Christmas Bath

I took my dog, Duke, to the self-serve dog wash, located in my neighborhood pet store, a week before Christmas. I wanted him to smell good, or at least better than he currently smelled, for the holidays.

Duke entered the store giddily. He loves pet stores because he can sniff every product, and attempt to free the caged animals.

However, as soon as I led him through the door to the dog-washing area, his attitude changed radically. He sprawled out on the floor in front of the tubs and refused to get up. After cajoling and begging him to stand up, he finally did. I walked him over to a walk-in tub and tried to get him to step up and into the tub. He pulled hard on his leash, resisting the tub with all of his strength. I then tried the other tub, which was higher up but had steps to get into it. He took one look at those narrow steps and dropped like a dead weight to the floor.

There was no way I could lift him. He’s 140 pounds and very long. He knew he had the advantage. He spread out on the floor and refused to budge. Finally, I opened the door that leads out of the dog-washing area and he jumped up and bolted out.

I had no option but to make an appointment with the groomer who was stationed to the right of the self-serve dog wash.

On the way out of the store, Duke grabbed a stuffed squeaky toy from a bin near the floor. He decided it was the best toy he had ever seen in his life, and he would not part with it. He sat on the floor by the register and proceeded to slobber all over the toy. Every time I reached down to take it from him — it was firmly lodged between his teeth — he uttered a gutteral growl. That growl is a warning that if I go near his possession, he will take my hand off.

For a sweet, gentle, loveable dog, he is fiercely protective of his food, tissues, napkins, and toys. If it’s in his mouth, or even in the vicinity of his mouth, anyone who knows him knows not to go near him. I think he learned this behavior in the shelter I adopted him from. Or, maybe he was in the shelter because of this behavior.

The cashier witnessed the growling when I tried to get the toy from Duke so it could be scanned. There was no way either of us was going to take it from him. The cashier wound up going to the toy section and finding the same stuffed animal so he could ring it up.

After I paid, Duke refused to get up off the floor. I had to drag him by the neck out of the store. As soon as we got to the exit, he stood up and ran outside … without his toy.

“Oh no you don’t,” I told him. “You are going to play with this toy now that you’ve humiliated me.” I put him and his toy into the backseat and returned to the store to buy a new leash, since his current leash was held together by knots.

Of course, Duke and I were the topic of conversation between the cashiers. “That dog needs to be trained,” my cashier said to a coworker. “She spoils him. That’s why he’s that way.” I interrupted their conversation, with an innocent smile, and asked where the leashes were.

“Oh, hello again!” my cashier said to me with a fake bright smile. He pointed to the aisle with the leashes.

I’m looking forward to our next adventure there next week, when I take him to the groomer. I’ll be stopping off in the muzzle aisle first, though. I need to get one for Duke … and one for the cashier.

Dog Hair Fashion

Recently, I was shopping online for leggings to wear to my office, which is ten steps from my bedroom. I told myself that I would also wear them to the gym, or at least to my basement where I would exercise in them. I tell myself lots of amusing stories.

What I noticed when I started putting leggings into my virtual shopping cart was that I was ordering a size larger than I used to wear when I commuted to an office in Manhattan … and that I was choosing colors that wouldn’t show dog hair.

This says a lot about how I’ve deteriorated during the pandemic. My body looks like the dough that pops out of those cylindrical containers that you slam on the counter. I’ve learned to work with this by stuffing it into body-contouring foundation garments that move things around and mostly keep them in position. Occasionally, I think that it was easier when I exercised and didn’t have to wear rubber suits under my clothes. Then I go online and look for fun colors in rubber suits.

I’m not the only person who gained weight during the pandemic. However, I’m the only person I have to dress, and it’s disconcerting that most of my pants are tight or don’t button at all. It’s the fashion now to wear the tightest clothing possible despite any lumps, bumps, or downright lava spills your body has. I am from a generation, however, that was taught to dress the body you have, which meant wear clothes that flatter your good points and camouflage your weak ones. I can’t possibly get on the flaunt-your-faulty-body train. I wouldn’t be sold a ticket, anyway, being a body shamer and all.

As for the dog hair, I’ve learned to breathe through my anxiety over it. I vacuum the rugs and crawl around on my hands and knees while scooping up tumbleweeds of hair that congregate in the corners of my house. I even vacuum my couches and chairs and run lint brushes over them. But, as anyone who has a shedding pet knows, it’s an ongoing and futile battle. You have to learn to tolerate some pet hair. There have been times when I’ve vacuumed a room only to have my dog stroll through and leave chunks of hair behind.

