Re-education

Of our 2 dogs- both of which are terrier mixes (as best we can tell)- Piper is definitely our needy child. They are both VERY interested in being with us as much as possible, (which is apparently a very terrier trait no one told me about) but Odie can and will occasionally wander off on his own. Piper on the other hand can only be convinced to spend time on her own if she KNOWS we're not going anywhere or doing anything interesting. By interesting I mean moving from one room to the other, or opening a kitchen cabinet.

The other day I got off of work a little early and was able to head home to let the dogs out before dark, and hang out with them in the yard. They had been cooped up for about 7+ hours at this point, I would think the FIRST thing they'd do would be bolt outside to use the facilities. Well, they did head outside after a couple minutes of following me around, and determining I wasn't going to take them on a walk. We all headed outside, and Odie started stalking around, doing what dogs do- protecting the border, establishing no intruders of the squirrel or bird variety had crossed the line.

Piper on the other hand would NOT leave my side. In fact, when I sat down, she draped herself across me and stayed there for about 15- 20 minutes. I decided to take a picture of her/ us.

Who waits 20 minutes to pee? I mean, come ON, just get things done here little girl!

She's a very sweet kid, but I'm starting to realize something about her- She's THAT kid.

Everyone had a kid in elementary school that was nice enough but totally socially inept. They were a kid would was obsessed with medieval military, or had some weird thing about wearing the same mismatched socks every day. They had some friends, but not many, and all of them were a slight bit odd. The rest of the class thought the kid was ooookkkay, but just hard to talk to. That kid usually had a strange bond to their mom, and occasionally also starred as the "smelly kid".

So, thats my dog. The weird kid.

She definitely has a STRONG attachment to her mama, and doesn't totally know how to play with the other kids. She has her one special friend that gets her, and digs her program, but everyone else seems to not mesh with her style. Her style is clunky and awkward at best, but still, no one seems to know what to do with her. I don't blame them, even as a loving mama there are days I look at her and go "why do you have to be SO HARD on everyone? can't you just play like the other dogs?"

The one moment of peace I can find is knowing that most of those awkward kids in school grew up to be lawyers and rocket scientists and doctors. They used their quirks to become something great.

Now, I realize I'm talking about a dog here, so chances are she's never going to make anyone live a better life, or fly to the moon (although, really, do we know for sure?) but maybe, just maybe, she can figure out a way to be something really groovy with our help. Maybe in a few years she'll end up being a great therapy dog, or agility dog, or just a dog that can play with other dogs without starting a fight...... A girl can dream.

In the meantime, I'll accept her devotion, and try to work on her training- which will only help us both get through this awkward time. I'll try to take a deep breath and hope for the best every time we have a new experience instead of feeling a sense of dread and doom. I'll pay the extra money to get our trainer to keep working with us and her on getting these basics of life under control. I will probably not do any of these things in a picture perfect way, but I will try. 'Cause I want my kid to end up a lawyer, not a medical testing test dummy.

SHELTER: Parole & Release

Since I started volunteering at the local shelter, I've taken certain dogs on as personal projects- dogs I work extra hard on and with to get them adopted out asap. So far all of those dogs have been adopted, and successfully. My work with them may be fairly minimal in the grand scheme, but I figure every little bit helps.

It's sorta like being a probation officer- I don't get them released, but I've worked with them to try to make their transition easier out there in the real world. I like that part of my job. Getting some of those dogs more relaxed and ready to find their new humans.

One of my first prized pups was a lovely mutt lady named Oreo. It was an unfortunately awkward name for a really charming, and scared girl. She was about 4 yrs old and had been turned in by an owner who couldn't keep her anymore. She was about as insecure as any dog I've seen before or since- she was convinced everything was there to be mean to her. The loud noises and people moving past her kennel- it was all too much. I saw this and decided I was going to get her to relax.

After spending a good chunk of time with her, and using a good bit of treats as bribery, she started to relax, and ended up in my lap. Which was no small feat considering she was probably 50 lbs. I spent even more time in there with her, and she started showing interest in the people coming past.

Oreo stayed with us at the shelter for a few months. We ended up taking her on a hike (a program we do with certain dogs in the local mountains once a month) and she did fabulously, not only on the hike, but with the other dogs that were around her. She was a dream dog, and I wished I could take her home every time I spent time with her. I knew it would be hard to see her adopted, but I was glad when I came in one day and she was gone. She'd been adopted a few days prior, and had been sent to her new home.

