by a ferocious tiger.

The monk raced to the edge of a cliff, glanced back, and saw the growling tiger about to spring. The monk spotted a vine dangling over the edge of the cliff. He grabbed it and began shinnying down the side of the cliff out of the clutches of the tiger.

Whew! Narrow escape.

The monk then looked down and saw a quarry of jagged rocks five hundred feet below. He looked up and saw the tiger poised atop the cliff with bared claws. Just then, two mice began to nibble at the vine.

What to do?

The monk saw a strawberry within arm’s reach, growing out of the face of the cliff.

He plucked it, ate it, and exclaimed, “Yum! That’s the best strawberry I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.”

If he had been preoccupied with the rock below (the future) or the tiger above (the past), he would have missed the strawberry in the present moment.

I'm thankful when Serena stops to taste her canine equivalent of a strawberry. My dog-expert wife tells me that dogs experience dementia just like people do.

But I prefer to think that when Serena suddenly stands still, staring off into the distance for no discernible reason, she is drinking in the present moment. Just as I should always be doing. As we all should be.

Because even though I'm appeciative that Serena's advancing age and deteriorating health have helped remind me that I'm in the same sinking mortality boat she is, it shouldn't take a 14 year old dog to remind me that we'll never know when the last time will come. 

Probably it won't be very long before Serena and I take our last evening dog walk.

There's a good chance I won't know which one it is. So I want to look upon every walk as our last walk. I want Serena and I to enjoy it like the best strawberry (or chew stick) either of us has tasted in our entire life.

The older I get (I'm 65 now), the more I realize there is only one way to cheat death: making the most of every moment. Not in a frantic skydiving, tango in Buenos Aires, howl at the moon fashion (though there's nothing wrong with this).

In the sense of being present, in the present. 

Serena is. Dogs always are. Serena doesn't know she's old and getting ever closer to dying. She just knows that when her nose senses an enticing odor, it needs to be attended to.

Watching her, I'm reminded of the Mary Oliver poem. And thankful of that reminder.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

My damn fine reportin' on today's Orygun storm

I am one HELL of a stormchasin' reporter. Proved that today with my coverage of what I call an Oregon Stupid Storm (copyright reserved, all that legal stuff, blah, blah, blah).

For the technically inclined envious out there, all you need to make professional-quality storm-reportin' videos like this is (1) an iPhone, (2) the way cool Lumify app, and enough stupid in you to keep hauling your unwaterproofed phone out in heavy rain.

 

Photos/videos of 2013 Willamette Humane Society Mutt Strut

My wife, Laurel, is a volunteer for the Willamette Humane Society here in Salem, Oregon. She walks shelter dogs one day a week, along with walking our dogs every day of the week. 

Yesterday she helped out at the 2013 WillaMutt Strut event at Riverfront Park. Here's Laurel with our younger, smaller dog, Zu Zu. She aided Annie Ingersoll, Humane Society dog trainer extraordinaire (in straw hat) at the Teach Your Dog a Trick booth.

 

Naturally I demanded to see a trick. Here's a video of Laurel complying.

We left old dog Serena at home. I wanted to defend our hard-won last place finish in the 2012 1.5K Mutt Strut Walk, figuring that with Serena another year older and slower (she's thirteen and a half), we'd have an excellent chance of coming in last again.

But Laurel said she needed to stay at the booth during the 1.5K and 5K Mutt Struts, so I'd have to take Zu Zu on the walk.

No problem. With a 16 ounce mug of coffee in hand, I was ready to go. This year I wanted to do a yin and yang thing: after coming in last in the 2012 1.5K walk, I wanted to be first in the 2013 5K walk. 

I felt good at the start line. And after the 5K walk got underway, I sensed that both Zu and Zu and I were poised for greatness. However, even though I'm married to a habitually fast woman walker, I'd forgotten how quickly females can strut, with or without a mutt.

For the entire route -- across the Union Street pedestrian bridge, through Wallace Marine Park, and back to the end of Riverfront Park -- I watched this woman's distinctive hat remain considerably ahead of me and Zu Zu.

She rocked at the Mutt Strut.

I consider that she was first in the 5K walk, since two people who may have finished ahead of her jogged at times. Her dog also took home the WillaMutt honor (most muttiest mutt). I was fifth in this nominally non-competitive walk that I dearly wanted to win.

However, after mentally eliminating the two 5K walk Struters who jogged here and there, and giving myself a 30 second credit for picking up Zu Zu dog poop close to the finish line (here's a photo of me with the bagged evidence after we finished), and another 30 second credit for Zu Zu pausing to sniff scents more than other dogs did, I give myself Second Place.

Next year... who knows what could be possible with a larger mug of coffee. And making sure Zu Zu poops at home before the Mutt Strut.

The Humane Society mascot was much in evidence, making friends with canines and humans alike. 

 

A highlight of the event for me was a danceoff between Mascot Dog and Mascot Bear. They did their dancing thing while music played for a musical chairs dog game. In the video above I've strung together their oh-so-cute dances.

Didn't show who won, because anyone who dances energetically in dog and bear suits on an August day is a winner to me.

However, the same "everybody is a winner" doesn't apply to the final event of the Mutt Strut, the above-mentioned WillaMutt muttiest mutt judging. I'd entered last year with Zu Zu and lost. I wasn't planning to try again this year, but Laurel shoved me out into the judging area when the competition began.

It didn't go well.

Laurel does the dog training in our home, so when Annie Ingersoll asked to see what tricks the prospective WillaMutt's could do, I was left essentially trickless -- even though Zu Zu knows quite a few. I couldn't even get our dog to sit, since Zu Zu was focused on running back to Laurel.

Desperate to garner some laughs, since I wasn't showing off Zu Zu's muttness very well, I told Annie that I had an unusual ability to time-travel my dog tricks.

Demonstrating, after Zu Zu started walking toward Laurel I said "walk!" After she laid down I said "lay!" I tried to convince the judging audience that Zu Zu was responding to my commands in a time-inverted psychic corner of the cosmos.

From the pitiful applause we got, which determined the WillaMutt winner, it appears that either (1) Zu Zu is just too damn cute to be the WIllaMutt, or (2) I am terrible at selling her WillaMutt'ness. Or, most likely, both.

I probably should switch to the Lookalike contest next year. 

This was the female part of the couple that won this time. The guy she was with wore a different colored tutu. Hey, I could pull something like that off.

A woman wearing a Tae Kwon Do outfit that matched her dog's "gi" was in the top three Lookalike's. Good job. It isn't all that easy to put a top with long sleeves on a dog. 

Our dogs and their "mini-me" felt pet portraits (by Amelia Makes Art)

Today the Salem Statesman Journal's "Pet Click" feature ran an adorable photo of our dogs, Zu Zu and Serena. 

Here is how they looked in the paper.

And here is the SJ web site version.

Laurel, my wife, posed them with their "mini-me's" -- felt art portraits/sculptures marvelousluy fashioned by Amelia, of Amelia Makes Art.

Interestingly, Amelia does her animal art thing (also cats, pigs, horses, maybe others) close-by, in northwest Portland. We can highly recommend her to anyone who wants a unique "portrait" of a pet. 

This was Laurel's birthday present.

She instantly fell in love with Amelia's work after she took a look at her web site. Amelia wanted photos of our dogs from as many angles as possible. Then she fashioned felt figures of Zu Zu and Serena and emailed us some photographs to review and comment on.

We thought she had Zu Zu with too much gray under her muzzle. Amelia made the change. Soon after we got mailed a box with the dog art. As I suspected, we couldn't wait for Laurel's birthday to open it. 

The felt figurines grace a shelf between our kitchen and living room. I'm still amazed at how well Amelia captured not only the appearance of our dogs, but also their personality. That's artistry!

Serena, on the right, is a 13 year old Shepherd/Lab/whatever mix. She usually doesn't prick her ears up, but Laurel managed to get a photo of her doing that. So now Serena is forever immortalized with alert ears.

With her German Shepherd'ness, Serena is more dignified and reserved than ebullient Zu Zu. Zu Zu is a three year old (probably) mutt of indeterminate breed origins. We got her from a Portland shelter after being brought to Oregon from eastern Washington.

They can almost be taken for a mother and daughter. We love them both -- the real live dogs and their wonderful mini-selves.

Thank you, Amelia. We know that Serena won't be with us physically for much longer. But your dog art will help keep her vividly alive in our minds. 

Check out the Amelia Makes Art page of Happy Client Photos -- of dogs with their dog art. We're going to take better photos of our dogs to send to her. This is one of my favorite Happy Client Photos:

If you set off loud fireworks, you're terrifying dogs

Here's a simple fact, lovers of loud fireworks: your enjoyment is being bought at the price of animal pain. Many dogs are terrified of fireworks. So also, I'm sure, are wild animals -- deer, birds, raccoons, etc.

On behalf of our dog, Zu Zu, I just want you to be aware of what you're doing when you set off loud fireworks. I can't inject a sense of compassion into your fireworks-loving brain, though I sure wish I could.

I just want to speak for the stressed-out dogs who can't write a blog post.

And even if Zu Zu could, (she's a pretty damn smart dog) for most of yesterday, July 4, she couldn't have, because she was busy trembling, shaking, anxiously running around the house, hiding in the indoor kennel-with-a-curtain I made for her.

There are lots of dogs like our dog, canines terrified by fireworks.

So I can virtually guarantee that if you live in a populated area, and you're setting off loud fireworks, you're causing severe distress to some dogs. Maybe many dogs.

We live out in the country. Most houses are on several acre lots. Nonetheless, the fireworks started going off early in the afternoon on July 4 and didn't stop until after midnight. 

If you're a fireworks lover, you don't want to know what went through my mind as I did my best to reassure our beloved dog, who is usually calm and relaxed, that her dog world wasn't coming to an end.

I'll just say that even though I'm not the most empathic guy (far from it), I'd feel terrible setting off loud fireworks that I knew were causing dogs and other animals to suffer. Knowing that would take away any pleasure I might get from fireworks.

Maybe you loud fireworks lovers don't care. Maybe you think you have a right to do whatever you want on July 4, even if it bothers animals. OK. Like I said, compassion can't be forced on anybody.

I just want you to think about what you're doing. Most people claim to be animal lovers. Most people wouldn't intentionally hurt a dog.

So why did loud fireworks lovers hurt my dog for most of the day yesterday? I'm asking for Zu Zu. But every person who sets off fireworks should be asking that question of themselves.

I don't get how people feel fine celebrating the day in 1776 when our founding fathers said everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by causing dogs and other animals so much unhappiness.

Behold! A breathtaking dog frenzy on a Metolius River walk.

Our youngest dog, Zu Zu, sometimes goes into a Dog Frenzy. On a walk along the Metolius River in central Oregon, I was fortunate to have been making an iPhone video with Socialcam (great app) when Zu Zu went into a frenzy.

It's shown near the end of my four-minute video, "Metolius River dog frenzy," which also features scenes of the beautiful spring-fed river and Zu Zu exhibiting her agility dog ability in some water'y stick fetching.

 

After an extensive five minutes or so of You Tube research, I am prepared to boldly claim that this is the most authentic video of a true dog frenzy.

Sorry, dog frenzy video wanna'bes: showing your pet getting super-excited over a treat, or you coming come, or going to a dog park -- these are not genuine examples of a dog frenzy.

A Dog Frenzy, capital "D" and capital "F," to distinguish it from inauthentic frenzies, is when a dog erupts into wild energetic racing around without obvious outside stimulation. Zu Zu seems to go into a frenzy just because it is fun.

Surprisingly, a Google search of "dog frenzy" didn't come up with any articles or descriptions of this behavior. I expected that some vets or dog trainers would have written about this phenomenon. 

In the video, the male side of the couple who walk up at the end of Zu Zu's dashing around instantly says, "That was indeed a frenzy." They then told us about their dog's similar frenzied behavior. 

Dog frenzy is real. You Tube don't lie. (Except when it does.)

Oregon's First Cats survive Governor's mansion dog invasion

The state trooper guarding Mahonia Hall, the Oregon Governor's mansion here in Salem, gave me some faulty intelligence. I'm not blaming him; the enemies I asked about are notoriously sly and unpredictable.

