Snow illusions

I walked the dogs last night in the newest snowstorm here in the Northwoods. I had my Petzl headlamp on, and noticed that the snow coming down was mesmerizing. If I looked out into the night from the light of the lamp, the snow arced down and looked like hundreds of thousands of dashes and dots. It's too bad I don't know Morse Code. I had just never seen that effect before. No photos, unfortunately.

In other news, the e-collar training is going well. Luckily Rudder learns very fast, so I don't have to use it that much.

Oh, and I have the awful office Tuberculosis-like cold. Or maybe I have kennel cough. Ick. Merry Christmas.

Training the TeeNewf

I was so proud of this photo of the newest member of my fur family, because the powerful stance is so unlike this sweet, goofy beast, but when my new dog trainer, Sharon, saw it, she did not "ooooh" and "aaaaaah" and say, "what a fantastic photo of Rudder!" No. She said, "I see you're allowing Rudder to jump up on things...." deflating my balloon just like that.

Anyway, I started training him in earnest today. I got up and drove the 20 miles to my private lesson, and am slowly learning to use a remote training collar (AKA electronic collar, "shock" collar, etc). I had always been against using them, until I saw a demonstration and I felt what the dog was feeling, at least initially. Remote collars have come a long way even in the past 5 years.

We just did our first session today. He wears the collar unless I am not with him and I always have the remote in my hand. He also wears a "long line" everywhere,for the first week, so I can guide him into doing what I want (or don't want) him to do. I am doing everything the trainer advises, because I have known her a long time, I see how happy her dogs are, and I see that she can take them anywhere with her and they are welcome.

I just hope that as the weeks go by, I become more confident in this method.

Teen Angel?

When have words been so separately different , yet together so true? I have a teen now- not a human, but an adolescent dog, a 120 lb Newf, and boy is it a of work I didn't expect. Funny thing is, that I raised not one other TeenNewf, but three others, including two littermates, and I don't remember having this much trouble with them. It must have been so painful that I blocked it out of my memory, is all I can figure. 

Don't get me wrong, I am having a blast with Rudder - when I am not holding my lumbar region after two walks, a game of fetch, watching Rudder like a hawk in the house so he doesn't surreptitiously lift his leg on everything vertical, taking 25 minutes to get him in the car, which he hates, and splitting up tiffs between Rudder and my 11-year-old Newf, Dulse.

Generally, I like to leave new dogs to work out dominance issues on their own. Here is the exception: Rudder is still intact, although he still respects neutered Dulse most of the time. When he gets a bit of rambunctious teen testosterone, or youthful enthusiasm, however, he "forgets" and challenges and jumps on top of my old resident Newf, and fights have ensued that I have had to break up, lest my old boy gets hurt. I don't want Dulse's last years to be a big struggle.

Training this boy is also a challenge. He wants to please, which is good, but he is easily distracted and I have to pull out my rusty dog training hat to figure out how best to get him to do what I want. He is not food motivated at all. He sits nicely, and is learning to heel slowly, and he does a reasonably good down (with the prerequisite, "Oh did you want me "down" like THIS?" - and then gets down on his side, four feet flailing, with a toothy Newfy smile that I can't resist.

All in all, I am doing pretty well with him until I can get him into some professional obedience training, and, of course, get the "nuggies" (as we call them in the vet world) snipped off.le is getting him into the car

A Fourth

A vet at work gave me a wind chime a few years ago when I still had 3 Newfs. It has the most beautiful sound, and it hangs right outside my living room window, so I look at it a lot. It's got four newfs on it, andI have always wondered if that chime "means" that I will have four Newfs in this house at some time. I am down to one now, one who sometimes enjoys his status and sometimes looks as though he lost his best friend, which he did. I miss having two dogs, too. Watching dogs or even pets interact is like having the PBS program, "Nature" in real life. The body language they exhibit and the fun they can have with each other, make it very entertaining. Even Max, my big ol' Tuxedo kitty, is getting involved with Dulse now that there are only two.

So, why not throw a wrench in the works? I have been thinking about getting another dog for a couple of months now. I had been in touch with Baci/Dulse's breeder through the years and had been updating her frequently on Baci's progress. She grieved with me at Bacis death because she knew how much he meant to me. Anyway, in September, she mentioned an older puppy she wanted to rehome.....