During a brief self-improvement phase this summer, I started driving my dog, Duke, to the dog park so we could both get some exercise while walking the trails. That phase ended abruptly when I saw the amount of hair in the backseat of my car. Duke has magnetic hair. As soon as he climbs into the back seat, his hair flies off his body and adheres to the seat he’s in, the back of the seat, the headrests, the back of the front seats, the interior car doors, and the floor mats. It happens so fast that you can’t see it occurring. My tan cloth seats turn into thickly covered hair mats in seconds. It took me hours to get his hair out of my car, and let’s be honest, you never get it all. There are always errant hairs that poke out of the seat covers. Those hairs are perfectly happy in the car’s fabric until a person wearing dark clothing sits down. Then the hairs decide to relocate immediately onto the hem of your black pants or onto the seat of your pants.

So, now I buy bigger clothes that match the color of my dog’s hair, which is blonde. This also explains why I wear white after Labor Day. It’s not a choice. It’s a necessity.

The Scalping of Duke

Last weekend, I tricked our dog, Duke, into letting me shave him. It had been really hot for weeks and Duke had been very uncomfortable walking around in his fur coat. I couldn’t find a dog groomer who had an opening before mid-August, due to COVID-19 restrictions, so I ordered a trimmer to shave him myself.

The trimmer arrived on Friday from Amazon. I had no plans for Saturday, so it seemed the perfect time to shave him. The only thing that worried me was that I had never used a hair trimmer on anyone or anything in my life. But I thought, “How hard could it be? I’ll just take it slow and easy.”

First, I started off by brushing him, which he loves. It’s like a luxurious body scratch to him. Then, when he wasn’t looking, I switched his brush for the electric trimmer.

It was nice and quiet, like the ad claimed it would be, so he didn’t even react to the switch. Things started out smoothly enough. The razor didn’t cut off too much too quickly. Actually, very little hair came off. I began to worry that it was going to take a week to shave him. And then I discovered that I was holding the razor upside down. After that, things speeded up considerably.

Once I held it right-side-up, the trimmer took off. I lost all control of the thing. It cut so deep that Duke had big holes in the top of his back. It didn’t break his skin, thank God, but it got right down to skin level. I found the power button and turned it off. Then I assessed the damage. It was pretty bad. Duke had a body full of long, thick, orange hair –– and gouges on his back that revealed the color of his skin (grayish). Now I had to match the length of the rest of the hair on his long, 135-pound body to those naked patches on his back.

It was just like when I cut my bangs. I cut them and they’re uneven, so I cut more, and they’re still uneven, so I cut more until I look like a serial killer.

But, back to Duke. He was so good. He only ran away once, and not far –– only into the house. He eventually came back and allowed me to shave him. I shaved for hours. We took breaks. We took naps. We had snacks. But we always returned to the task at hand: trying to match the length of the rest of his body hair to the length of his back hair. That did not prove, possible, however. I soon realized that I would have to shave him hairless to make his hair even, and I didn’t think that look would work for him.

So, we spent most of the day on the deck. Piles of hair accumulated around us. Whenever Duke decided to eat a hunk of hair, I would distract him with a treat and sweep up the debris. As I shaved, I discovered the different settings on the razor.

I used to hear my husband and son tell the barber that they wanted a #4 on top and #2 on the sides and back, but I never really thought about what that meant. Until Saturday. On Saturday, I discovered that there were cutting settings right on the razor –– but not until I had been shaving for at least two hours. There were also “limit combs,” that had inches marked on them. I supposed they were to limit how short the razor could cut, but I didn’t use them because Duke’s hair was so long and so thick that the razor cut nothing when the limit combs were attached.

Duke, as I said, was very cooperative. But he didn’t like standing for his shave so he reclined on the deck most of the time. This limited me to doing one side at a time. After I finished one side, I would have to physically roll him over so I could do the other side, and then roll him on his back to do his stomach. (The stomach shaving didn’t go very well at all. I didn’t change the razor setting and he had much less hair on his stomach than on the rest of his body to start with, so now he has no hair on his stomach at all, except patches that refused to come off.) When I finished his stomach and both sides, I had to lure him, with a dog biscuit, into standing up so I could compare his sides.

Of course they didn’t match. The hair lengths weren’t even close. It was at this point that I noticed that his face and rear had been completely ignored. So, I started on his face while he was standing. All of a sudden, Duke threw himself back down on the deck, causing me to gouge out more hair, but this time right above his eyes. “Great, just great,” I thought. “Now I have to match the rest of his head to the gouged-out areas. While he was standing, I also noticed that when I thought I was shaving his stomach, I had, in reality, shaved not only his belly but halfway up both sides of him, unevenly. I now had a dog who looked like he had lain in acid.