"Is it OK to bring our dogs in? We'd been told that the First Cats might be running around the mansion." "You're fine," the trooper replied. "They'll be shut away upstairs." 

(Martha Russell photo)

So began a saga that could have ended in a public relations nightmare for the Willamette Humane Society. Imagine the headline: Oregon's First Cats terrorized by dog pack at lunch won by donors at Humane Society event.

My wife, Laurel, organized the lunch with Cylvia Hayes, Oregon's First Lady (who is the partner, but not the wife, of Governor John Kitzhaber -- which earns her some undeserved criticism from cultural Neanderthals for using the title).

We'd successfully bid on the lunch back in October at the Humane Society's Boo Bash fundraiser. Cylvia had agreed to host a lunch for ten, with Iggy's Catering generously providing the donated meal.

It took a while for Laurel to coordinate arrangements with Mary Rowinski of the Governor's Office, but today we and our two dogs set off for Mahonia Hall under electric power in our Chevy Volt (appropriate, since Cylvia has worked in sustainable economic development and clean energy for over twenty years.)

Laurel wasn't sure whether we should bring in old dog Serena and young dog Zu Zu. Mary had told us that the Governor's mansion was dog-friendly and our canines were invited to visit with the First Dog. Also, that Mahonia Hall was home to two cats. 

Now, to our dogs "dog-friendly" and "home to two cats" wasn't a contradiction.They love to chase cats. Cats are fun! Especially when they run.

But Laurel and I were worried that the mellow vibe of our lunch with the First Lady would be endangered (to put it mildly) if our dogs not only caught sight of the cats, but also caught some part of them. I worried even more that this would happen after our dog pack had careened through antiques, historical memorabilia, and other fragile furnishings in Mahonia Hall.

However, the state trooper's cheerful assurance that Serena and Zu Zu were welcome to attend the lunch assuaged our anxieties. Here's Laurel (in light blue jacket) being greeted by Cylvia and the First Dog, Tessa, a good-natured and attractive Rhodesian Ridgeback. Serena is in the foreground, scoping out the First Scents in the driveway. 

(Martha Russell photo)

iPhone camera in hand, I started to document our tour of the Governor's mansion that Cylvia said she'd take us on while Ian Johnson of Iggy's Catering was finishing the lunch preparations. Serena and Zu Zu seemed to feel right at home. In retrospect, though, I should have paid more attention to how eagerly Zu Zu (at the top) was sniffing around.

Because when we rounded that corner of the room, my worst fear -- and our dogs' greatest joy -- came into view. Cat!!! Strangely, I saw the cat sitting on the back of a chair before Serena and Zu Zu did. Maybe because the room was so filled with feline smells, they couldn't tell exactly where the cat was.

(Martha Russell photo)

Some excitement, but no disaster, followed. I yelled Cat, Cat! while putting a leash on Serena and holding Zu Zu by her collar.

Just in time, because First Cat #2 materialized on the floor. Serena got her nose swiped at, but the claws missed. At that point I started to be more worried about whether our dogs would get hurt, than whether the cats would.

Cylvia reassured the cat that all was well, even with two strange dogs running around the Governor's mansion. The First Cats then were escorted to another part of Mahonia Hall. We never saw them again.

On the other hand, Tessa never left Cylvia's side during our tour of Mahonia Hall. They're very close.

(Along that line, as a blogger I'd like to repeat some juicy stories Cylvia told us about what goes on under the covers of the bed she and Governor Kitzhaber share, but I'm going to hold off in hopes that the National Enquirer will pay me for the lurid details involving sleeping arrangements with a Canis lupus familiaris.)

We and the friends we'd invited to the lunch enjoyed Cylvia's entertaining description of Mahonia Hall. She led us through all three floors of the Governor's mansion.

Serena found some rooms more interesting than others. Like, any room with a cat bed.

Also, any room with a dog bowl.

A low-light of the tour for us came in the basement, where Zu Zu unexpectedly peed on the rug. She never has done this at home. Guess she wanted to leave her mark on the Governor's mansion (we didn't know our young dog was a Republican). Laurel cleaned the wet spot up with some paper towels from the kitchen.

Fortunately, we were told that the basement is the lair of Governor Kitzhaber's 16 year old son and his friends when they come to visit. Having been a teenage boy myself, I know that a little dog pee is well within their gross-out comfort zone.

Heading upstairs, Tessa posed dramatically.

(Martha Russell photo)

The upper floor features what Cylvia described as a ballroom with a nice wood floor. Zu Zu and Tessa enjoyed a bit of dog-dancing play on it. We were shown a small side room where, in the good old days of male dominance (I've heard of those days; haven't experienced them) men would retire to smoke cigars and engage in political man-talk while the women folk exchanged recipes, or whatever, in the ballroom.

Serena, our 13 year old dog, doesn't handle lots of steps very well. She stayed in a comfy spot on the ground floor next to the stairs while Cylvia showed us the upper floors.

Meanwhile, Ian of Iggy's Catering was doing his magic in the Mahonia Hall kitchen.

(Martha Russell photo)

Laurel and I had requested healthy vegetarian food, being health-minded vegetarians. Ian came through, big time. If you're looking for a quality caterer in the Salem area, check him out. We were impressed with the taste, looks, and organic-ness of the salad and main dish he served. (Naturally Ian also can go meat'y, if that's your thing.)

We all felt comfortable in the casual, yet also elegant, Mahonia Hall dining room. 

During lunch our dogs dreamed of whatever they dream about. Cats. Squirrels. Peeing on a Governor's rug. Whatever.

I didn't think about where Tessa was until I pushed back my chair when we were about to leave. Not surpisingly, the First Dog had been under the table, lying at Cylvia's feet.

(Martha Russell photo)

Martha Russell, a talented Willamette Humane Society volunteer, did some quasi-formal photo-taking after lunch. Here's Laurel and Cylvia with Serena, Zu Zu, and Tessa. 

Check out Martha's Adopt an Oregon Dog web site. She's an excellent photographer with a good sense of humor.

Many thanks to Cylvia Hayes, Oregon's First Lady, and Ian Johnson, Iggy's Catering, for a delightful lunch/tour at the Governor's mansion. And a special thanks to the First Cats for adding some zest to our visit. 

Tonight our dogs will be dreaming of their next trip to Mahonia Hall. I'll sneak into that room from the other direction... then slink behind the couch... and pop up right in front of that darned cat... and... [censored].

How our dogs, cute as they are, drive me crazy

Dogs, we're told, evolved along with humans. So just as what other people do is a source of both joy and exasperation for us, family dogs are adept at the same behaviors. 

As are children, of course.

This is why I never regret having only one child. Early on I realized the truth of basic arithmetic: a mother and father together (2) outnumber a child (1), and apart equal the child (1 = 1). However, a mother and father together (2) equal a pair of children (2), and apart are outnumbered by them (1 < 2).

Which explains the qualms I had when my wife, Laurel, decided that we needed a younger backup dog in addition to our twelve year old Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix. 

Instantly my not-yet-completely-senile 64 year old mind understood that when I went on an evening dog walk with two dogs, rather than one, they would form a pack and I would still be simply me. Like toddlers racing off in different directions, the dogs could team up to confound my theoretical Pack Leader status.

Highly theoretical, I can assure you.

My wife is much more adept at dog training than I am, largely because I never try to train our dogs. I follow the approach that worked so well in raising my daughter: give in, because its easier; if she isn't harming herself or anything valuable, or at least is doing so quietly, all is good.

Just as my daughter was cute on the outside yet devilish on the inside, so are our dogs. 

Here's Serena modeling her raincoat after it was delivered (tag is still on). Due to her age, Serena has lost most of her ability to vigorously shake off water, and her fur accumulates rain, so we got the raincoat to make it easier to dry her off after Oregon'ish walks.

And here's our new dog, Zu Zu, modeling her punk rocker Halloween costume. She's supposedly a Shepherd mix (her coloring supports that theory), but Zu Zu radiates mutt-ness in a most appealing way throughout her small, compared to Serena, wiry body.

Our vet figures Zu Zu is about two. That sounds right -- in dog years, a teenager. With all this entails.

When we first got her, I'd take Zu Zu and Serena on leash walks around a two mile loop in our rural neighborhood, because we didn't trust her off leash on trails. I looked like a cartoon character with elastic arms, a leash in each hand, one arm extended way forward attached to a little young dog straining to pull me along, the other extended way backward attached to a big plodding old dog used to walking slowly.

Laurel would tell me that I could train Zu Zu to not pull on the leash. But it seemed easier to do the elastic arms thing.

I was happy, though, when Laurel did enough training with Zu Zu to enable us to take her for walks on trails leashless. I became competent in yelling "Zu Zu!," then rewarding her with treats when she came back. The beginning of my evening dog walk now looked like this.

However, as trained and cute as the pack is, there still are two of them and one of me. Which means that while I'm focused on a dog in one direction, the other one often is up to a Drive The Human Crazy trick that canines are so adept at.

The pack's newest irritation involves a small dead deer. I call it a Loaves and Fishes deer, because no matter how many times Laurel and I try to get rid of the bones remaining after coyotes feasted on the animal, more seem to multiply.

Zu Zu and Serena have different approaches to sniffing out the forbidden fruit bones. They've been buried by coyotes and thrown deep into thick brush by us. Yet they keep reappearing.

Young Zu Zu will race ahead on the trail to the creek, dashing over a little bridge as if she's heading in the right direction. Then she'll circle back through the brush to search for a bone. I'll stand like an idiot calling "Zu Zu!," facing where I last saw her, then see her running toward me in the opposite direction from the deer graveyard, crunching something white in her teeth. 

Serena, on the other hand, is too old to run fast. So she ambles behind me, looking innocently this way and that, like a shoplifter pretending to just be out windowshopping. When I'm focused on trying to locate Zu Zu, who I affectionately call the "Little Monster," I'll look back and notice that Serena suddenly has ambled out of sight -- which means she's searching for deer bones.

Thankfully, Zu Zu has some cat-like genes in her. She likes to carry back a couple of vertebrae, or whatever, and proudly drop them at my feet. I then stash them in a crook of a tree outside of dog reach.

Best of all, today I trailed Serena and found the deer skeleton mother lode: a long leg bone and some other scattered bones. I picked them up, walked home, placed them in a trash bag, and put the bag in our garbage can. 

Deal with that, Little Monster Zu Zu and your pack mate! (Unfortunately, I expect on tomorrow's walk they'll somehow discover more pieces of the Loaves and Fishes deer.)

I could go on and on about how our dogs drive me crazy while simultaneously keeping me sane. For now, I'll content myself with just one more example: Serena's newfound attraction to dining like a Queen. An extremely spoiled Queen.

It used to be that we'd put high quality expensive dry and canned dog food in her dish, call "Serena! Dog food!," and she'd walk over to the pantry where her water and food bowls are kept. Given her German Shepherd heritage, sometimes she'd look at her meal snootily, as if it was beneath her notice. But eventually she'd get around to eating it.

Now, though, she tends to lay on the living room rug and just look at us when a meal is served. On a good day, we can take a section of the newspaper, lay it in front of her, walk to the pantry and pick up her food bowl, then position it (with a bow) between her Queenly Paws on the "place mat." 

Serena then deigns to lower her mouth to the bowl. Still comfortably seated, of course. On a bad day when Queen Serena is in an even more demanding mood, one of us has to dip our fingers into the bowl and hand feed her each bite.

Since we're vegetarians, I find touching canned turkey wet food and dry meaty kibble kind of disgusting. Having a dog tongue lick it off my fingers isn't a great feeling either. 

But that's what you get with a dog -- or a child. Craziness along with cuteness; hateness along with happiness. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Our dogs are featured in Statesman Journal "PetClick"!

Fame. It's fleeting. Especially if you're a dog. Got to divide potential human fame-years by seven.

So today Laurel and I were thrilled to see Serena and Zu Zu prominently displayed at the top of page 6D in the Salem Statesman Journal. (Just five pages from page 1! And three sections from section A!)

Naturally you'll want to click on the image to enlarge our dogs closer to full size. And if you want to preserve the PetClick in another electronic form to become part of your Important Historical Archives, here's the PDF file.
Download Pet Click Statesman Journal 

The only disturbing aspect of this PetClick event is that I'd sent in a different photo to the Statesman Journal shortly before Laurel submitted this photo.