Fast forward to today. I picked up "Rudder" yesterday and, let me say, it has been a LONG time since I have had a teenager in the house. He is a sweet, sweet boy, but needs to be neutered - and soon! I forgot that intact adolescent male dogs walk around saying, "Hmmmmm- this doesn't smell like me - I'll have to take care of that right now!" and have endless urine to help them do just that. They also have endless energy, and this 130 lb teen LEAPS up into the air like a Border Collie. He is charming. Dulse, and even Max likes him. So, I have my fourth, I guess.

The grief is always lurking

I often stop by a group of owners with dogs that have or that have had bone cancer. Although the survival rate is dismal, there are people with dogs who survive much longer than my guy did. I think, "What did I do wrong? I brought Baci to the vet the day after he started limping. Some people wait weeks or months after they see symptoms and their dogs survive a lot longer than 2 1/2 months. Why did this happen to me?" Then I read about people who have dogs diagnosed one day and their dogs are gone less than a week later and remember that there are all different scenarios for this awful disease. I realize that everyone does their best and my heart goes out to all of them.

Hunkering down

Gloomy, pre-first-snow morning. It seems like just last week when I looked out my window everything was green and just yesterday the leaves were turning in that gorgeous way only the northwoods do. I couldn't even see the lake except when there was a strong wind. This morning the trees are bare, I can see the clear water (well, I'm exaggerating, I can't really see the water that closely, I just know it's clear), and everything else is brown. 

Fortunately, this time of year, before everything ices up, is the perfect time to take Dulse, my dog for a walk. Although he is 11, he still has a spark of puppy in him and this weather seems to energize him even more. This year, also, the lake is down so far that there is a beach, and you can actually walk around it, even though to do so, you are actually walking on what used to be the water (nice Sunday image).

The first rule of Carpool: you do not talk about Carpool

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Autumn and hunting and learning experiences

I crack up when I hear that it is "the beginning of fall" right now in some areas that are pretty near to me. Although all the leaves have not turned, here, in northern Wisconsin, it is well into fall. In fact it could snow any day now.

Autumn here means that most of the male population take to the woods with their guns or bows to kill creatures. When I moved up here 9 years ago, I thought that was cruel. Last week, at the suggestion from someone I carpool with, I actually went into the woods with dogs and a man carrying a rifle. It may or may not have anything to do with hitting 3 deer in my time up here.

Not that we were hunting deer - it's grouse season now, as I learned.

<--- This is a grouse.

Anyway, after work, I was picked up from home with my 11 year old Newfoundland, Dulse, and brought to this "secret place". Although I was not blindfolded, nor was I threatened, I was strongly advised not to reveal the location. That, I guess, happens a lot up here.

Dulse and I and my buddy (I have friends with sons older than him), his 2-year-old Lab, and a giant gun started trekking along a path into the woods. At first Dulse, who misses playing with his brother, was chasing after the lab, who was doing all sorts of gymnastics I did not think were possible for a dog to do. Soon, my 11-year-old Newf backed off. I could tell he had this "f--- this!" look on his face and stuck mostly by me.

My buddy was determined to show me how his dog flushed a grouse and he would shoot it. He warned me not to scream when the gun went off, as this would throw off his concentration. (I did not mention when I lived in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, I heard gunshots regularly.)

He told me what kind of brush the grouse preferred, the height where they usually roosted in the trees, and their favorite times of day to feed.

We walked quietly, and every once in a while, my bud would say, mysteriously, in a whispering voice, that I should stay right there and look "down there" (he pointed in a general area) and that he was going off the train with his dog to see if he could flush a grouse. I spent the next 10 minutes "seeing" grouse anywhere but where my buddy was, whisper-screaming for Dulse to "come" by me so he wouldn't get shot, remembering any TV show/newspaper/radio story about how someone was accidently shot while hunting, and enjoying the woods. This happened twice. By the second time I had decided that he was proficient enough with the gun to know where his hunting companions/dogs were that he would not accidentally shoot anyone.

We neither shot anything, nor flushed anything in our hour and a half in the woods. We enjoyed our dogs, the beauty and scent of the fall woods, and chatted very little. It was wonderful and a great way to end a day of stressful work in the middle of the week. I am incredibly lucky to live here and to have the kind of friends who are willing to teach me something every day.

Goodbye, my friend

Hugybear's Tintoretto "Baci" (06/15/97-08/21/08) Godspeed, my heart dog!

It's been almost a year and a half since I have written in here and a month since I lost my best friend - my "heart dog", Baci. For those of you who don't know what a heart dog it, it is that once-in-a-lifetime dog, the dog you have connected with since the day you met.

