Roxie and Haku/Old Pup/Junior

Today two interesting things happened.

First, Roxie got her stitches out, and therefore no longer has to wear the cone-head. This is good - she obviously feels much better without the cone - and bad - she now is free to escape again at will. At least now if she does leave us, we know that there won't be more litters of puppies as a result.

Second, I received an email from out of the blue from a woman called Kate. Kate says that she's known and loved Haku since he was a small puppy, and she has been trying for all these years to convince him to be her dog. She calls him Junior, and she tells me that he was born in the early spring of 1998 - making him nearly 10 years old already.

Anyway, apparently Kate has been worried about Haku, who has not been around her house for the past many months (he's been at our house, of course). Kate's sister found my web page with the Haku photo, and passed that along to Kate, and Kate actually found our house and has driven by twice in an attempt to see him. We've missed her both times - but she clearly wants to discuss all matters Haku/Junior with us.

So, there's one more person we know of in the Cult o' Haku. See - it's not just us - he really is magical!

(Curly Update)

Little Curly, who's name is now 'Bubbles', has settled into the good life with a new family that are providing her lots of love, a comfy chair for daytime naps and a nice bed for nighttime sleeps, plenty of lovely kibble and even a couple of bows for her fur. Sometimes stray dog stories can be short and have very happy endings.

We love you, Bubbles!

For Roxie, things are never simple.

The good news: Roxie's tick fever re-test came back negative, and she is now officially off the puppy train for good! She got her spay this morning, and she's recovering just fine.

The bad news: She got a special, even-more-expensive-than-the-expensive-almost-spay- spay by the emergency vet who had to anesthetize her anyway in order to clean and suture her many lacerations.

Said lacerations caused at some moment between about 6pm and 10:30pm last night by some indeterminate but clearly extremely aggressive and mean other dog, who beat the bajeezus out of our poor girl. Roxie's a big strong dog, but when John saw her wandering around the house covered in blood on his return from the climbing gym, it was clear that someone else in the neighborhood must be even bigger and stronger.

So, poor Roxie, in addition to her spay sutures, has staples and sutures all over her sweet self. Including but not limited to: both ears, all four legs, and her derriere. And a really big set of stitches, plus a drain, in the giant slash on her side. And she's on antibiots and pain meds for the next two weeks; assuming we can keep her long enough for that to be done. And, at least one more vet visit to remove the drain in 10-14 days.

Haku was nowhere to be seen last night while all this was going on. I was really worried that he'd been hurt too, and then maybe was laying somewhere needing help himself. But he showed back up when we returned Roxie home from the vet this morning, clearly worried about her but not injured himself.

What could've happened out there? Dunno.

Things change

Probably because I said in my last blog post that nothing'd really changed, things changed.

The first thing that happened was that Haku brought us another dog - we're calling her Curly, and she's a very sweet little cockapoo type dog, who is now safely ensconced with Haku out by the garage. Curly will be delivered either to the humane society or to a new home soon - she needs a bath, but she's clearly the kind of dog lots of people want - cute, small, friendly and not scary at all.

By 'soon' I don't really know when I mean. Maybe a friend of ours will come out and take her home (a gift for her mom, who needs some cheering up). Or maybe we'll actually have to surrender this dog to the humane society, during their draconically limited admissions hours (9-6, but at least 7 days/week). Either way, she's going to be just fine. She deserves to have the good home that she'll find for herself.

Then, shortly after the arrival of Curly, our dog Sally started having problems. It began on a Tuesday morning at like 3am - she woke us up crying and yiping. Just lying on the bed - but yiping in a way that was clear she was serious. John stayed home with her that day - and she was yipey and stressed and clearly felt TERRIBLE. So, we called our vet and made an appointment to bring her in - Thursday morning was the soonest they could see us. In the meanwhile, our vet suggested giving her some of the Rimadyl that we had left over from Roxie's near-spay experience. That seemed to help a lot.

Thursday morning was this morning - I took Sally to her appointment, and the vet drew blood so that they could check for valley fever and tick fever, among other possible causes. Happily, Sally was feeling much better, even without any Rimadyl. So, it could've been just a muscle strain or something...at least we hope so.

We'll get some of the results of the bloodwork tomorrow or Saturday, but other tests will take longer; so it'll be maybe a couple of weeks before we have a complete picture of what's up with Sally. And, while we were there I was chatting with the vet about Roxie's situation.

Roxie is a few days away from being done with her antibiotic for her tick fever. I was under the impression that we could make an appointment for her to be re-tested, and possibly schedule her spay for very soon after that. But, our vet told us, the special, accurate tick fever test she'll have to have can take 20-30 days to come back. So, it could be another month after she's done with the antibiots before the spay can come - and that's if they worked! Otherwise, longer.