PetClick loves Laurel more than me! I'm devastated. 

I'd gotten an email from PetClick central saying that on Friday, the 23rd, my photo could either be seen in the PetClick online archives (bad) or in the paper version of the Statesman Journal (good). 

Optimist that I am, naturally I figured that today I'd be looking at my photo in the "real" newspaper. Except, my wife beat me out, pushing me into the online archives. I think... I couldn't even find my photo online. 

Here it is, my loser photo.

I figure that PetClick means what it says. You're supposed to submit photos of your pets, not of people. So maybe having Laurel in the photo was what made me a loser.

Couldn't be my marvelous photographic iPhone skills, or the astounding cuteness of the "small dog parked under large dog" pose.

Serena and I slow-mo in Portland's Strut Your Mutt

Two Mutt Struts in a row! Serena and I rule! We got last. Again. Perfect.

Last month our twelve and a half year old Shepherd/Lab mix and me succeeded in our plan to bring up the rear in Salem's WillaMutt Strut. Yesterday, without even trying, we seemingly achieved the same result in Portland's Strut Your Mutt.

Laurel, my wife, signed us up because we adopted our younger dog, Zu Zu, from the Family Dogs New Life Shelter up Portland way, and she wanted to be part of the shelter's fund-raising team.

Here's Laurel with old dog and young dog soon after we arrived at the Laurelhurst Park event. Serena and Zu Zu look like they could be related, but they're distinctly different mutts.

And here's Laurel plus dogs just before the one mile'ish walk started. She took Zu Zu. I took Serena. Laurel likes to walk fast. That doesn't happen with Serena on the other end of a leash. Which is fine with me. I'm happy to go as slow as Serena wants to go.

Yesterday, that ranged from glacial to full-stop, depending on whether Serena was in a meandering or sniffing mood. 

By the time we got close to the end of the Laurelhurst Park loop, few Strut Your Mutt'ers were behind us. Then, so far as I could tell, we got passed by the only mutt that had been challenging Serena for slowness.

A dog with no front legs.

A dog that got around with the aid of a wheelchair-like appliance. When the dog passed us, I said to its owner, "Geez, we're getting passed by a dog with two legs. Could you get your dog to stop and sniff for a while, so my old dog could have a chance of not being last to the finish line?"

Actually, I was kidding. I wanted to be last. Serena and I like to stand out. Last is distinctive. Near the end of the pack, so plebian.

As if we had a choice. The "wheechair dog" could move remarkably well. It did like to sniff almost as much as Serena, but when it stopped sniffing and went back to walking/rolling, we got left in its wheeled wake. This was a non-competitive event, so we didn't get an award. 

In my own mind, though, Serena and I are #1. Counting from the end.

My dog and I are dead last in the WillaMutt Strut. As planned.

We did it! Serena and I finished just where we wanted to in the Willamette Humane Society's 1.5K (.9 mile) WillaMutt Strut Fun Walk last Saturday in Salem's Riverfront Park. 

Last. 

Serena is twelve and a half years old. That's something like 87 in dog years. So Serena has slowed down. A lot. My wife took our younger dog, Zu Zu, on the 5K walk. I was pretty sure Serena couldn't handle three-plus miles in August heat. 

Hence, my plan was to let Serena do her usual walking thing -- which should guarantee that we'd end up in a distinctive position. At the end.

As the 1.5K walkers assembled at the starting line, there was some trash talking between the dogs. At least I assume this is what's going on here. Yo, big old dog! Us cute little fuzzy critters are going to kick your butt. And smell it, too, if we get the chance.

Even before we got to the "Start" line Serena and I had been passed by an overweight dog in a tutu. Excellent, I thought. Race plan is on target.

I felt even better a few yards down the Riverfront Park path, where Serena made her first stop-n'-sniff break (of which there were many). At the pace we were going, last place had to be ours.

Indeed, it didn't take long for a significant gap to appear between us and the main mass of walkers (can I call it the peloton?). 

Spending some time waving back at a WillaMutt Strut volunteer in a dog suit helped Serena and I further distance ourselves from the pack. In the direction we wanted: in the back.

My confidence in our race plan increased when Serena began to add stop-n'-pee to her stop-n'-sniff repertoire. I made no attempt to hurry her up, of course. 

Pleasingly, she found just as many sniffable bushes in the mid part of the walk as at the beginning. Last place was ours!

Almost.

Because there was one competitor I was most afraid of: an elderly woman in a wheetchair holding her dog on her lap, who was being pushed by a female companion. For most of the 1.5K they were comfortably ahead of us.

But on a section where the path doubled back on itself I looked across a stretch of grass and saw something that worried me. The elderly woman had gotten out of the wheelchair and was shuffling along behind it by holding onto the handles. 

Damn! I was worried that as slow as we were, she might be even slower. 

Fortunately, soon we got to a Humane Society volunteer who was overseeing the walk. I told her that my dog and I were hoping to get last place, so were concerned about a woman in a wheelchair who could upset our plan. 

"She's quite a ways ahead of you," the volunteer said. "No worries." Whew. Clear sailing walking ahead.

l spent the rest of the walk, which took us about forty minutes to go the .9 miles, a snail-like pace, thinking up witticisms I could yell at the crowd that I assumed awaited us at the finish line. Wouldn't there be a bunch of WillaMutt Strut participants and volunteers cheering on the stragglers? 

Actually, no. My marvelously witty witticisms went unuttered. There was absolutely nobody at the finish. Not a single witness to our last place triumph. 

I still documented Serena crossing the line.

Figured that my iPhone would have some sort of date/time attached to the photo in case someone else tried to claim our last place prize. No worries about that either; not only did no one try to claim our last place prize, there was no last place prize.

Except in my own mind.

And Serena's too, I bet, because to me she looks awfully proud crossing that finish line. We trained hard for the 1.5K. Spent months walking as slowly as possible on the roads and trails in our rural south Salem neighborhood.

All that not-so-hard work paid off. Last place in the WillaMutt Strut! Next year, we hope to defend our anti-championship. With Serena being thirteen and a half years old then, our chances are excellent.

Zu Zu, our new dog, wears flowers in her hair

Finally, an almost-summer-feeling Oregon afternoon. Laurel, me, and our two canine dog pack went for a walk around the neighborhood lake. 

A big patch of wildflowers caught my eye.

Also, Laurel's. 

While I was getting out my iPhone and snapping some shots of the flowers, she was adorning Zu Zu with some daisies. Of course, dog photography being what it is, as soon as we tried to pose Zu Zu she shook violently, then laid down on her back.

Which messed up her flower arrangement. Still, it brought back memories of the 60's to see our new dog with flowers in her fur.

Treats got me trained at the Willamette Humane Society

Annie Ingersoll is an excellent dog trainer. Also, an excellent human trainer. Yesterday I had my behavior nicely controlled by Annie after only a few minutes of her "Introduction to Dog Training" class.

At first, Annie had the several dozen people who'd come to the one hour class briefly introduce themselves: their name, name of their dog, breed and age of dog, whether it had come from the Willamette Humane Society.

Then she walked over to a whiteboard with a marker in hand and said, "Aside from food, water, and shelter, what other needs do dogs have?"

People started throwing out ideas. "Exercise." "Affection." "Chewing." 

Cleverly -- because this is what I'll always remember from the class, after forgetting everything else -- Annie had tucked a plastic container filled with dog treats under her arm. 

After someone yelled out a suggestion Annie would say, "OK, good idea," then toss a dog treat at them. (She had good aim; almost always she hit her target, even when in the back row.) My wife made one of the first suggestions. I reached out for the treat but dropped it.

Damn! I thought.

Another guy at a table to the right of, and behind, me already had caught two dog treats. I wanted (1) more treats to give to our dogs who were waiting in the car, and (2) to cleanly catch a treat so my male competitiveness could be assuaged. 

I found myself desperately thinking of ideas to yell out. Annie had moved on to another question: "What resources can be controlled by a dog owner to reward their pet?"

I really wanted to get more dog treats.

I'd noticed that Annie was rewarding anybody who made even a half-good suggestion. So I started to yell out whatever popped into my mind, even if the reasonable side of me (as contrasted with the dog-treat-desiring side of me) was whispering "That's a stupid idea" inside my head.

"Fun!" I was almost embarassed to yell that out as loudly as I did, because a more reticent woman at the table in front of me had started to say "Fu..." and I wanted to beat her to the treat.

So I out-shouted her and got a treat thrown in my direction which -- Praise Dog! -- I caught cleanly on the fly. I carefully placed it on the floor next to my growing collection of dog treats, which were pieces of jerky and biscuits.

"Didn't someone else also say 'fun'?" Annie perceptively asked. Whew. Guilt went away. The woman I out-yelled ended up getting a treat also. 

Disturbingly, though, Annie didn't write anything on the board with her marker. "Actually 'fun' should be part of all the other resources you can control, like going for a walk and petting," she said. "It isn't really a separate resource."

Damn!

By this time in the class I wasn't satisfied with just getting a dog treat from Annie when I did something she wanted me to do. I expected to see my suggestion written down on the board, which was, um...

A resource she was controlling. Along with the dog treats. 

Bingo! Main lesson learned.

Annie had me doing what she wanted by giving me stuff I wanted. On the handout she gave us near the end of the class, Dog Training 101 was described in some pithy words:

What's In It For Me NOW?
Establish Calm, Clear, GENTLE Leadership
Life rewards: Nothing in Life is Free (NILF)

l learned a lot from the class. Most notably, that if a human who doesn't even eat dog treats can be motivated to do things by having the treats thrown in his direction, they will work much better with an actual dog.

We give Keizer Rapids Dog Park "two paws up"

Our dogs seemed to really like their visit to the Keizer Rapids Dog Park this afternoon. It was the first time my wife and I had been there. Impressive.

Just as Salem (Oregon) is the dowdy little sister to much more glamorous Portland, so is Keizer usually viewed by Salemites as even more lackluster than our aptly nicknamed So-lame.

Well, not when it comes to dog parks. 

My wife and I are pretty sure that Salem doesn't have any fenced dog parks. Keizer Rapids is fenced-- a big plus, especially for dog-owners like us. Recently we got a young dog who hasn't been trained to "come!" reliably.

Today we could practice with Zu-Zu in a safe environment, not worrying about her running wildly after a squirrel, or whatever, and dashing across a street. The entrance even has an "airlock" design, two gates separated by a small enclosed area, to further reduce the chance of a dog escape.

And there's a separate fenced area for small dogs, another good idea.

At first Zu-zu (in the foreground) was a bit overwhelmed by all the dogs playing near the entrance. This might have been her first visit to a dog park. So we took her and our calm older dog, Serena, out to the impressively poop- and mud-free grassy area.

Zu-zu soon calmed down. Laurel and I took turns calling her by name, then giving her a dog treat after she ran up to us. Even though Serena is well-trained, naturally we had to treat her also, to avoid playing favorites.

(In my light brown and black attire, Laurel thought I blended harmoniously with the dogs, though my head fur is grayer than theirs.)

An attractive Husky mix wandered over to sniff our "pack," who were deeply enthralled with their own smell feast.

The Husky'ish dog obviously was trained in ballet. Nice delicate footwork.

We've always thought that our twelve year old Shepherd/Lab mix, Serena, has some Husky in her. Seeing Serena next to the definite Husky mix (confirmed by the dog's owner), we thought in Shakira fashion, "tails don't lie."  

Our dog cloned herself! Astonishing.

How did our dog do it? My wife and I knew that Serena, our 12-year old Shepherd/Lab mix, is super intelligent. 

But cloning herself... and somehow hiding the experiment from us until a full-grown almost perfect copy was ready to be revealed... astonishing!

This explains all those UPS deliveries from medical supply companies that I thought my wife had ordered for some reason, which mysteriously came to be transported to our "dog room" with teeth marks evident in the cardboard boxes, and the lab equipment I just found hidden behind Serena's dog crate.

Well, we're happy Serena was able to do the seemingly impossible. Her clone is as easy-going and personable as she is. And we assume, just as intelligent.