This was so true with my Newfoundland, Baci. Even at 5 weeks of age, it was obvious that he would be my buddy. He came to me at 8 weeks with his littermate, Dulse. I was taking care of both of them for a couple of months for the breeder, and it was agreed that they would be xrayed for hip problems at age 4 months and at that time, I would relinquish Dulse to the breeder to go to another loving home.

I worked at a vet school at the time, and I remember my colleagues saying that I would keep both of them, just watch. Well, guess what? Dulse had his own charms - he was obedient, he was handsome, he was quiet and intense, and in the household, he firmly set his role as guardian of the house. In truth, he was the antithesis of Baci.

Baci was my clown. There was not a day I lived with him that he did not make me laugh. He was naughty and a counter surfer, but he was so sneaky in his food stealing that I had to laugh. I mean, before I learned to put all consumables on top of the refrigerator,there were times when I swore I was only out of the room for a minute and when I came back the food would be gone and he would on the other side of the room, sleeping. Unfortunately, visitors who did not live with him were also affected by this behavior. Some laughed, like the time we saw him trotting off with a baguette from my friend's bag, and it was not later until we realized that he had already consumed the wheel of Brie that was on the bottom of her bag! Others were not so kind about this bad habit and would sulk for hours. All I can say is that I warned everyone about Baci's food obsession, and if they couldn't remember, well.....

Baci's breeder and I used to joke that Baci suffered from Canine ADD. He was easily distracted and interested in everything. He lived his entire life to the fullest, and looking back, although I know I gave him a good life, with the best of care, I know I could have done more to foster his intelligence and happiness.

On June 10, 2008, 5 days before his 11th birthday, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in his front shoulder. He had only been limping for one day before I took him in to the vet. This disease is particularly insidious and the vet gave him one month to live. I was stunned at first before I was forced to face reality by a vet at work and look at options for treatment. The treatment of choice is amputation, but at the time, I thought that amputating an 11-year old Newfoundland's front leg, even though he was in good health otherwise, would be cruel. He had hip dysplasia that was being treated, he had had a knee replacement when he was younger, and he was at the top end of a Newf's lifespan.

The only other options were for controlling the pain, which some say is horrible, like the bone is exploding from the inside. He was put on pain meds, but I wanted to do something more. I contacted the vet school I used to work for and asked about a treatment called "palliative radiation," which is supposed to slow down the progress of the tumor, and thus cut down the pain so that the dog has a better quality of life for a few months longer. This consists of three radiation treatments in a span of a month. It is supposed to work on 75-80% of dogs. This meant that I had to travel four hours to Minnesota for initial oncologist consultation and for the treatments. I loved this dog so much and did not want to see him in pain and I thought that the odds were pretty good, so I did it.

It was so difficult to go through those weeks with him. I read books, I joined a web group that consisted of owners of dogs with bone cancer (invaluable for support, information, and tips to deal with this hideous disease), I arranged to get him a drug that would decrease the likelihood that his bone would fracture because of the weakness of the cancerous bone.

I constantly worried that I would not know when the time would be to let him go. He could swim, he seemed happy, but he really never stopped limping even though he was on all the pain meds I could give him. I made quality of life charts, I bugged the vets at work for advice on determining when he was in too much pain, I asked a friend to come up to help me decide, but ultimately, I used a combination of gut instinct and the advice from two friends who worked with animals and who have been through this disease with them. One said to pick three of his favorite things to do. When he could not do,or was having trouble doing two of them, it was time to let go. He loved to eat, he loved to swim, and he loved to be wherever I was, with a paw touching me.

Another friend said not to wait until he was unable to function; that I should be able to remember him still walking, still bright, still reasonable happy.

By the end of July, he could not get down to the beach anymore to swim.

He was still able to get onto the couch to lie next to me.

One day he refused a treat. The next day he would not eat. I knew it was time.

I took him into the vet, still walking, on August 21. He lifted his leg on 3 bushes there. He was still alert, but I could tell he was in pain and looking at me to do something about it. At 10 a.m. I whispered "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you" into his ear as the vet administered the euthanasia solution. Part of my heart flew away that day.

This is an appropriate to put the piece about the Rainbow Bridge, but it makes me cry, even when I am not grieving for a recently-lost pet, so I won't.

I am sad, still. It takes a while to go through the grief. I have another dog to take care of - Dulse is still with me and still healthy, even at 11. I thought he would mourn more because his littermate is gone. Honestly, I think part of him enjoys having "only dog" status, and, of course, he is still guardian of the house.

Hugybear's Titian "Dulse"