Season of Terror

No, I'm not talking about the color coded system of threats made by (ahem, assessed by) the Department of Homeland Security; but events some of our canine friends find much more immediate, such as this morning's intense thunderstorm and the sporadic bursts of fireworks left over from the 4th of July.

A particularly loud burst of thunder woke me up early this morning and I found Aberdeen cowering in a corner.

He shares this reaction with Joya, Igwe and Ralph -- all four of them rescued dogs -- and with Bella, who while not rescued did have a very jittery puppyhood.

I long ago learned that the worst thing you can do for a dog like this is what most people would do intuitively: providing physical comfort or speaking in soothing terms. The dog will almost always react by trembling even more and trying to get into an even smaller space. Instead it seems that a quick return to a normal routine does a lot more for his peace of mind. In a mild case this can mean playing with a toy or going for a walk (they usually won't eat food) but in a more frightened dog any form of attention seems to validate and increase the fear. It's best in those cases to completely ignore here and go about your routine, showing the dog that things are normal as far as you're concerned.

Sooner or later they'll return to this kind of behavior:

Riko -- 1990-2007 -- RIP

Riko passed away yesterday after a long illness, the details of which I've gone into elsewhere. Knowing her these past several years has been a gift and an honor, and while her death does not come as a surprise it brings with it quite a bit of sadness.

After the onset of SARD 2 years ago, she put up quite a fight and coped with her condition amazingly well. At some points she even seemed to be almost her old self again, but her last year became progressively more difficult. Her quality of life was impacted not only by her blindness, but by deteriorating arthritis and advancing senility. Her tumors, though benign, made it difficult for her to lie down comfortably even as she needed more and more sleep and rest. She dealt with all this with typical canine stoicism but one could not help but see how much she was suffering. Her owners handled the situation with a great deal of compassion and dedication right up until the end. I don't know how difficult it was for them but I can only hope that we would all be able to summon such reserves of strength and heart were we to be faced with a similar situation.

Riko thoroughly enjoyed her life, and leaves behind a loving human and canine family, including her son Ralph, now 14.

So that every mouth can be fed

That's two petsits done and one to go. I miss my home but love all my dogs (not to mention that fish -- gorgeous!).

We have what is potentially New York's first heat wave of the year, starting, oh, right about now. Make sure to keep your animals hydrated, and follow these other safety tips too!

Don't let the TV be your only petsitter!

I'm doing quite a lot of petsitting these days, spending more time in Park Slope then in my own home, most of it with dogs with serious psychological and physical health conditions. As you know I'm spending time with Riko and Ralph, and also in the schedule is Kenny and Joya; and Lucky, Ali and Mooschi, to whom I'll introduce you later.

When dog owners go on vacation we're usually presented with the choice of boarding our pets or having a trusted person stay with them in our homes. For some dogs it may not make a whole lot of difference, but for most of the ones I've been familiar with in my life it's a lot more comfortable to stay in a familiar environment and follow the routine they are used to. For rescued dogs it can even be an imperative, and besides Kenny all of the dogs I'll be staying with have had some sort of traumatizing experience.

It's been really hard with Riko especially, this time around. I've mentioned how she lost her sight and her health deteriorated subsequently, but I think that now advanced senility has come into the picture. Most of the day and night she just sleeps, but she'll struggle to her feet in search of food or the yard from time to time. She doesn't respond to her own name anymore, let alone any commands or other words she used to know, and she doesn't even respond to being pet. She was always very intelligent and affectionate, and for a time after losing her sight became even more so, but now she doesn't seem to even be in her body anymore. There were signs of this when I walked her and Ralph for a week a few months back, but I was in denial of it then. Now, I miss her and I feel like I lost my chance to say goodbye.

Kenny and Joya are up next, and after Joya's recent cancer scare (long story short, there was no cancer - maybe I'll tell the whole story another time), I feel confident that they are both still in the prime of their lives.

By the way, the dog in the first picture is Brixton, a 9 year old boxer who I walk from time to time.

And here is Riko, as she spends most of her time these days, sleeping.

"Unsafe to Breathe"

That's what they were saying on the radio this morning about the air, due to 94 degree temperatures, high humidity and dangerous ozone levels. There was no suggestion of what to breathe instead of the air, so I went ahead and sucked it up anyway, which always makes me feel a little hard core.

But seriously, these conditions do require a change in routine for many of my older dogs, as well as Stanley, whose unique physiology puts him in the same breathing category as, say, 13 year old Billie. I kept the walks casual and shaded and sprayed the dogs' underbellies to keep their organs from getting overheated, as well as keeping plenty of drinking water on hand.

And for myself (some of you may know I'm fighting off a bacterial infection and going in for a dreaded round of antibiotics tonight) I also made sure to drink plenty of water, and took breaks in between walks. I got started as early as possible (while making sure not to come too early for the dogs' comfort), thus avoiding the worst parts of the mid-afternoon, and I'm proud to say we all made it through the day unscathed!

Tomorrow the forecast calls for thunderstorms with small hail(!!! - hail! - in late June!!) ahead of dropping temperatures, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Assuming it's safe to breathe by then.

Doggy Daisy Chains

Two of 'em:



These guys know how to stay entertained!

Bella and Bruno -- Smackdown on the Sofa!

Bruno

Bruno is a 9-month old Boston Terrier I recently picked up. He lives across the street from Bella, so she's helping to teach him about the world (may whatever gods that be take heed!). But his owners have done a fantastic job on their own, and, in all seriousness, Bella's not such a bad big sister at all.

The two dogs play together fantastically (pictures to follow) and unlike with bigger dogs, Bella actually displays a fair amount of courtesy in dealing with Bruno. (She's about twice as big as him right now!)