And I learned how to tell if a dog is in heat, and I can now safely report that Roxie is, in fact, in heat. She's visiting Haku often, and so, well, there you have it.
We're hoping for the best w.r.t. spay before pregnancy still, but with the possibly extra month or more of waiting, it seems very unlikely. AND our vet said 'well, you don't want to have puppies that were conceived when the mom is on doxycycline, either...'. This was followed by a facial expression that one might expect from someone who'd just sniffed poo or something icky. I'm guessing, but did not ask for confirmation of the guess, that if Roxie gets pregnant while on the antibiotics, there's a strong possibility of pups with birth defects. But, of course, we'll do our best to be sure there's no pups at all...

...but, of course, that'll be up to the universe more than it'll be up to us.

Brother and sister, night and day

In the weeks since my last post, not much has changed - but the routine has solidified. Each morning and evening, after we feed Zero, Sally & Gator, we send those guys outside and open up the door to the dog room so that Roxie, Dash and Dot can come in and eat. Well, about half the time we have to call Roxie in from the front door, due to her continuing escapes, but that's kinda part of the routine too.

Roxie rockets in, and love-pummels any human in range before settling in to eat her meal. Dash and Dot trot down the stairs, Dash being very careful that noone's behind him who might close the door and prevent him from having a clear means of escape if needed. They follow us to the kitchen while we prepare their peanut butter spoon treats (with or without hidden pills as the dosing guidelines require). Dash and Dot will follow you anywhere if you have a spoonful of peanut butter for them to lick.

Then, there's a lot of dog munching of kibble - Dash participating iff there's a clear escape route and nothing weird is happening. The other night he got fixated by a scene from Survivor: China which was randomly on the telly while dinner was being served, but mostly he just stays hypervigilant.

Then, at some point, Dot decides to play. She climbs up on the couch, or the chair or the loveseat - whichever there's more room on, and starts chewing on the blanket or pillow nearest to her nose. That's the humans' cue that they're allowed to pet her. You can sit down next to her on the couch and pet her a lot, especially if some of the petting involves tummy rubbing. She still shies away if she's just walking around and you reach for her - but playtime is petting time and she's ok with pretty much anything then.

So, clearly the Prozac is working for our little girl dog. But Dash has shown virtually no change yet. Poor puppy. He's such a sweetheart, I think maybe the most loving and gentle of the bunch. But he's still really scared. I don't know whether this means that the Prozac experiment is a bust for Dashie or if there's still hope it'll kick in in time...but I hope something will change for him soon. We need to give him some pets and kisses!

On being able to touch Dash and Dot

We are a bit more than 2 weeks into our Dash and Dot socialization project, complete with the Prozac and the coming inside to eat and all. They are now very willing to come downstairs into the main part of the house, so long as it's clear that their escape route is clear. They're eating from bowls on the living room floor, and they've even learned how fun it is to lick peanut butter off a spoon. A spoonful of peanut butter is a great place to hide a pill, so this is a very good thing. I think they may even be willing to approach a stranger, should that stranger have a spoonful of peanut butter on him/her. Or just be smeared with peanut butter.

The hard part is going back upstairs after the meals. Roxie doesn't want to go back up there, she clearly wants to stay downstairs and join the family. She's even learned to jump up on the couch and curl up as if she's always been a couch dog. So, we have to make it look like lots of fun to go back into the room, and then we need to stay with her up there for a while and give her a belly scritch.

Yesterday, while I was dutifully scritching the Roxie belly post-prandially, Dash and Dot decided to get into the fray by licking Roxie's face and generally enjoying a good tussle. So, I just reached over from Roxie's belly to Dottie's, fully expecting D to panic and stand up to shake it off. But she didn't. She let me pet her tummy, and her neck and her ears - pretty soon everyone else had walked away and I was still petting her. It took a while, but eventually she decided that this was weird, and she should leave. But it felt like a kind of a breakthrough.

And then this morning, I had sneakily put up the puppy gate in the hallway (thus blocking their escape route) while D&D (and Roxie) were still licking their peanut butter spoons. Dash and Dot got scared, and I just sat with my back at the gate and acted bored so that they would calm down and eat their kibble. John was sitting on the couch acting bored, and Roxie climbed up there with him, and also acted bored.

Dash and Dot were pretty fixated on trying to peer over the gate and stuff, so while they were distracted I took the opportunity to pet Dottie's chest and neck; she didn't even seem to notice. Dash was right there too - he let me pet him as well. As long as they were concentrating on something else, they didn't seem to mind.