Our only problem is figuring out where one dog starts and ends when the original and copy lie down together.

Dog adoption update: Oh, no, we've got a dingo!

It's Day 2 of our dog adoption saga. Reality is setting in. Pooka is doing fine. Much more relaxed and well-behaved than we expected (aside from just trying to eat a leaf from a houseplant). 

However...

I'm convinced that the rescue shelter was wrong when they billed her as a Shepherd/Lab mix. Pooka clearly is a dingo! Well, maybe "clearly" is too confident a conclusion.

 

Check out the evidence, though. This is a dingo.

 

 

 

And this is Pooka, our new dog. A still shot doesn't do credit to her dingoness, since as she skitters around the house in a semi-slinking fashion, her mouth is open wide in a decidedly dingo'ish expression.

Sure, Pooka has a German Shepherd'ish face also. I still think she's 99% dingo. Great... Where are we going to get kangaroo carcasses? 

We adopt a dog. Lovingly, likingly, happily.

My wife, Laurel, is a dog "LOVER." I'm a dog "lover": lower case; hold the boldface.  That's why I'm waiting for her to come home with a dog we've adopted from a rescue shelter in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Gig Harbor.

A three hour, thirty-eight minute drive from our south Salem, Oregon home according to Google Maps. Which is about two and a half hours more than I was willing to journey to look at another potential family animal companion after our previous long-distance excursion to a Florence dog shelter ended pet-less.

"This is crazy," Laurel said, as we were returning home from Florence. "We just spent six hours driving to see a dog that turned out to be maladjusted." 

"Yes," I replied. "Ginger turned out to be too fearful and untrusting. From now on I'm willing to drive an hour or so to check out a dog. Let's keep looking from Portland to Eugene, no further." 

Well, my resolve was firm. Laurel's lasted as long as it took her to come across an ad for a Shepherd/Lab mix with a pretty face on PetFinder. Our current 12 year old dog, Serena, also is a Shepherd/Lab.

Great combination.

You get the smarts of a Shepherd, but without the guard dog edginess, along with the laid back personality of a Lab, but without the blah monochrome color and binge eating. (Sorry, Lab lovers, but most of your breed is overweight.)

So after filling out a highly detailed adoption questionnaire and talking about Star numerous times with Saving Paws of Washington staff, Laurel decided to head up to Gig Harbor today -- a nine hour canine adoption quest.

Star, who likely will become "Pooka," arrived here about half an hour ago. Understandably, she's a bit wary of us humans (particularly me), but hit it off with Serena right away, judging from the tail wagging, play-bowing, and such. Here's some photos of Pooka getting acclimated to the room where she'll sleep with Serena.

Kind of a family Shepherd/Lab resemblance between Serena and Pooka. Face, at least. Serena is quite a bit bigger, fluffier, and we must say, more beautiful than Pooka. But Pooka has her own sort of petite feminine charm. 

Ah... so alert, so intelligent, so dignified. Our baby!

Some wariness evident between Mature Top Dog Serena and Young Newcomer Pooka. But they'll soon sort out their relationship. 

I don't think it'll take too long for Pooka to settle in and feel at home. It's better that she's timid and shy at the moment rather than fearful and barking, as the Florence no-go dog was. 

Thank you, Saving Paws people. Laurel is LOVING our new dog, and I, per my canine wont, am liking her. Like will turn into love soon, I'm pretty sure, once Pooka realizes that she's in a stable situation, not the changeable and stressful past few weeks she's gone through.

On February 2, Pooka was turned in by someone, likely the previous owner, to the San Bernadino County Animal & Control in southern California. She was spayed and vaccinated the next day, February 3. Then Saving Paws staff picked her up (along with her mother and a sister) on February 6 and drove her up to Gig Harbor.

A twenty-two hour drive south and back north, according to Saving Paws. That's dedication. And love. Reportedly the San Bernadino shelter doesn't keep dogs too long before sending them to Dog Heaven. 

So we've got our "rescue dog." Be thankful, Pooka, as I'm sure you will be. Life is going to be pretty darn nice for you on our ten rural acres, full of squirrels, deer, bunnies, and other smells/sights galore. Just got to get you over this initial Where am I? hump. 

Here's a positive sign: Pooka clearly loves blogging. She must sense that I'm writing about her and wants to stay close to me. Of course, the leash tied around a chair leg probably has something to do with that also. 

 

Wanted: dog just like ours, but much younger

My wife wants to get another dog, even though our current canine companion, Serena, is still very much alive at the age of twelve -- though admittedly slowing down. (But isn't that to be expected given that she's 80+ in dog years?)

Recently Serena helped me survive the Great Salem Snow-pocalypse of 2012, so I feel a lot of loyalty toward her. Plus, I believe in the adage that worked great during my child (singular)-raising years: don't allow you and your spouse to be out-numbered.

One little child, two large parents. That's a fair fight. Yet even then the kid often wins. Same deal with dogs, in my opinion. Let two or more of them into your house, and they'll form a pack. The humans are doomed. Whatever they want, they'll get.

Which admittedly, describes my Omega dominance position with both my only-child daughter and our current only-dog; but I imagine how much more Omega'y I'd have been with multiple children and dogs putting me in my place.

However, my wife sees things differently.

She's more canine-savvy than I am. Laurel sees benefits in getting a much younger dog while Old Dog is still alive -- sort of like the Big Love polygamous philosophy where a cuter, more attractive young thing comes into the household as a "sister wife" and learns how to handle herself from Senior Wife.

So Laurel has been dog-shopping both on the Internet and during her volunteer stints at the Willamette Humane Society here in Salem. Given how much my wife likes dogs, this is akin to an alcoholic volunteering to make whiskey at a Jack Daniels plant; in each case, there's going to be a huge desire to bring some stuff home.

A few days ago, a dog at the Florence Humane Society caught her online eye.

When Laurel asked me what I thought about Ginger, I resorted to thinly-disguised irony in an attempt to delay the introduction of another dog into our household.

"That dog doesn't look like a Shepherd/mix to me. I think it's almost purebred pit bull. Ginger is a killer, no doubt about it. We'll have our throats crushed by that animal if we bring it home, for sure."

Didn't work. Laurel persevered, asking if I wanted to go with her to Florence to see the dog. More irony sprang to mind.

"Florence? Isn't that way down on the coast, near the California border? Sure, I'll go with you. I haven't seen the redwoods for a long time. And maybe we could make a side trip to San Francisco, since we'll be in the neighborhood."

Laurel, though, irritatingly resorted to facts, pointing out that Florence was almost due west of Eugene, just a two hours drive or so from our house. Reluctantly, after firing up Google Maps, I had to admit that she had a point. 

So today we drove to Florence to see Ginger, carting along a fold-up dog crate in the event we decided to bring Sister Dog #2 home. Serena, Senior Dog, came along, since we wanted to check out how she'd get along with Ginger.

As it turned out, not so well.

Ginger wasn't mean or aggressive, just barkingly fearful. Laurel and I appreciated all the time the Florence Humane Society staff spent with us in an outside dog yard as we did our best to begin to bond with Ginger. 

The conclusion: Ginger would be high maintenance for whoever adopts her. She's got a lot of potential. Problem is, poor "parenting" by her previous owner(s) has caused her to not trust people. Ginger is high-strung and a barker. We could give her a few occasional pats, but treats were the only reliable way we could get her to come close to us.

Plus, it sure looks like I was sort of right: Ginger isn't a Shepherd mix, so far as Laurel and I could tell. She has much more of a Great Dane'ish appearance.

We came home without Ginger. Serena, our aging Wonder Dog (here she is, much more youthful), was calm, cool, and collected with frenetic Ginger, leading us to think "We need a younger version of the dog we already have."

So we'll keep looking for Shepherd/Lab mixes with a beautiful look and a great personality. Or similar sorts of dogs. Hopefully Ginger will be adopted soon. She'll be a terrific pet for someone who's willing to put some time and effort into relieving her fearfulness.

And Ginger does have a semi-German Shepherd/mix'ish look at times. This was one of her calmer moments.

Most boring You Tube video ever? Not to chipmunks.

Everyone wants to be known for something. I'm hoping that my new You Tube video, "Dog stalking chipmunk," will become anti-viral. (see video below, after these explanatory remarks)

Meaning, anyone with an adorable cat can make a You Tube production that will garner millions of views. To be exact, 4,502,374 (until you click on "adorable cat" and add to the count).

But it takes a special dog, and owner, to make a five minute video that, depending on your sensibilities, is either (1) the most boring ever, or (2) a Zen-like exploration of the dynamics of motionlessness.

Immediately after uploading the video, naturally I entered "dog stalking chipmunk" into the You Tube search box to check out the competition. 

There's only two. And they are fakes, poseurs! Their dogs are not, repeat not, stalking chipmunks. They are chasing chipmunks!

This -- right here, seemingly for the first time on You Tube, hot off my FlipVideo -- is 100% genuine chipmunk stalking. With narration, to boot.

What else could you ask for? (unacceptable answer: "something interesting")

Do dogs try to cover, or spread, their poop?

When I told my wife that today's blog topic was dog poop, she said, "You're lucky that this is all you have to worry about."

Since at the time she was vacuuming the kitchen floor while I was perched at the counter with my laptop, sipping a cup of coffee and using Google to delve into the depths of dog poop behavior, I have a feeling that her comment had an ironic quality to it.

I'm unapologetic, though. Human civilization advances by exploring the natural world. And few things are more natural than pooping.

My interest in this question began a few days ago with a Twitter tweet:

Our dog pees profusely on a walk, leaving scent marks everywhere. Then poops & scratches with hind legs in ineffectual coverup attempt. ????

These seemingly differing peeing and pooping behaviors confuse me. However, our Shepherd/Lab mix, Serena, appears totally comfortable with her excretory habits.

Yesterday I asked a friend (and Greyhound owner), Hans, about this. He thought that Serena's half-hearted scratching after pooping was an attempt to spread her feces, not to cover them up.

This theory was shared by Eric, a fellow Tai Chi student with whom I started a dog poop conversation after class today. But I wasn't going to believe them until I checked with the Great God Google.

That's when things got confusing, which is why the title of this blog post ends with a question mark.

The first thing I found was that not much information about "dog poop cover" exists on the Internet. However, Google pointed me toward Dog Poop Calendar. This appears to be the preeminent source of dog poop information in cyberspace.

Here I learned about Niko, a dog who likes to spin in circles as he poops, sending feces flying all around. Whose behavior is very different from Sirius, a serious pooper who is fastidious and likes his privacy.

Yet the Dog Poop Calendar blogger wrote:

Both dogs would occasionally scratch ground with their back feet to cover the dog poop or mark their territory, though Sirius never did this until he saw Niko giving it a try. Now, with his obsession of privacy and desire to cover up his dog poop, he is careful to kick up grass and dirt at every opportunity, always with a silly grin.

"To cover the dog poop" and "mark their territory" -- opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum. Which was it? Or are dogs not bound by dualistic categorization, and embrace both covering and marking?

I pressed on with my Googling.

On Yahoo Answers I learned that supposedly dogs naturally try to cover up their waste so an enemy doesn't find them. But this doesn't explain why, most of the time, our dog makes no attempt to cover her poop. Or why dogs enthusiastically leave pee scent marks all over the place.

Answerbag didn't help much either. One person said about a related indoor behavior:

Dogs will be dogs. It's a territorial thing. I have a female Shih Tzu and she does the same thing, after she has done her business. She is just marking her territory. It's not neurotic, just a natural instinct of an animal behavior. It does not seem practical that they are trying to cover their scent, since they pee on everthing they can find and even where other dogs have been and they don't try to stratch and cover that up.

While another opined:

I always thought they scratch furiously and 'kick back' their hind legs as a covering motion. I guess this is your pup's way of 'flushing' his business. One possibility is that perhaps your pup is a deep thinker and was preoccupied and forgot to scratch and kick until he got inside.

Well, the Daily Dog Tip (from Dogster.com, which sounds like it would be a knowledgeable site) has a reasonable explanation:

So, why do dogs scratch with their hind legs after defecating? You might think the dog is trying to cover up his poop like a cat does, but it’s actually a way to mark territory, with the scratch marks in the ground pointing to the scent the dog has left.