Bruno is already nearly completely house-trained and has great leash behavior. In fact the only real issue I see with him is with his confidence outdoors; he can be a bit afraid of the world. I expect this to clear up pretty quickly though, in fact it's a mystery to me why every dog I spend time with builds their confidence quickly and regularly - even Bella the terrorizer was a bit scared at first. Unlike say, checking aggression (as with Igwe), or preventing scrounging (see Maggie) I have no idea how to do it. My best guess is simply that I like my dogs so much that I project it, and they absorb my own confidence in them.

PS: Bruno's owners have their own (very useful!) blog: Slices of the City

Igwe

Igwe (pronounced "Eeg-way") is a rescued dog from the mean streets of Los Angeles. The scars above his left eye are from fights his first owner entered him into against other dogs, but fortunately those days are long behind him.

From day one, Igwe had an intense desire to please me and his other human handlers; as you can see in the photos his ears are always back when he's being addressed and he displays other signs of submission. But he'd had it ingrained into his training that one way to make his people happy was to attack other dogs and animals. In addition it seems that it's hard wired into his nature that smaller animals (cats, squirrels, etc) are prey. But the canine aggression was actually pretty easy to correct once I realized it's motivation.

For the first few months when we'd see another dog I'd shorten the leash and make him walk past calmly, speaking to him the whole way. If he lunged I'd raise him up and clamp his jaws shut, and he quickly learned that this was not the way to make me happy. When he was able to successfully walk past another dog without making a move I'd reward him by playing with him with a stick or by running, and thus he began to associate other dogs with play. He occasionally will play submissively with another dog these days (usually a calmer, predictable one), but he remains a people dog at heart and still prefers to interact with me.

In fact, Igwe is so much of a people's dog that another facet of his early training with me focused on curtailing this part of his personality. He doesn't realize that he can project quite the fearsome aura to someone who's afraid of dogs, and in his Bed-Stuy neighborhood there's a lot of that going around. Many times people would stare at him out of just such fear, and he would take it as an invitation to try to sidle up to the person for some lovin'. Suffice it to say this never went over well, and it doesn't work to explain in such a situation that he doesn't bite; what we'd get back was almost always a variation of "He's got teeth, don't he?".

But his behavior really evened out over a pretty short period of time, and his reactions to the two situations became pretty similar - he'd wait for permission from me. In the case of animals he waits for permission to play, and in the case of people he waits for permission to approach. If he doesn't get it, he's still just as happy.

And Igwe really is one happy dog! As with many dogs with traumatic early lives who find themselves in a much better situation, he really loves his people and demonstrates it constantly. He had a great deal of separation anxiety at first, when his owner would leave for work or after I'd walk him in the afternoon. But this was also dealt with, by not treating leaving him as a big deal and by getting him used to a routine so he'd know what to expect.

However it is possible that Igwe's situation may change soon, and you, gentle reader, may be asked to get involved in some way. I'll let you know when, and if, I know more.

Riko and Ralph

Riko and Ralph are a mother and son duo from Seattle whose up and down story is as punk rock as their city of origin.

Their owners (and life partners) found Riko running around their neighborhood about a dozen years ago, when she was 2 or 3 years old. So they did the responsible thing and took her in and cared for her while making every possible effort to locate her owner, including fliering the entire neighborhood. All to no initial avail, until one day she was being walked, and this guy nearly accosts her biped, "What are you doing, that's my dog!"

Being a gentleman, my client explained to Riko's very high strung (former) owner that he'd been trying to find him for a while, and was glad he had finally done so. The man in question simply replied with a grunt, "Well I have her son too, at home. Ya want him?"

And everyone did live happily ever after, after a fashion; but as with most rescued dogs it wasn't exactly as simple as all of that. The dogs had never been properly socialized, and they have the explorative, athletic and workaholic drives common to many terrier breeds. In spades. They quickly developed an attachment to their new family (also common among rescued dogs), and a related hostility to other dogs (who might be a threat to mom and dad after all. you never know!). And although they improved psychologically, Ralph (to the right in the photo above) never completely got over his nervous jitters and Riko (on the left) never fully lost her urge to roam.

But these were only minor bumps on the road to recovery, and manageable. They remained very engaged, animated and happy; and very, very active well into their senior years. I started walking them when the whole pack (mom and dad, and, well, mom and son) moved to Brooklyn 3 years ago, and that was how I found them. (Riko had already started to develop some minor arthritis even then, but hell, she still did handstands on her front paws when she marked her territory!)

Then a bit less than 2 years ago, over the space of a few weeks, Riko went blind. After much testing the cause was determined to be a rare disease called sudden acquired retinal degeneration, or SARD, about which little is known. The disease is accompanied by a reduction in activity, and this in turn led to more painful arthritis. But she was still a very happy dog, and if anything she got even more affectionate. She even started playing and wagging her tail with other dogs!

A few months after Riko went totally blind, she started acting almost as if she could see again for a few weeks. She was avoiding obstacles (even those that were not part of our routine) and walking with much more confidence. To this day, nobody understands what that was about, and after what was maybe her last glimpse of sunlight she receded again into darkness.

Ralph's story isn't quite so extreme as that but, at 13 years old, he's not exactly on autopilot either. He's still very energetic, and the same dog as always, but he has some arthritis as well and recently had surgery for mouth cancer.

On the bright side (no pun intended), they do now have a live at home butler (i.e. their owner!), who has recently started his own business out of his home, so the love and affection (and the glucosamine/chondroitin) they need is never out of reach! I don't give them regular walks anymore, but work is easy to find and I'm much happier that they're getting what they really need. But I do fill the role of butler when their owners go away, and I'm going to be delighted to spend some time with them soon!