So, we still have to be sneaky about it, but technically we're now able to actually touch them. Which is really good - and as the Prozac begins to kick in over the next week or so, maybe we'll start seeing more progress!

Meanwhile, Roxie's been in and out of the yard quite a bit - but she's always been around when I call her to get her tick fever medicine. And we were able to get her back to the vet to get her sutures removed from her near-spay experience. She's hanging out with Haku when she's outside, so I'll be shocked if she's not pregnant by the time we can get to the actual spay - but at least we're able to get her medicine to her on schedule, and she still thinks she's our dog.

She's a very, very, very lovable girl.

To spay, or not to spay?

So many things have happened in the last few days! The first was this:

Roxie found a new way to escape the yard, and decided to use it regularly.

How is she escaping? It is a mystery! It started on Wednesday (two days ago), and I have not been able to figure out how to stop her. Luckily, when she escapes she typically meets me at the front door and is happy to come back inside.

But she also goes to visit Haku, her sweetheart. Haku is uncatchable, and, therefore, unneutered.

So, we thought it would be prudent to move up her spay appointment. She went in for her spay this morning, and when I left her at the vet's I thought "Ok, one more step in the right direction, complete!". I actually felt relieved and hopeful. But, that was a big mistake on my part. Because...

The vet was unable to proceed with the spay. Why?

Roxie has tick fever. Tick fever is treatable via antibiotics, but it reduces the dog's ability to form blood clots. So, surgery is not an option - she would bleed to death. It'll be at least a month before she may be able to undergo her surgery (assuming the antibiots work, and nothing else weird comes up).

So. The problem now is this:

We have an unspayable female dog who may be coming into heat right about now, and who is leaving our yard on a nightly basis to hang out with her boyfriend. And we have no way to prevent her from doing so for at least another month.

Hmmm. So, you ask, how soon after giving birth can a dog get pregnant again?

(Oh, and I do use 'dog' for both males and females, because female dogs are NOT bitches).

Pretty much as soon as they're done nursing, it turns out, they can get pregnant. A female dog can produce as many as 4 litters of puppies per year. Roxie started in January with litter 1, waited for June for litter 2, but perhaps could be prepping for litter 3 before she can undergo her spay.

Additionally, as school has started again and we have had less time to spend with all this legion of dogs, it is clear that Roxie is less pleased with her situation at our house. So, her desire to leave is growing, which I guess I can't blame her for.

Mary Ellen, after listening to me whine about this situation, observed that this could be one of those things that is simply out of one's control, and so one has to learn to do what one can, and let go of the rest. I think she's right.

One week anniversary

Today is our one week anniversary of being officially small-puppy free. Pan must've settled in to his new home, as I've heard nothing more from his new mom. So he's now situated somewhere across town, and Iorek is in the next neighborhood over from us. So close and yet so far.

Since my last post we've met once more with the behaviorists, and have instructions to work on getting Dash and Dot to feel comfortable coming into the house. We're moving their food dishes each day so that they're closer to coming into the hallway from the puppy room, and we will slowly move the food downstairs into the living room area. Once they're OK with being in the living room, with the people ignoring them, we'll be ready for our first lesson.

Roxie and I have been having our morning walks each day, first thing. She's so good to walk with - she never pulls on the leash, and she's so pleased to be out and about! Plus, also, Haku comes with us most days. He drops back behind us for a while, then comes racing up past us; he disappears when other people or cars show up, and then reappears when it's safe. He seems to really enjoy coming along with us - I think it's because that's his only time with his girlfriend, whom he loves as much as I do.

Roxie has her appointment for her spay a week from Friday, and then we'll have to start in earnest focusing on finding a permanent home for her. She's such a good girl, I think it won't be too hard to find someone who'll love her (especially if we get to put her photo on petfinder, and participate in Petsmart adoption events with Animals' Crusaders, as Rose has said we could). It'll be harder than it was to find homes for the puppies, of course. And it'll be more difficult for me because Roxie and I have gone through so much together, and I had to win her trust. And I know she'll be nervous about going to someone else's house and being their dog (though I also know she'll bond with the right person pretty quickly).

This is all happening as the semester's started, and I've been trying to settle in to some kind of reasonable work schedule. I think that's starting to happen, and this has the makings of a really great semester, if I can concentrate on the right things, and stop worrying so much over the stuff I can't control.

Hah! Wouldn't that be great?

Adopted? Or not...