This has the merit of consistency, melding peeing and pooping behavior in a pleasing fashion. Our dog is darn smart, but it's tough for me to imagine that she thinks (even instinctually): "pee is for marking," "poop is for hiding" when she goes outside.

So we've reached the bottom of the poop question barrel. Dogs are trying to spread their excrement when they scratch their legs. (Unless, they're not.)

Video of dogs playing: what the world needs now

There's a lot going on in the world at the moment. Russia and Georgia are going at it. Afghanistan and Pakistan are their usually messy selves. Economic indicators are looking worse.

So it wasn't hard for me to decide on my blog post subject tonight:

Dogs playing!

A few days ago the family pet, Serena, had an unexpected play date. A Golden Retriver'ish dog came to visit while we were at our cabin in Camp Sherman, Oregon.

I grabbed my Flip Video camera when I saw that Serena and her new friend hit it off instantly. Sometimes it takes a while for dogs to get into play mode. Not this time.

A tail-wagging, pouncing, chasing, wrestling frenzy ensued right after the first sniffs. Here they are in their You Tube'd play dog majesty.

It's too bad that people – and nations – can't get along so well. Serena and her companion were strangers just before they embraced the joy of dog play.

Sure would be nice if everybody could simply say to their neighbor "let's have fun together!" And mean it.

The Amazing Dog Hair Net Seed in Ear Preventer

I want to say, "Order now! Call the toll-free number within the next 30 minutes and we'll send you three, yes three, Amazing Dog Hair Net Seed in Ear Preventers for the price of one."

Except…we don't have a toll-free number. And this afternoon I paid $1.95 for a package of three hair nets at the Sisters, Oregon drug store.

So since Laurel and I would be re-selling them over late night cable TV for, say, $19.95 (plus shipping), you're better off buying them on your own if you want a more or less workable way of keeping seeds out of your dog's ears.

Here's Serena modeling our invention. I came up with the concept. Laurel did the final design work, figuring out how to use a plastic bag twisty tie to fasten the hair net under Serena's chin.

Our motivation for coming up with the Amazing Dog Hair Net Seed in Ear Preventer was having to make a rushed trip to a veterinarian office on Saturday, just before their closing time.

While on a walk with Laurel, Serena had run through some tall dry grass, likely chasing a chipmunk. She started shaking and tilting her head, the tell-tale (and obvious) sign of a seed in the ear.

Laurel was told by the vet that this can be a serious problem.

For one, the seed might work its way farther into the ear canal and possibly puncture the ear drum. For two, a dog can be driven so crazy by the irritation that the frantic head-shaking bursts some blood vessels. (There's probably "for three" and "for four" also, but this was enough to convince us that a quick trip to the vet was necessary.)

The PetClub UK web site has some good information on the subject. However, we didn't find a whole lot useful under "What can I do to prevent this from happening?"

The most obvious solution to prevent these problems occurring is to stop your dog from entering grassy fields. Stick to short, lawn-type grass and pathway walks or forested areas where grass seeds will be at a minimum.

By cutting your dogs hair, particularly around the toes, feet, arm-pits and ears you will have a much higher chance of spotting the seeds, and the seeds will have less chance of being able to cling on.

Carry out regular checks. Every day if possible, particularly after every walk you should check your dog for these. You may have difficulty spotting the smaller seeds, so comb your dog with a fine brush to doubly make sure nothing is clinging on.

A final note from PetClub UK: This is a serious problem that affects thousands of dogs around the UK and the world every year. Vet practices are often inundated with the same occurrences year in year out. Help them, help yourself and above all, help your pet. Check regularly and be aware!

Sure, that's good advice. But if you live in the country or frequently visit areas with tall dry grass, like we do, the advice to "stop your dog from entering grassy fields" isn't practical.

That's why we came up with our invention. Though it needs refining (version 1.0 slips off the ears fairly easily and needs to be re-positioned), it's better than nothing.

If anyone has a better idea, share it via a comment. Our dog's ears will be grateful.

Watch out for dog psychic hotline

Wanted to share some recent correspondence with the Oregon Humane Society, just in case anyone else shares a home with a malcontent dog.

TO: Humane Society Dog Psychic Hotline Coordinator
FROM: Brian
RE: Complaint received from our family pet, Serena

This is in response to your recent letter expressing concern about the reported "starvation" of our dog. As you can imagine, I was more than a little surprised to learn that the Humane Society operates a Dog Psychic Hotline.

However, this is Oregon. Guess I should have seen this bit of woo-woo coming. (Except, I'm not psychic.)

At first I was deeply skeptical that your hotline could be picking up messages from our dog. But after reading the intimate details contained in your letter about my, um, bathroom habits, I became a believer.

From now on, Serena is going to be kept on the other side of a closed bathroom door. In retrospect, I should have been suspicious when she suddenly started to follow me around everywhere I went in the morning.

Regarding her ESP-conveyed complaints of food deprivation, please keep in mind that, despite her pleasant appearance, this can be a darn devious dog. Underneath her laid-back half-Lab personality is a semi-sinister German Shepherd alter ego.

I have attached a report from Serena's vet that says she could benefit from losing three or four pounds. Our recent efforts in that direction likely have led to the baseless claims of imminent starvation received by your hotline.

Here is my response to Serena's most egregious statements:

(1) "Forced to forage for my own food every morning." Give me a break. She voluntarily goes out with me to get the newspaper. Sometimes she sees a squirrel and runs after it. That must be what her malevolent dog brain is communicating to your psychic, who, in my opinion, is excessively gullible.

When we come in, I immediately go to her treat drawer and prepare her pre-breakfast. Currently this consists of five small dog biscuits (three different kinds – each completely natural, costing more per pound than our own food).

I carefully arrange these on a small towel, to minimize crumb dispersal, and lay it out on a corner of the living room rug. Upon calling "Serena, your pre-breakfast is ready!," she slowly walks over to the biscuits. (Perhaps these ten or fifteen steps also are what she means by "foraging.")

A bit later, my wife feeds Serena her regular breakfast, a mixture of dry and canned food. Believe me, this dog isn't being starved.

(2) "Often given grass for dinner." Absurd. She must be talking about the broccoli that I chop up and sprinkle over her evening meal. Which consists of the same cup of dry food and numerous spoonfuls of canned food that she got in the morning.

Our seriously spoiled pet probably is pissed about the reduction from 1 ¼ cups after we got the weight loss advice from the vet. I never would have guessed that she was keeping track of how much went into her bowl. But after reading about what she told you about my bathroom habits, clearly not much escapes her.

I note that Serena failed to mention what happens after she finishes her dinner. Allow me to fill in the gaps in her tale of gustatory woe.

Within a few microseconds of licking her bowl clean, our dog rushes over to me, tail wagging like crazy. We've got a little ritual going on here.

I walk over to the bowl, stare into its empty recesses, and intone, "Oh, my, what a good dog to finish all of your dinner. You deserve a treat!" I open the chewstick container and pull out a hunk of dried cow, anathema to my vegetarian soul.

Doing my best not to think about the karmic consequences, I make Serena sit and shake a paw, neither of which she does very convincingly. When the psychic transcribed, "Made to suffer horrible indignities in exchange for morsels of food," this must have been what our ingrate pet was referring to.

(3) "Always go to sleep hungry." Be aware that Serena really means "hungry for more." Before being put to bed in her own room, Serena jumps up onto a futon. My wife then croons dog baby talk while feeding her two large dog biscuits as a sleep-time snack.

I hope this puts to rest the starvation complaints you have received from our pet. I'd be interested to know what percentage of hotline messages received by your dog psychic turn out to be well-founded. In this case, for sure, you've been taken by a sneaky canine.

Sincerely, Brian

Images of 2006 Salem Dog Parade

Once again this year I guaranteed a loss for Serena in the Best Costume category by simply tying a bandana around her neck and heading off to yesterday's Salem Dog Parade.

I’d considered entering the dog/human look-alike contest, but couldn’t decide whether to dye my hair blonde or Serena’s fur gray. But this couple looked muy adorable even with different colored coiffures.

T-shirts and micro-skirts were, as always, popular on larger dogs. Next year we’re going to dress Serena up properly, I almost promise.

If I was an Oregon State fan, I’d caption this photo “A dog of an Oregon cheerleader.”

Anyone allergic to Cute needs to stay away from a dog parade.

Laurel, Official Humane Society Dog Walker Volunteer, took a shelter dog to the parade. “Shaggy” (don’t know its real name) attracted a lot of attention. Be nice if it’d pay off with an adoption.

A fetching Oriental look. For future dog dressing reference, I asked the owner how she was able to keep the hat on. She had a big roll of the secret in her hand: duct tape.

Pink ballerina skirts on big white dogs. A big cliched, but classic.

When I met up with Laurel at the end of the parade Serena showed just a teeny bit of jealousy toward Shaggy. All in good dog play fun, though. Sort of.

Here are two contestants in the Waggiest Tail contest. The little dog on the left won. While standing there taking photos, the M.C. asked me to show off Serena’s tail-wagging stuff. Pretty pathetic. Big tails just don’t move like little tails.

Lastly, I’ll fight against every instinct to the contrary and throw in a photo Laurel took of me and (half of) Serena. For the past few years, every time I look at a photo of myself I think, “Nick Nolte mug shot.”

Aside from Lyme disease and a drug reaction, we’re doing fine

For the first time, the dog and I are on our own at our Camp Sherman cabin. Laurel is off at a family reunion in Kentucky. So Serena and I are keeping things interesting by getting Lyme disease (me) and a Xanax drug reaction (dog). Or so I've diagnosed.

Hey, I’m looking at the bright side: it’s blogging material.

I was planning to write about how Lars Larson, the bozo conservative talk show host, thinks that the Surgeon General’s report on the dire health effects of second-hand smoke is a bunch of crap, because Lars took a glance at it via the Internet and has concluded that the 670 page study is, well, just blowing smoke. What an idiot.

But now that I have a disease to blog about, I’ve got to take advantage of it. For usually I’m abnormally healthy. When I get together with my fellow baby boomers I’m left out of the “let me tell you about my [fill in problem]” discussion. Which is just about all we late 50’s and early 60’s folks seem to talk about.

Finally I have my own story. About a week after our last trip to the cabin, Laurel spotted a suspicious growth on my back. “Oh my god, you’ve never had a bump in that place before. It’s irregular and discolored. You must have skin cancer!”

Well, I’m blessed with a wife who is exceedingly health conscious. And a bit prone to over-anxiousness.

Upon closer inspection with a magnifying glass, the “skin cancer” turned out to be an engorged tick. Following the instructions in a Lyme disease pamphlet we had lying around the house (Laurel is nothing if not well prepared) she managed to pull out the critter with some tweezers.

We put it in some alcohol. And I started researching Lyme disease. By email I asked the Oregon Lyme Disease Network for advice, saying that I probably picked up the tick while hiking or biking in the Camp Sherman area. I got a quick response from Theresa Denham, president of the network.

She told me that Camp Sherman has an higher incidence of Lyme disease than other areas and advised me to get the tick tested by the IgeneX laboratory. I sent the tiny demon off to them last Monday by express mail. Haven’t gotten the results yet.

My family doctor said that I should watch out for symptoms, most notable of which is a bulls-eye rash. This afternoon, after taking a shower, I saw what sure looks like that rash surrounding the tick bite. I’ll be seeking medical treatment tomorrow, for sure. The earlier antibiotics are given, the better. I was fortunate to have seen a tick, and to have been bitten in a clearly visible part of my body.

Of course, there’s a chance I don’t have Lyme disease. In that event, I’ll issue a blog retraction. But I’ll still be glad that I alerted people to the need to take precautions against picking up a tick.

There aren’t many reported cases in Oregon (here’s a national incidence map). However, an article in the Portland Oregonian discussed the controversy that is raging about whether under-diagnosis of cases (according to Lyme disease patient advocates) or mistaken self-diagnosis of cases (according to many physicians) is more likely to be happening.

Regardless, take measures to prevent tick bites. And know the symptoms of Lyme disease.