So, I put in a few more hours trying to even things out and trim his bottom. The bottom went well. That’s the only area that looks halfway normal, though. The rest of him is either bald or has visible trimmer tracks in the remaining hair. I don’t even want to talk about his back anymore. I just hope people don’t think he has mange.

At some point in the late afternoon, we both got bored, so we went inside to eat. Duke currently looks like a patchwork quilt, but he’ll never know, as long as I keep him away from the judgy dogs in our neighborhood.

At least he’s cooler, now –– in temperature, if not appearance.

Guessing Games

Today, my son and I decided to find out if our dog, Duke, can swim.

We’ve been deducing things about him since we adopted him in January from the Humane Society in Connecticut. When we got him, aside from his name, we were told only four things about him: that he came from “down South somewhere, probably,” since Duke was sent to them from a shelter in North Carolina; that he had a family for his first four years but they had to give him up for a reason the shelter volunteers either didn’t know, or did know and weren’t sharing with us; that he was extremely overweight, which we’d have to rectify; and that we had won the jackpot because of his sweet, playful nature. That was all of the information we got on him.

So, we’ve had our detective glasses on for five months. Through trial and error, we’ve discovered that: when he is in our fenced yard, if he can’t tunnel out or slam his body against the gate until it opens so he can escape, he will curl up patiently by the back door until we let him in; he will run out the front door if we accidentally leave it open and will probably get attacked by another dog, which will land him at the vet’s and us in the poorhouse; he will eat anything and everything including socks, which must be high in calories because he’s gaining weight instead of losing it; he hates cats and squirrels; he’s fascinated by bats; he thinks he’s a 110-pound lapdog; and his breakfast kibble gives him pause.

Every morning, he hesitates in front of his bowl, but not in the evening. We don’t know what he’s waiting for. I’ve given him permission to eat, I’ve said grace for him, and I’ve walked away. Walking away works the best. When I return, the food is always gone. Maybe he likes to eat his breakfast in peace.

We also had to narrow down his breeds by asking others what they thought he was. My friend, Christine, who has worked in shelters and has seen a lot of dogs, said she thought Duke was probably part malamute, lab, and German shepherd. Once I googled malamute, I could see why she decided on that breed. I think I see some shepherd in him, too, and labs look kind of generic, so I can’t come up with any evidence that he’s not one. Therefore, I’m inclined to agree with her.

However, I saw a commercial the other day that featured wolves, and I could’ve sworn he was in it. Maybe he was a TV wolf before we got him. The former owner is probably getting monthly residual checks while we’re getting shredded, slobbery socks tossed about our house, tumbleweeds of dog hair blowing around the legs of our furniture, and enormous veterinarian bills.

But, back to today. We noticed that Duke has webbed toes, so we assumed he could swim. So, we took him to the nearest public dock. When we got there, it was low tide. Duke was very interested in the thousands of suicidal oysters that had died on the rocks, but he shied away from the water. I eventually lured him in, but he wouldn’t go in further than his ankles. Then he took off running under piers and across jagged rocks, leading me and my son on a slippery chase across mossy stones and through sucking mud and stagnant green water.

When we finally caught him, we rinsed him off and took him home. We still don’t know if he can swim. He might never have seen large bodies of water before. This weekend, we’re going to take him to a lake where dogs are allowed to swim. Hopefully, he’ll see how easy it is and he’ll join the hordes of dogs chasing balls in the lake. Or, he won’t.

Either way, he’s going to wear water shoes. I don’t want him bleeding all over the kitchen floor again, like he did tonight. He must have cut his foot while running across the razor-edged rocks. I had to drug him with Benadryl so that I could clean his foot and wrap it in gauze. Of course, he tore off the gauze and dragged the blood-soaked wrappings across the rugs. So I was forced to make him a boot out of socks and a ribbon of medical tape. It took several tries to tie it on tight enough to keep him from pulling it off, but loose enough not to cut off his circulation.

It was good practice, though, because I’m going to have to make his water shoes out of socks and old tires, since I don’t know where to buy them. Hopefully his dog friends will be so busy making fun of his swimming that they won’t notice his shoes.

 

Duke’s Dog Fight

Our dog, Duke, escaped from our yard the other day, got into a dog fight, and was returned to us by our neighbor. He looked fine when he got home, but it turned out that he wasn’t. In the evening, he brushed against the back door and howled like a stabbed wolf … which was pretty much what he was.

It turned out that he had been bitten. The bite was deep and painful. I don’t think he noticed it until he rubbed against the door, but once he did, he wouldn’t leave the bite alone. In minutes, he was standing in the kitchen in a puddle of blood. When I tried to clean the wound, he tried to bite off my hand.