The pictures I took of My little Oreo are still some of my favorite. She helped me realize that volunteering was a good idea after all.

This past weekend, I was out for my longest training run for my upcoming half marathon. The good bit of the first part of the route was along a local bike path that runs near the house. I run this path on a semi regular basis these days, and see people walking their dogs all the time. A short bit into this path, on this day, I saw a lady walking a dog that looked really familiar.

"Excuse me, I hate to bother you, but did you adopt your dog at the Burbank shelter?"

"Yes, actually I did"

" Is this Oreo?"

"Wow, yeah- how'd you know?"

'Cause she's one of mine!

It was Oreo, with her new mom out for one of their regular strolls. She looked fantastic- Healthy, happy, alert, and confident. Just what I had pictured her when we'd worked together. We chatted for a couple minutes, I explained how I knew who this woman's dog was, and Oreo gave me some kisses. The dog was responsive and I don't know if she remembered me, or just knew I was a lady who was being nice to her, but I choose to believe she remembered me. I was fairly smelly by then, so anything she recalled of me was in hyper drive at that point.

Seeing one of my special project dogs doing well in her new home seriously got me through a LONG run that day, and continues to make me happy every time I think about it. The staff at the Shelter was thrilled to hear how well she was doing, which also makes me happy when I think about it. I did my job fairly well, along with the efforts of probably many others, and we got this dog into a home, and made her part of a family. All of our efforts, all of our caring- it all contributed. We get to do that all the time, but you rarely get to see the actual results. It's good.

Reversal of Fortune

Almost exclusively the dogs are the ones committing the 'crimes' in my life. That's kind of the point of this blog after all. They do the troubling activities, I report them- and sometimes pass judgment.

This past weekend, the roles got reversed- much to Piper's dismay, and physical injury.

Before I get into the meat of this story, I have to put the disclaimer on there- Everyone is FINE. The damage done was minor and has already been forgotten. There is no need to worry about the current state of anyone involved. You can go ahead and wince along to the appointed moments. Trust me, you'll know them when you see them.

It all starts with The Criminals badly needing to be professionally groomed. Nails needed trimming, glands needed expressing (so gross) and in Piper's case- since she doesn't shed and has curly fur- she needed a good trim. We made the appointment to take them to the Petco groomers as our last grooming place turned out to be a bunch of A-holes, despite doing a good job with the dogs. I knew Petco would be a crap shoot, but it needed to be done and time was of the essence.

We headed over, everyone in their seat belts, totally unaware of what was about to happen. I unloaded Odie out of my side of the car and started heading towards the door to the grooming Dept. Suddenly, I hear The Hubby yell "Unlock the car!"

I turn around and all I see is him bending down behind the car, looking at me somewhat frantically. He yells again " UNLOCK the car!"

Well, my car doesn't have the fancy unlocking fob thingy, so I walked back over to HIS side of the car to figure out what the hell is going on. As I round the corner, he says "She's stuck, unlock the car, I can't get her out" and I see Piper, tail stuck in a fully closed car door, trapped.

The Hubby goes to grab Piper to prevent her from pulling on her tail any more then she already was, and she, naturally, lashed out- because that shit hurts- and nipped at him- catching 2 of his fingers in the process. This causes whats left of my ability to focus to fracture and I start digging for the keys I had dumped into my bag and asking is he was ok... Dumb.

This must have taken an actual 45-60 seconds, but in hindsight it felt like I was moving in slow motion. I can't even imagine how long it was in dog time.

So, I unlocked the doors, that door was opened, and Piper was released from her nightmare. She wouldn't let me touch her tail right away, and my concern was it had been broken. Upon inspection, I could tell that her skin wasn't broken, there was no blood, but she was just totally freaked out.

On the other hand, there was some blood on The Hubby. Piper's nip had broken skin on his fingers and he was bleeding a fair amount. It was a total surface wound- her teeth has just scraped his skin, but on the fingers, that's a decent amount of blood. So we grabbed a towel out of my car (thanks to having dogs and working at the shelter, I pretty much always have at least 3 towels going in there) and took care of that right away.

After collecting ourselves for a few minutes, and everyone catching their breath, we man-handled Piper enough to know she was fine, and actually, now that the shock had worn off, seemed to be feeling little to no pain. We went ahead and dropped her off with the groomer, with the instruction to touch the end of her tail as little as possible due to what had just happened.