On the dog front, I can report that Xanax doesn’t do squat to relieve Serena’s thunderstorm anxiety. Yesterday, when the thunder started I gave her one 2mg pill. She spent several hours hiding in closets, under tables, and a desk.

Today, I maxed out the vet’s recommended dose (3mg, one and a half pills) and gave it to her about an hour before the thunder started. The difference was that instead of an anxious dog, I now had an anxious, stumbling, seemingly drunken dog. More interesting, to be sure, but no improvement.

This article by a vet about treating thunderstorm phobia points out some of the side effects of alprazolam (Xanax). I saw several of them this evening.

Serena definitely wasn’t herself. Not even her normal anxious self. In the space of a few minutes she first frantically tried to jump on top of me while I was sitting in a chair, then she curled up on the chair, almost instantly fell asleep, and started snoring loudly while I patted her.

I felt very paternal, sitting there with the head of a zonked-out dog in my lap, trying to soothe away both her thunder phobia and Xanax drug reaction. For a while I even forgot about my Lyme disease.

Which I might not have. When my wife phoned from Kentucky tonight she was incredulous about my self-diagnosis. “There are only a couple of dozen cases in Oregon each year,” she said. “You probably don’t have it.”

Well, we will see. Usually I like the feeling of being special. In this case, though, I’d be happy to be utterly commonplace.

(P.S. Forgot to mention that I'm going to try to find some herbal Rescue Remedy in Sisters tomorrow. It's supposed to work for dogs as well as people. Some dog owners say they've had success with it. Again, we will see.]

Listening attentively to the dog whisperer

We’ve become big fans of Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. The Dish Network should be a fan too, because my wife upgraded our subscription to America’s Top 180 just so we could get the National Geographic Channel, home of Milan’s weekly program.

It was worth buying sixty more channels to be able to watch the Dog Whisperer, though. I’ve warmed up to him more slowly than my wife, but now on Friday evenings I’m right there with her on the television room couch.

Laurel’s interest in the Dog Whisperer was strong right from the start because she’s become a dog walker at the Salem Humane Society. She has to deal with difficult dogs every week. I just have to deal with our own mellow family pet, the aptly named “Serena.”

Even so, Milan has helped me become aware of how little I understand about dogs and how much I’ve been doing wrong in my daily interactions with Serena. Last night’s episode hit home for me when Milan gave a woman some advice about how to handle her overly protective and aggressive dachshund, Chocolate.

After he asked about what they’ve been trying, the woman’s daughter said, “She nags a lot.” Milan laughed and told them:

Yeah, but with dogs that doesn’t count. It’s just “blah, blah, blah, blah.”….In the dog world that really doesn’t count. Have you seen how Cinnamon [her other dachshund] disciplines Chocolate? [Milan makes a biting movement with his mouth]

…So a dog, when he controls another dog, he bites. And then he stays, and looks at him, or her, until the dog surrenders to what he wants. The dominant one never says, “Go to your room, now! You’re not getting a bone today.” That doesn’t exist in the dog world. Because we apply those concepts, we can accomplish what we want.

I talk a lot to Serena. “So, what do you think? Is it time to go for a walk? I wonder if there’s any dog in this house who wants to go for a walk. Hope I can find one. Do you think you might be that dog? Huh, do you?” And so on.

Actually, I often sound a lot more ridiculous than this. Both of us engage in “babytalk” with Serena. You wouldn’t believe what I say to her when I go downstairs to Serena’s dog room and wake her up in the morning. (Well, if you have a dog or cat, you probably will believe it, because most people do the same thing.)

Even before I started watching the Dog Whisperer I’d noticed that Serena is a lot more interested in what I’m doing around dog walk time than in what I’m saying. When I move toward the front door, or look like I’m about to change my clothes, she shifts into her excited “Let’s go, let’s go!” mode.

The cues she is responding to are almost entirely non-verbal. At the most, Serena seems to understand what “walk” means. But even that could be my imagination. So, in line with Cesar Milan’s oft-repeated tenet that dogs live in a dog world, not our human world, I’m trying to communicate with Serena more through body language and less through verbal language.

For example, Laurel (who knows a lot more about dog behavior than I do) has been telling me that I should always go out the door before Serena does to show my dominance. Usually I do, but when she’s especially enthusiastic about checking out the squirrel family after a long indoor stint I’ve been letting her squeeze by me.

No more. Taking my first faltering steps toward Dog Whisperer apprenticeship, I’ve begun to put my leg in front of Serena when she tries to push through the door first. I take a look outside, utter my “Run squirrels, run!” yell if any are in sight, and only then allow Serena to follow me.

Milan often says that it is a big mistake to treat dogs like people. They don’t want sympathy. They don’t want to be coddled. They don’t want kind words. What dogs want is to know their place in the canine/human “pack.” Dogs crave the security of a pack structure. If you don’t serve as the dominant pack leader, they’ll try to take the position because someone has to fill that role.

It reminds me of when Laurel and I took swing dancing lessons. We spent a good share of the time arguing.

Her: You’re supposed to be leading!
Me: What do you mean? I am.
Her: It doesn’t feel like it.
Me: Well, maybe it’s because I don’t really know what I’m doing. If you want to lead, go ahead.
Her: You’re the man. You’re supposed to be leading!
Me: I am.

It’s questionable how much swing dancing we learned, but we sure got good at going around in circles.

HinesLand happenings, 2/2/06

Surely nobody is more interested in what’s happening with us than, well, us. And we know it, because we’re the happenings that are happening. For the rest of you, here’s some reflected HinesLand headlines.

Straight talk about cougars. A few days ago Laurel dashed out a letter to the Statesman-Journal editor about the newspaper’s biased cougar coverage. Lo and behold, it was published immediately. Perhaps her truthiness struck a nerve. A few days earlier David Cox made equal good sense on a similar subject: let’s leave wildlife alone; after all, they’re wild.

Ridiculous reaction to Muhammad cartoons. Over on my Church of the Churchless blog I’ve been writing about the Muslim world freaking out over some drawings of Muhammad that were published in a Danish newspaper (and recently reprinted in other European papers). Just when I think Christian fundamentalists take the cake, their Islamic brethren up the ante on crazy dogmatism.

Doggy door bell training. For about a month Serena the Wonder Dog has been undergoing intensive doggy door bell, a.k.a. Pet Chime, training. It’s not going very well, based on what I hear coming from downstairs every night as Laurel puts Serena out for a final potty break before the family pet settles in on her futon for sweet dog dreams.

“Do you want to go out? Do you? Press the paw. Press it! Go ahead, press it. Press it to go out.” This goes on for about a minute, then I hear a ding followed by: “OK, I pressed it for you. That’s how you do it. Next time you’ll do it yourself.” Maybe. But it’s been weeks now, and I think Serena has made the pet chime go off once on her own. Laurel is getting good at it though.

Highlander Hybrid tanks on first fill-up. It was pretty thrilling yesterday to pull into the gas station for the first fill-up of our newly acquired Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV. A few minutes later I wasn’t so thrilled, after calculating the mpg by hand (for some reason the HiHy computer doesn’t show mileage for each tankful): 22.9.

Not so good, given the EPA city/highway rating is 31/27. But in the real world 4WD HiHy owners are reporting an average of 25.4 at last report. We’ve been getting about 10% lower mileage with our Prius during the winter, compared to summer. So hopefully HiHy will perk up its mpg as the weather warms up.

Dog kissing: the slobbery truth

Who says the passion has to go when people are in their mid 50s? Why, every evening around midnight there are two bodies entwined on the rug in our family room. The kissing is noisy and uninhibited; the pillow talk sweet and sentimental.

“Who’s got the cutest little tummy in the whole world? You!...Who’s my special sweetums? You!” I never get tired of hearing my wife coo these words, which are regularly interrupted by the sound of lips enthusiastically pressing against soft flesh.

This raw display of affection usually takes place while I’m brushing my teeth in a nearby bathroom. “You’re going to get a dog disease if you keep that up!” I’ll say to Laurel. “I don’t care!” is her invariable reply. “I’ll die kissing my sweet little Serena-kins before she goes to bed.”

Fortunately, we learned from last night’s 20-20 program on ABC that while it’s a myth that dogs have cleaner mouths from humans, they’re safe to kiss. Just keep in mind that when one dog meets another, their usual practice is to press lips to a part of the canine body that humans don’t kiss in public.

If this doesn’t bother you, then the expert advice was to kiss away, for the bacteria in dog’s mouths is species-specific and won’t harm humans (but if you’re thinking of kissing a dog in the Dominican Republic or a similar under-developed country, you should read this first.)

Unrelated to dog kissing, but still on the subject of Laurel, I wish to submit this photo in support of a claim that she is the World’s Most Matching Woman.

I took it at last month’s Corvallis Art Fair. Laurel ended up buying this coffee cup from an artist who said that the pottery was obviously meant to be taken home by her (note the perfectly matching cap also).

Animal instinct

Yesterday some neighbors were treated, if that’s the right word, to a display of our dog’s kinky sexual behavior. Well, probably “kinky” isn’t the right word either. It was just instinctual sexual behavior.

Heck, leave out “sexual” too, because it seems that female dogs who hump other dogs (male or female) are motivated by a desire for dominance, not sex.

Regardless, it still was disconcerting to be talking to a man and his pre-teen daughter while our dog and their yellow Lab calmly sniffed each other at first, then to look down and see that Serena had mounted Ginger and was pumping away with a sailor-on-shore-leave exuberance.

I muttered, “Ha, ha, got a little dominance thing going on here, I guess” and yanked Serena off of the considerably smaller and younger Ginger. Then I did the exact same thing three more times, feeling increasingly embarrassed as the neighbor girl watched our Shepherd/Lab mix climb on top of her sweet little pet.

Ginger eventually snapped, literally. That led to some growling and “Oh yeah! Let’s see who’s Top Dog!” posturing from Serena, which spurred me to head on down the trail toward home. Somewhat strangely, Ginger ran after us, tail wagging, seemingly now ready to play after having asserted herself.

The whole Serena-Ginger episode was largely a play of animal instinctual behavior. Serena is a spayed female. So far as I know, she has never seen a male dog mate with a female (unless she has some doggie porn stashed under her pad that she looks at after we’ve gone to sleep).

How does she know what to do? Serena has the sex act down pretty well, as you can see from this photo I took of a previous neighborhood escapade. Also, Serena was raised in Portland for the first year of her life. Yet she is expert at stalking field mice like a coyote, doing the “Gotcha!” leap from above just like I remember seeing on “Living Desert” Walt Disney shows.

Instinct. It’s a mystery. I thought I’d get some good answers from Google this morning, but I was surprised to find that solid scientific explanations were lacking about how animals act out complex instinctual behaviors. To say that these are genetic doesn’t explain much.

How the heck does DNA enable an arctic tern to make its way from near the north pole to near the south pole, and then back again? Some fledgling migrating birds leave before their parents do, yet somehow they get to the same place.

The mystery of bird migration has been somewhat unraveled by science, but to my mind learning some of the secrets of how birds navigate doesn’t begin to explain how that “how” is implanted in their instinctual repertoire. Yes, birds apparently use the sun, stars, moon, magnetic fields, and such to keep on track. Yet, how do genes make that happen?

I can understand how DNA produces a physical bird body. How, though, does DNA lead that body to perform amazingly complex instinctual behavior? Not to take away anything from dogs, but dog humping is nothing compared to bird navigating (still, it’s fascinating that Labrador Retrievers who haven’t had anything to do with hunting will spontaneously point completely on their own).

Some people get all mystical when they marvel at bird migration and other “How do they do that?!” animal behaviors. A woman finds Allah behind it all, while genetic memory that could explain past life regression also has been hypothesized. Me, I don’t know. As Isaac Armour says, every answer concerning the nature of life leads to more questions that take you all the way back to the beginning of time.

Go figure. When you get down to it, that’s my basic response.

This afternoon a heron paid our little pond a visit, the first time this has happened. We have a metal sculpture of a heron stuck in the ground. The real heron stood for quite a while looking at it. I hope it wasn’t falling in love. Eventually it flew away, perhaps to puzzle out the meaning of a two-dimensional member of his species who bore just a passing resemblance to the herons he’s used to.