We got Duke two months ago from the local shelter. Since the day he joined our family, he has been sweet and playful. So it worried us when he snarled, bared his teeth, and tried to bite us when we went anywhere near his injury.

The bite was discovered on Saturday night so we didn’t get him to a vet until Monday, since our vet was closed. Two visits and more than $900 later, we had a bag of pills and a sedated dog. That’s all $900 gets you these days at our vet. But I will save that rant for another day.

Getting the pills into Duke was an adventure. I’d stuff them in cheese or sausage hunks and he’d eat them. Hours later, I’d find the pills all over the house. He ate the meat or cheese, secreted the pills in his cheek, and spit them out when nobody was looking. So, I’d try again, with more meat or cheese, and stand over him until I was sure the pills had been swallowed.

As I said, trying to clean the wound was out of the question, unless we wanted to lose fingers or a limb. So we ignored the blood that had dripped down his side and dried on his fur. He was obsessed with the cut, however, so he opened it up every time a scab formed, either by licking it or scratching it with his leg. He was in a lot of pain for several days, until the antibiotics started working, so we had to be very careful when we tried to make him stop opening the scab.

Our first strategy was to put one of those lampshade collars on his head. That kept him from licking the wound, but he could still reach it with his leg. It also made him think that since he couldn’t move his head, he couldn’t move anything. So he would stand stock still like a statue. This was very inconvenient for us because he’s a wide dog and he always managed to be blocking the doorway we wanted to go through.

Since his imagined paralysis became a hindrance to us, we took off the lampshade and put a T-shirt on him, knotting it on the top so he couldn’t lick the bite. Of course, he could still scratch it with his leg, and he did, which left us with a dog walking around in a bloody T-shirt. I don’t know how we initially got the shirt on him, but there was no chance he was going to let us take it off and put on a clean one. The snarling and the snapping of his giant teeth terrified us.

We began to wonder if we had adopted the Devil’s dog. I hoped not, because I wouldn’t have the guts to return him to the shelter. People who work at shelters have a gift for making you feel like bottom feeders if you return your adopted pet, even if the pet is possessed by demons. Fortunately, he went back to being a sweet dog once he felt better.

But, before then, when he was in agonizing pain, he decided he was dying. From reading about the phenomenon and witnessing it first-hand with our last dog, we knew that when dogs are dying, they separate themselves from their family, find a private place to lie down, and wait to die.

Ever since we had gotten him, we would let Duke into our fenced yard and whistle for him to come in. He always responded immediately and raced to the door. That was until he got bitten. After that, he would go out, find a dark corner of the yard, lie down, and wait. No amount of whistling could get him to come in. Of course this always occurred after dark, usually after midnight, so we couldn’t see him, and we couldn’t yell his name for fear of waking the neighbors. Usually it was up to me to walk around the yard with my iPhone flashlight, looking for him. When I finally found him, I’d hiss at him, “You’re not dying. Get the hell inside.” Then I’d grab his collar and drag him into the house.

Things have calmed down now that the pills are working. He’s still bleeding all over the floor and spitting pills in corners, but he’s playful and happy.

You can’t have everything.

How Much is that Doggie in the Credenza?

Photo credit: Luke Porco

We got a new dog, Duke, two days ago. We adopted him from the Connecticut Humane Society in Westport. We were told that he is a German Shepherd mix. He looks more like a Golden Retriever/Husky mix to us. He might have some German Shepherd in him, but he doesn’t have the long pointy face or ears. He actually looks eerily like our Golden Retriever, Rudy, who died this summer, except for his stocky body.

Speaking of Duke’s stocky body, we were told that he is on a weight-loss diet. He had lost nine pounds since arriving at the shelter and we were encouraged to keep the weight loss going. Boy, did he come to the wrong house. I am not a paragon of clean eating by any means. My family has started to work on his weight, however, with exercise and low-calorie food. Duke needs to buckle down and cooperate, though. Yesterday, he ate my slippers and I happen to know that they’re high in saturated fat.

His weight makes him very broad across the back and rear, so I have had to take his girth into consideration while shopping for a crate. We hope to crate-train Duke, once we figure out what that means. We had the same intention for Rudy, but he refused to go anywhere near his crate.

Maybe it was because it looked like a prison. This time around, I decided to get an attractive crate that looks like a piece of furniture. My sister has a beautiful wood and metal crate for her dog. It’s so pretty that I would consider napping in it.

When I went online and searched for “furniture dog crates” and “wood crates,” I found some unexpected designs. Many of the wood crates on the market are actually pieces of furniture that you keep your dog in.