The next day, after everything was LONG over and everyone had a decent nights sleep, I checked Piper's tail again. This time she let me grab it all I wanted with no flinching at all (reaffirming the judgment call from the prior day that she was fine) and I discovered it- The Bump.

The very last inch or so of her tail now leans a little to the left.

Yep- broken.

But only barely

And she doesn't seem to mind it at all.

To add insult to very literal injury- because I'd asked the groomer to leave the end of her tail alone, they ended up giving her a "lion cut", Which means her head looks enormous and the end of her tail has a flag- like quality to it. Thankfully, she's kind of dumb and has no idea what she looks like right now. She's mainly just happy to be alive.

The lasting wounds for The Hubby are more of the "OMG I hurt the dog" variety then anything to do with his fingers. Those healed fast enough and are fine. He keeps checking her tail and the way she moves it though- the guilt lingers. It will for a while, understandably, and that's part of why I love him.

Through all of this, our tiniest criminal, Odie, just sorta stood and there with the look on his face of " whats all the noise?, why is she crying?, where are we? Wait- there's water here, isn't there? You're gonna let them TOUCH me with WATER?! are you INSANE WOMAN?!" and more along those lines. The actual moment of injury left him completely unaffected. He's lucky that way. The bath didn't actually kill him either, despite his best efforts to convince us otherwise.

So, like I said, it's important to note that everyone involved is fine. Maybe a little shaken, but ultimately fine. The crime here was undeniably committed by the human aspect. The thing about that is, we still have the thumbs, so we still ultimately win. The lack of broken tail is kind of a win too, although scars make you look tough, so I guess in that regard, Piper comes out ahead.

Stealing??

If you left a mathematics textbook out, and your kid went and took it and used it to learn... would you consider it stealing?

See, the thing there is, they weren't supposed to take it per say, but it didn't hurt them, and might have helped them to do it. So, is it really a crime? Or is it a genius, inadvertent form of reverse psychology?

The story behind these questions goes a little something like this:

This morning, I was taking a shower, as I do every day (but nice try with the stinky kid joke) and the dogs were roaming free, as they do. We've gone a good long while with this arrangement now, and been relatively problem free.

What we've also been doing for a few days now, if using a product called Rescue Remedy to help alleviate some of Piper's stress while there's workmen in the house renovating our kitchen. It is supposed to help calm stress, and is an entirely herbal concoction. I put a little on her treat every morning and then put her in her crate for the day. It seems to have been helping, as she's gotten her voice back after barking herself hoarse for about 2 weeks.

So, these 2 facts add together this morning like this:

I got out of the shower and noticed her box of RR was gone... I went into the living room to find this:

Empty box, shredded on the floor.

CRAP!

not again!

Damn this dog figures out how to lull me into thinking rules have been established then, BLAMMO, she gets into something.

I go back into the bedroom to discover the bottle in pieces on the floor. The bottle is entirely empty, with NO remains on the floor- it is bone dry. When the elements are put back together, the bottle is a mess, that looks a little like this:

Yep- the squishy bit at the top is entirely gone- down Piper's gullet somehow. The top had been chewed on enough so that it was entirely pulled off. the liquid was gone. Piper was laying right by all this looking unbelievably guilty. After I yelled at her for a minute, she followed me towards the door, then stood staring at the floor for about 2 minutes. It looked like this:

So, basically, My dog got herself good and stoned off herbal stress relievers.

Who does that?

I mean, come ON junkie.... ease up.

I checked with the website for Rescue remedy, and whatever slight concern I had about her getting sick was relieved- you can' t OD on the stuff. Basically it just wasn't going to do much for her.

I give her credit- she'd seen me use it to do something to her treats, and must have figured it out- it has something to do with food. Beyond that the entire event seems ridiculous. I mean, the stuff can't possibly taste that good.

The end result as the day came to a close was Piper had a nice relaxing day, and was gassy as all hell. She seriously was farting wet baby diaper farts all evening. A Charming attribute for everyone involved, to be sure.

But the question becomes- is it really a crime, if she stole something that was ultimately good for her? I mean, she essentially stole and ate a bunch of herbs/ vitamins. The only damage she did is costing me about 10$ and some unfortunate flatulence. I have a hard time finding the energy for a conviction on this one... a stern word or two, some angry glares, and.... Moving on.

We all learned a little something from this- 1) Piper will quite literally eat anything if she thinks it'll be interesting enough. 2) an exceedingly hefty dose of herbal stress relief will really only make you think the floor is talking to you and give you gas. And finally 3) crimes are less criminal if they're ultimately good for you.