Crazy animals. Instinct makes them do such bizarre things. I was expressing these sentiments to someone once, complaining about a robin who was pecking on our bedroom window every morning, believing that the bird he saw reflected in the glass was the real thing.

The guy listened to my rant, then said, “How is that different from Playboy magazine?” That shut me up. Hit too close to home.

People are animals too. We just are able to make up explanations for our animal instincts. Those explanations could be instinctual too, of course.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this weblog post was written by an animal who was driven by instinct to write about instinct. And you’ve been driven to read about it.

Things I know, things I don’t

(1) I don’t know why our dog, Serena, likes to lie directly in the hot sun when it’s over 90 degrees. Every afternoon, about 2:00, I let her out when I go to get the mail. She walks up to an area of brown cut grass under a bird feeder and plops down.

When I get back from the mailbox and call her, she just stares at me. Sometimes I have to drag her by the collar to get her to come inside. She seems to love being hot, notwithstanding being covered with fur. Does anyone have an explanation?

Dog web sites I perused say that dogs may dig a hole in hot weather to stay cool, but I couldn’t find any other examples of hot dogs who like to cook in the sun.

(2) I now know that homeopathy is a crock, something I’ve always suspected. A report in the Lancet medical journal reviewed 110 trials of homeopathy and conventional medicine (allopathy).

Sophisticated statistical analyses showed "no convincing evidence that homeopathy was superior to placebo, whereas for conventional medicine an important effect remained." Some alternative health care works, some doesn’t—like homeopathy.

(3) In one sense, I don’t know how it is possible for a man to be married to an absolute babe and still not be satisfied with her. Also, I do know, because it is the human condition to always want more than you have, no matter how good it is.

Consider the case of baseball star Jose Canseco, who used to be married to the knock-out Jessica Canseco. Jessica is featured in this month’s Playboy. As the saying goes, it’s hard to imagine that any (heterosexual) man would kick her out of bed. But Jose did, so to speak, having numerous affairs. He even spurned Jessica after she gave him a threesome with her and a female friend.

Moral: fantasies aren’t reality. Billy Bob Thornton reportedly said that sex with Angelina Jolie wasn’t so hot. Of course, nothing as insignificant as reality is going to come between me and my own Angelina fantasies.

(4) I now know that bouncing can be a fascinating job, thanks to the blog Clublife, billed as “An online narrative of the life of a bouncer at two of New York's most popular nightclubs.” Take a read and peek into a lifestyle far removed from our own life in the slow lane.

Images of the 2005 Salem Dog Parade

Caution: if your heart palpitates at the sight of cute dogs, do not look at any more of this post without a cardiologist’s permission.

But if you’re feeling adventurous, here’s some photos that I took yesterday at downtown Salem’s “Dog Days of Summer” First Wednesday celebration. Our dog, Serena, took part in the dog parade along with lots of other canines.

The parade formed on State Street next to Jonathan’s Oyster Bar. These cute puppies got lots of attention from some equally cute girls.

This golden retriever, Jake Beebe, got the award for best costume, masquerading as a black cat.

Not to take anything away from Jake, but Laurel and I think this bulldog bee should have won.

There were lots of little dogs in baby carriages. If I owned these guys I don’t know how I’d ever stop smiling when they had their curly tongues out.

I absolutely had to take a photo of this dog. He was wonderfully stationary. One thing I learned about dog photography yesterday: your subjects hardly ever stay still.

Oops. How’d this photo sneak in here? Obviously my eyes weren’t only on the dogs.

Dog yin and yang.

The dog parade ended at the Equitable Center, where a Waggiest Tail Contest was held. This was our best shot for Serena, since her costume consisted of a couple of bandanas and we didn’t hold out much hope for a Best Dog Trick award. Laurel did her best to get the tail wagging, but Serena was beaten out by a couple of shorter-tailed dogs with faster-moving appendages.

Oh, well, We still had a good time. Serena wished that we had stopped at this table, though, and taken home something she could have a really good time with.

Our dog’s play date

Serena didn’t have to find this cute boy Basset Hound through an online service like Dog Play Date. No, she picked Sam up the old-fashioned way while on a walk with Laurel and brought him home.

We were pretty sure unattached Sam belonged to a neighbor. But nobody answered the phone when we called them, so Sam and Serena had time to get better acquainted in the dog yard. Laurel and I chaperoned their first date.

They started off with some dancing.

Then had their first kiss.

After that, things started to heat up pretty fast.

The sexual tension was palpable.

Yet, whew!, they ended up just being friends.

Blow-drying dog paws

You might think that we have reached a new level of pet pampering, given our new habit of blow-drying Serena’s paws several times a day. She does seem to like it. And we do pamper her.

But we’re doing this on the advice of her vet, for on three paws she has some sort of bacterial infection —that first appeared to be a fungus among us (ah, it feels good to write those words; I don’t get to use that wonderful term often enough). We’re reluctant to give her antibiotics, so are trying to clear up the problem by reducing the moisture that breeds bacteria.

By the way, as my fingers were poised over the keyboard to begin writing this post synchronicity popped up in the guise of a phone call from a Pet Medical Center employee. She wanted to know how Serena’s paws were and if we had any questions about her treatment.

Never in my life have I gone to the doctor and then gotten an unsolicited callback from his or her office enquiring about my condition. One day may all Americans receive as good health care as our dog enjoys.

When I am kneeling on the floor with a blow-dryer, dutifully warming each of Serena’s infected paws to a suitable temperature, not too hot and not too cold, just like Goldilocks would have wanted, I can’t help but think of the Discovery Channel program that we’ve been watching in bits and pieces: “Living With Wolves.”

Serena is a close relative of the wild wolf, but her pampered pet status makes this lupine ancestry seems more distant than it really is. Wolves don’t repose on futons; Serena does. Wolves don’t have a dinner prepared for them each night that features dog food topped with finely chopped broccoli and parmesan cheese; Serena does.

However, an interesting recent article in TIME magazine, “Honor Among Beasts,” describes how an ethologist discovered that there is lot more going on in dog play than is readily apparent. Marc Bekoff’s research found that the familiar “play bow” (hind end up, forelegs stretched forward, eager expression on face) is common to wolves and coyotes as well as dogs.

Further, the play bow is just the beginning of a complex series of interactions between playful animals. The article says, “Canine play is actually a complex social interaction in which the participants constantly signal their intentions and check to make sure that their behavior is correctly interpreted. Dogs that cheat—promising a playful bite but delivering a harsh one, for example—tend to be ostracized.”

This is right in line with the theory of evolution, which predicts that animals other than humans also would have some form of morality, albeit more rudimentary than that of Homo sapiens.

Thus it really isn’t so strange to treat our pets like people. In the grand scheme of evolutionary history, they’re not that far removed from us.

Free kittens with purchase

I am so happy that our dog neither (1) knows how to read, nor (2) has a credit card. If both of these things were true, Serena’s account would be maxed out to the limit with buys from this Salem establishment.

Bad Dog Police case file: Serena

Date of report: 4-26-05.
Location: South Salem
Alleged violation: excessive digging
Suspect: Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix, a.k.a. “Wonder Dog”

Dispatcher notes: Received call at 4:15 pm from man identifying himself as suspect’s owner. Said his dog needed to be scared straight. Incoherent babbling about “rooting!, rooting!” made it difficult to determine details of situation. Assigned case level 1 priority; determined address and forwarded to Bad Dog officer in area.

Officer notes: 4:32 p.m., arrived at suspect’s home. Met in driveway by excited owner who kept saying, “She’s over there! Hurry, before she licks off the evidence!” Followed owner around side of house.

Suspect encountered lying down next to hose. Made no attempt to escape. Appeared unnaturally ecstatic. Asked suspect if she was high. Responded, “Just high on life, officer.”

Owner yelled, “Look at her paws! She’s high on digging for field mice!” Told owner to back off, that I’d ask the questions here. Paws did appear dirty. Asked suspect to explain. Replied, “I just had my paws done. Don’t you love the dusky brown highlighting!”

Took sample of substance covering front paws. Visual and tactile inspection strongly suggests dirt. Laboratory results needed to confirm.

Hair loss and probable dirt streaks observed on muzzle. Owner claimed suspect is chronic rooter. Suspect retorted that owner is chronic liar. Growling ensued. Told owner I’d have to book him if he didn’t quiet down. Suspect said, “Just make sure that he feeds me before you take him in.”

Told suspect that she’d be the one in dog jail if she doesn’t change her behavior. Asked her how she’d like to be somebody’s bitch. Said she already was one, so no big deal.

Wrote suspect a citation for rooting and dirty paws. After wagging tail in sarcastic manner, added additional charge of Dog Police insubordination. Told owner to call again if problem recurs. Suspect’s unrepentant attitude not encouraging. Will keep on watch list.

Dog news flash: Retriever retrieves!

More accurately, this headline should read: “Half-retriever retrieves!” That’s why this story, documented by the photo, is such big news for us.

For we have spent the past four and a half years with Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix, whose independent German side overshadows her compliant retriever side when it comes to bringing balls and sticks back to Laurel and me (see “What you’re missing if you don’t have a dog” for details of my Buddy Ball travails).

Lately we’d noticed that Serena had become even more retrieving-resistant than usual. Partly this was due to the allure of spring smells, notably the scent of newly active field mice, gophers, and other denizens of the fields that adjoin our dog exercise area. And partly it seemed due to dog laziness.

Whereas previously Serena would “retrieve” (in our experience this word always should appear in quotation marks when used in connection with a dog that has significant German Shepherd breeding) a ball or stick a few times half-heartedly before deciding there were more interesting things to do in her dog life, now she either would run right by the thrown object on her way to greater pleasures, or would collapse in feigned exhaustion as soon as she reached it.

Since Serena still needs to lose weight, and I’m having difficulty stopping myself from sneaking bits of cheese into her evening meal (notwithstanding the vet’s advice and Laurel’s admonishments), bringing her already deficient retrieving skills back up to their usual “D” grade level was important from a health standpoint.

Also, from a “who’s the top dog?” standpoint. A long time ago I accepted my role as Serena’s handmaiden, but Laurel—who knows much more about dog training than I do—correctly recognizes the need to show Serena who is in charge in our three-animal pack (I know that I’m #3; the battle is between Serena and Laurel for the first and second spots).

A mere half-hour of dog training on our lawn proved that, just as in politics, a little bribery goes a long way in getting the behavior that you want. This was the first time that Laurel had combined clicker training with Serena’s favorite jerky treats.

Using Pavlovian conditioning when Serena brought the stick back, (a click followed by a treat, then just a click as a stand-alone "reward") it wasn’t long before our Wonder Dog was dropping the stick right at Laurel’s feet (Admission of Photographic Dishonesty: this shot of a mouth to hand retrieval was staged for dramatic effect, since Serena wouldn’t be this obedient on her own for all the jerky sticks in the world).

I just hope this doesn’t give Laurel ideas for training the other recalcitrant animal in our household. I’m not wild about hearing a clicker every time I forget to close a cupboard door, clean out my toothbrush, or leave food unwrapped. However, I guess it all depends on what sort of a treat I get along with the click.

Not our dog’s best week

Poor Serena. First, she got cut running her heart out to retrieve the Buddy Glow Ball that I had thrown. Then, she got poisoned (sort of) when Laurel gave her a Gabapentin (Neurontin) pill instead of the Amoxi-capsule antibiotic that the emergency vet prescribed after stitching her up.

Here’s a phone number that every animal owner should have ready at hand: the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, 1-800-548-2423 (or 1-888-426-4435). Our local vet said that if we wanted to pay $50 for a consultation, we should call the center and learn how serious taking 100 mg of Gabapentin would be for a dog.

Both medications were in similar green bottles, so Laurel absent-mindedly picked up the wrong bottle as she was in the midst of telling me something. It wasn’t until after Serena had swallowed the butter-encased Gabapentin and she took a glance at the container that a cry of “Oh my god I gave her the wrong pill what are we going to do!” echoed in our kitchen.

While Laurel phoned our vet I raced off to my computer to Google “Gabapentin dog.” I quickly learned that Gabapentin/Neurontin was used to treat dog seizures with doses of 100 to 300 mg every eight hours. The only problem was, Serena doesn’t have seizures. So our vet advised that she be given a quarter cup of hydrogen peroxide to make her throw up both the pill and a full meal that she had just eaten.