They’re downright odd. Think about it. You go to someone’s house and put your bag down on their credenza (aka buffet) and are greeted by a dog who is staring at you through the bars. Or, you turn on a lamp at a friend’s house and there’s a puppy inside the side table. Imagine working at your corner desk while your pet nips at your ankles.

Take a look at these crate designs and see if you also think that they’re creepy. I’m a big fan of multi-purpose objects, but as the saying goes, “these ain’t them.”

I think this design came from an animal cracker box.

I wouldn’t want to be around when he finally gets out.

Yes, he is supposed to hang out in there.

Photos from Wayfair.com

Dog Justice

If you have a dog (or cat or bird or reptile) or know someone who does, chances are one of you is going to ask a friend or relative to pet-sit while you go away for a few days. It’s a summertime ritual. It’s hard to say no to a friend or relative. It’s damn near impossible when you have a pet of your own. The first thing you think is, “Great! Now I know who to ask when I need a pet-sitter.”

That was our selfish thought last night when we agreed to watch our nephew’s Pit Bull puppy for a few days (after thinking that we wanted to help him out, of course). Otto arrived this afternoon. He is such a sweet dog. I got my lifetime’s allotment of puppy kisses within an hour of meeting him. It’s such a shame that some of these dogs are trained to be vicious. They’re very sweet and affectionate by nature.

Anyway, Otto and our huge Golden Retriever, Rudy, went crazy when they met each other. At first we thought they were trying to kill each other, but no. They were just over-excited and overjoyed. Once we calmed them down, they followed each other around for hours. When my nephew left, Otto had a moment of sadness. He ran to the window and watched my nephew go. Then he forgot why he was sad and went to find Rudy.

Otto and Rudy explored the whole house and the backyard. They got in Rudy’s pool together. They chased each other around and wrestled. They had treats together. They became buddies.

Then, at some point, Rudy realized that Otto wasn’t leaving. He had had enough of sharing me with another dog. So, Rudy decided to complain at the top of his lungs for hours on end. The barking became unbearable. Our yelling at him to stop barking probably became unbearable to our neighbors. We tried separating them, but they kept crashing through doors to reach each other. Then Rudy would start complaining again.

Otto got the idea that Rudy wanted him gone, so he started whimpering. Then he changed his tactic and decided to hump Rudy when Rudy was lying down. Rudy let out a rebel yell and we had to hold him back so he wouldn’t flatten Otto. Both dogs have been neutered, so the failed attempt at humping was Otto trying to show Rudy who was boss. Unfortunately for Otto, it isn’t him.

Dinnertime rolled around. Both dogs had their own food in their own bowls. Both dogs decided to eat each other’s dinner. Rudy ordinarily refuses to eat any dog food other than his brand. Today, however, Otto’s brand of kibble was the one thing in the entire world that he wanted with all of his heart.

After they ate, they ran out back and jumped in Rudy’s pool. Then they ran inside, dripping wet. Then they did it again. And again. The floors became pools themselves. The dogs skidded across the wooden planks as they flew from room to room.

My nephew had told us that Otto needed to be walked three times a day. Rudy loves walks but we have a fenced-in yard, so they’re not absolutely necessary. And Rudy never gets more than one walk a day. When it was time for Otto’s afternoon walk, I was the only person home, and there was no way that I was going to walk them both together. So, I took Otto out by himself. The look of betrayal on Rudy’s face was heartbreaking. When we got back, Rudy decided to make Otto pay. He followed Otto around, barking at him to go home.

I kept telling Rudy to be nice to Otto because Otto missed his daddy. Rudy barked at me and I knew exactly what he was saying, “Well, get him the hell out of here and give him back to his daddy.”

It’s going to be a long weekend. But at least we have a relative who owes us a pet-sitting.

 

 

A Dog’s Life

A Lesson From My Dog

Dirty Dog

I haven’t taken our Golden Retriever, Rudy, to Norwalk’s Cranbury Park for several years. I used to take him all the time, but then we fenced in our yard to cut down on his daily escapes, romps through the neighbors’ yards, and mad dashes across busy streets. Instead of going to the park, we’d open the back door, throw out some biscuits, and out into the yard he’d go. I would occasionally still take him to the park, but then I stopped because he always got dirty … much dirtier than any of the dozens of dogs there at any time.

Today, though, I had him in the car with me and we were in the neighborhood of the park, so I decided to take him. Cranbury Park allows dogs to be off-leash in an area called “The Orchard,” as well as on the trails. I figured that now that he was eight years old, he would be slower than he was when he was a puppy, and I’d be able to stop him before he jumped in the creek.

I was wrong.