All three of us felt terrible as Serena retched on the linoleum after a few minutes. Well, two of us felt worse than the third, since Serena was the one throwing up, Laurel was the one poking through vomit looking for the pill, and I was merely still searching for information on the Internet about how Gabapentin would affect a healthy dog. Once we reached the Poison Control Center (after being on hold for several minutes--not desirable for such an entity) we were told that the Gabapentin dose was so mild, the vomiting wasn't necessary. Well, we can't blame the vet for playing it safe.

A couple of lessons can be gained from this experience. One, if you have a pet, be sure to have a poison safety kit on hand. Fortunately we had some hydrogen peroxide that wasn’t too far past its expiration date, because it worked. There must be other ways to make a dog throw up, but giving Serena the quarter cup of hydrogen peroxide was easy and effective. Sticking a finger down a dog’s throat seems like a decidedly less desirable option (especially if you’re interested in keeping all of your fingers).

Two, practice mindfulness. Laurel wasn’t fully conscious of what she was doing when she opened the pill container. I act similarly, often. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve parked the car, started to walk away, and then thought, “Did I lock the car?” I always go back to check. And I always find that I’ve locked the car. But I wasn’t conscious of locking the car even though I was pressing the “lock” button.

How much do we do without really knowing what we’re doing? Life is too short to be gone through unaware. And unawareness also is too dangerous for dogs and other living things, as evidenced by what a difference picking up one pill bottle rather than another makes.

Serena is fine. Her cuts are healing and she’s even back to playing some Buddy Ball (I’ve put cushioning around the edges of the well house roof in case our dog ever is unaware again of where she’s running).

[Note: the original version of this post had the Poison Control Center recommending that Serena be made to throw up, whereas actually it was our local vet. I've corrected what I mistakenly first wrote because I didn't want to leave an impression that the Center failed to realize that 100 mg of Gabapentin is a mild dose for a dog.]

Serena needs “Extreme Makeover, Dog Edition”

Laurel has started to call Serena “Frankendog.” The stitches she got last night at the Salem Emergency Vet clinic do indeed have a Frankensteinian quality, but we’ve been told that she should be left with only a slight scar.

Serena got hurt when she ran into the metal roof of our well enclosure. Caught up in the spirit of our litigious age, I’ve been wondering whether the Buddy Glow Ball that I was throwing in the dark for Serena to retrieve contained a consumer warning on the original packaging: “Caution. While this dog toy is designed for nighttime play, do not throw in the direction of sharp objects.”

I suppose we should have thought of this ourselves, though, so I’ll let the Buddy Glow Ball manufacturer off the hook. During our regular evening dog outings frequently I would hear the ball hit the well enclosure with a “thunk” as Serena bounded off to fetch it. Last night I heard a louder “thunk” than usual, but assumed it was due to the clear cold air.

Actually, it was due to Serena running head first into a corner of the roof. I didn’t know she was hurt, so I kept on throwing the ball a few more times. When we got to the light by the front door I noticed cuts and blood on her face, so off to the Emergency Vet she went.

The vet on duty said that dogs are amazingly tough and resistant to pain. A person who suffered such an injury, such as me, would be crying like a baby. Serena didn’t even seem to know that anything was wrong. I guess this is an artifact of dogs’ wolf heritage: if you want to survive in the wild, it’s good to have a high pain threshold.

Serena is still the beautiful Wonder Dog to us, stitches and all. Yet if we get a call for her to be on “Extreme Makeover, Dog Edition” as a result of this posting, we’ll answer it gladly. Of course, first ABC has to realize that an animal plastic surgery show would be a great idea (if they pass on the concept, we’ll pitch it to Animal Planet).

This isn’t an original idea, though. A vet in Sao Paulo, Brazil, already has a thriving cosmetic dog surgery practice. If you ever open up a branch in Salem, Dr. Brito, be sure to let us know.

Oh great, our dog is fatter

I have some bad news for the throngs in the blogosphere who have been anxiously awaiting an update on our dog’s weight reduction program after reading my initial "Oh great, our dog is fat" posting six months ago. Serena just got a new Pet Health Report Card, and things aren’t going so well. All because of me, supposedly.

The green highlighting on the Report Card was put there by Laurel to grab my attention. And the “so no more cheese!” entry in the “Weight (Abnormal)” category also can be attributed to Laurel, since the only way the vet could have found out about this canine nutrition supplement that I have been adding to Serena’s dinner is if someone in our household snitched.

Given that Serena can’t talk (and even if she could, would never do anything to jeopardize his cheese treats) and I didn’t go to the vet appointment, the snitch is pretty easy to identify. I sensed another subtle clue that it was Laurel when she yelled at me, after returning from the Pet Medical Center, “I wish you could have been there to hear what the vet had to say about Serena’s weight!”

Me? Little innocent me? Putting on my most innocent expression, I said: “What do you mean I should have been there? You and I both feed the dog.” “Yes, but you are the only one who adds chunks of cheese to her bowl.”

OK, that’s true. But as I wrote last June, my initial caloric calculations were that Serena would experience a net loss in weight by my giving her some small chunks of cheese each night, per the formula NWC = CC – TWE (in layman’s terms, Net Weight Change equals Cheese Consumption minus Tail Wagging Exertion).

I had figured that the calories Serena burned up wagging her tail while I got the cheese out of the refrigerator, cut a few slices, chopped the slices into tiny chunks, and scattered the chunks on top of her regular dog food would be greater than the calories in the cheese. However, apparently my formula needs some refining, since the experimental results from the vet’s scale show a weight gain of 3.7 pounds from June 21 to December 30.

We had friends over for a New Year’s Eve party last night. I asked the first dog owners who walked in the door, Hans and Laura, if they thought Serena was fat. If I got a “no” from them, then I was going to ask the first lawyer who walked in the door what my chances would be if I filed a malpractice suit against the vet who wrongly diagnosed our dog as obese.

But after both of them felt Serena’s rib cage, I got two responses of “Yes, she’s fat.” So I’ve given up on plans for the lawsuit. Still, I still don’t believe the diagnosis. Doesn’t this look like a wonderfully thin dog to you?

I’m complying with Laurel’s orders though, and have just been putting a miniscule sprinkling of parmesan cheese on Serena’s dinner. This is necessary, I believe, to ease her through the symptoms of cheddar cheese withdrawal. We’re also reducing her regular dog food a bit.

Today is Serena’s birthday. The Millennium Dog is five! She got an extra large chew stick for dessert a little while ago. On your birthday, calories don’t count.

What you’re missing if you don’t have a dog

Oh, you poor cat owners. If you came home late tonight from a class, as I did, your pet probably greeted you with a meek “Meow” (if he or she even deigned to wake up). You then poured some kibble in a bowl, went on to prepare your own dinner, and now you and your cat likely are sitting in front of the TV, kitty contentedly purring on your lap.

How sad. You are missing out on the "joys" of dog ownership (note the ironic quotation marks.) Let me give you an example of what having a dog can add to your life. Specifically, a large mixed breed dog named Serena, a blend of energetic German Shepherd and mellow Labrador Retriever.

That blend isn’t much in evidence when I go to free Serena from her outdoor kennel, where she has been cooped up for all of two and a half hours. The liberators of Paris were not greeted with so much enthusiasm, believe me. Serena is bouncing up and down in the kennel even before I have the outside door unlatched, for she knows that when a light goes on downstairs, freedom is soon to follow.

I’m hungry. I’d like to eat while reading the Oregonian that I just picked up. No matter. My destiny is fixed as soon as Serena bounds inside and starts leaping around in the living room like a kangaroo on speed. For she knows that Brian-coming-home-at-night means play time, and she will not let me rest until Buddy Ball is taken out of the pantry dog toy box.

Buddy Ball, formally known as Buddy Glow Ball, is her favorite toy. It is large, a Shepherd/Lab mix mouthful. It is soft, offering the joyous simulation of chomping a furry baby bunny. And it glows in the dark after you shine a light on it. Which doesn’t mean much to Serena, but means an awful lot to me, since often I end up doing more of the Buddy Ball retrieving than our 50% supposed retriever.

To be fair to Serena, many nights she brings Buddy Ball back to within a fair approximation of where I threw it. If I don’t have to walk more than twenty feet to pick Buddy Ball up, as Serena dashes madly on to the next anticipated throw spot, I’m happy.

The nights I’m not happy are when a cat, or a deer, or any other animal with an unbelievably fascinating scent has wandered around our rural home not long before Serena and I venture out for playtime. For then we engage in our ritual Kabuki play, dog and man acting out the same roles night after scent-filled night.

I throw the ball into the darkness, helpfully shining my not-so-bright LED flashlight onto the distant grass and brush to aid Serena in her retrieving. Not that she needs this help, probably, since I suspect sound and smell are the senses she mainly uses to pounce on Buddy Ball.

Which she does. Until she is distracted by a more alluring, and sentient, prey potential. Cat! Deer! Close, for sure! I can catch it if I run fast! Now! Go, go, go!!! Serena bounds off on one of our trails, Buddy Ball in mouth. Briefly. Invariably she drops Buddy Ball not long into the chase, but far enough away so that she is out of sight in the no-streetlight country night.

“Where’s your Buddy Ball, Serena? Get your Buddy Ball! Come on, Serena, bring back Buddy Ball.” So goes my mantra, a dog owner pleading into a now dogless countryside. I can’t hear Serena. I can’t see Serena. I’m alone with my flashlight, acres of potential Buddy Ball dropping spots, and an irrational (because Buddy Ball is rarely lost for good) fear that, at $6 or more a pop, losing one Buddy Ball a night is going to seriously strain our family finances.

So I decide to start looking for the elusive Buddy Ball while waiting for Serena to return from her chase. I keep calling—“Come find Buddy Ball, Serena”—but with less vocalization.

For there comes a moment when I remember that if I can hear the cat lovers who live on the lot next to us softly calling “Muffy! Dinnertime Muffy!”, they can darn well hear me yelling, “Serena, come here, you worthless dog!” I don’t like the thought of them fondling Muffy as they stand on their deck listening to me call my disobedient pet. “I sure am glad we just have cats; Brian is coming in loud and clear tonight” the Mrs. surely is telling the Mr.

Eventually Serena comes back. I’m still searching for Buddy Ball where I’m guessing Serena dropped it. She sits on her haunches, tail wagging, tongue drooping out of a dog mouth that has a happy hot-from-the-chase expression. “Where’s Buddy Ball, Serena? Help me find Buddy Ball!” Serena now is as motionless as a stone Buddha. Serene, as (very) occasionally she lives up to her name.

I’m starting to get exasperated. This play time is not so fun for one of the players anymore. I keep on poking through the trees and brush, foggy dew falling off the leaves onto the back of my neck. It’s dark. It’s cold. And I haven’t had dinner yet.

I turn around to yell at Serena again. She seems to sense my darkening mood. She gets up, trots over to an entirely different part of the yard from where I had been searching, reaches down, picks up Buddy Ball in her mouth, and trots back to me, dropping Buddy Ball her habitual twenty feet away.

Serena looks at me as if to say, “This is as close as a half-German Shepherd is going to bring a ball, guy. If you want closer, you should have gotten a Border Collie.” I don’t care. I’m just happy to see Buddy Ball again, who had stopped glowing quite a while ago, the Buddy Glow Ball creators apparently not having tested their invention with a mixed-breed retrieving-challenged dog who lives in the country and is easily distracted.

I go over to Serena, give her a pat, and say “Good dog. You found Buddy Ball. Let’s go have some dog food.” I roll the ball one last time down our driveway toward the front door, Serena close behind. I wash her muddy paws with a garden hose, as Laurel has instructed me. I carefully wipe and dry them with a dog towel. We go inside. I fix Serena’s dinner: dry food, wet food, chopped broccoli, a sprinkling of her favorite white cheddar cheese.

“Food, food!” I say. Serena runs to her bowl. “Shake!” She half-heartedly raises a paw, which I grab as she lunges toward her dinner. I still haven’t had mine. But who cares? I’ve just experienced the joy of owning a dog. Who needs to eat when I’ve just been filled with such delight?