This morning I met with a young woman who had been corresponding with me for days about adopting Pan. She came to visit him, met Roxie as well, and seemed to be perfect. She has a dog of her own (a 3 year old beagle) who needs a pal, and she clearly was enamoured with Pan based on his photos and such.

So we had a nice visit, and at the end of it I handed her my sweet puppy and let her drive away with him. I thought that I could get on with the business of grieving over losing him (so selfish, I know, but inevitable) and go forward to the next step in this whole doggie drama.

But within a few hours she had called me back, clearly panicking, saying that her dog was terrified of Pan, and could she bring him back. She called twice, each time I told her that of course he could come back if she needed, but that it may take any dog some time to get used to having a new friend around, and patience may be all that's needed.

So, I don't know whether I'm going home tonight to an evening of grieving or an reunion followed by more worry about finding a place for Pan soon, so that he can avoid the worst of the doggy separation trauma. I don't even know which I really want it to be. Ugh.

Dog Whisperers

There's been a lot going on with the dogs, and I've not kept up on the blogging of all possible details (ack!), so I figured I'd take the last 20 minutes before teaching my first class of Fall term to listen to some iTunes and catch up a bit on the blog. That's better than obsessing about all the things that can go wrong in a mass lecture of 500+ people, right?

When we took Pan and Iorek for their vet visit, we chatted the doc. up about various worries and issues we had with all the different doggies. She recommended a local behaviorist, Vanya Moreno, who runs a business called animal magnetism, and I called her up and scheduled a consultation.

Vanya arrived with a colleague, Ben, who has lots of experience with feral dog issues, and they met all the various dogs/puppies and saw the situation at home. They advised us to not try to integrate the Roxie pack into the Zero/Sally/Gator pack unless we were planning on adopting Roxie for real (I so wish we could!), and they very strongly advised us that if Pan and Iorek weren't adopted out soon we would have to start separating them from each other, and from their mom. They are at the phase of puppy development where this separation stuff can be done most gracefully - if we were to wait, the separation would be much more traumatic for them when it finally came. (Since that day, it looks like we've solved that problem - Iorek's at his new home, and we have a couple lines on new families for Pan. Gasp. Sob.)

With regard to Dash and Dot, they told us that feral dogs tend to get less social with humans over time, rather than moreso, unless a person intervenes fairly dramatically. Whatever we do about them, it's going to be a long and labor-intensive process to get them to the point where we can handle them normally (like, to be able to get them to the vet, and have them not be a hazard to themselves and others should we need to handle them). They won't be adoptable for a long time - if they ever get there, and we might as well just figure that they're our dogs. Which is hard - it's good because we're totally in love with them, but bad because that means we end up with a minimum of 5 dogs, and we really are better as a 3 dog family. So.

We're going to work with these guys on an 8 week regimen, which starts this Friday. It involves giving D&D certain mood-altering chemicals that are often also prescribed for humans, so that they can stay calm while we work with them. It will also involve crate-training them, which is going to be super-hard for me to do. Everyone who knows about dogs says crate-training is great; I've just never done it, and it feels icky to think I'm going to stick D & D in separate boxes from each other. They get so much comfort from having each other around...but that's exactly the problem. As long as they turn to each other for their primary comfort and support, they'll not be able to (a) calm themselves should one or the other have to go away for any length of time, or (b) understand that they can get comfort from humans. Namely, us.

Since that day, Rose from Animals' Crusaders also came by and gave Dash and Dot their booster shots, so they are officially parvo/distemper vaccinated (also, rabies, of course - that doesn't need a 3 week booster). She has such a great way of working with them, which is drug-free, and which I'd like to try to emulate as much as I can. She gets a slip-leash on them, then lets them relax for a bit, then she is able to put on a muzzle, and then comes the lots of petting and scratching and sweet-talking. If I could do that once per day over the next few weeks, I'll bet it'd go a long ways towards getting them to stop being so afraid of me. Rose has no PhD in animal behavior, but she does have 25 years of experience catching and gentling feral dogs. And she has the love for them, which is such a great thing.

OK, that took longer than 20 mins, and I had to break off to go teach class. But I'm glad I took the mental break. The 500+ were well-behaved and attentive, so all is well for now.

But I really wish I were hugging a puppy!

Iorek has a new home

Well, it has happened. We found a new home for little Iorek - with a young couple who live not far from here and who've just bought their first home. Chris, the dude, was looking for a yellow lab type dog, and came to see Iorek. We brought Pan down as well, and he immediately (and properly, of course) fell in love with both of them. He tried to talk his wife into letting him bring both puppies home, but to no avail - this made me like him more, though, that he realized that Pan was as lovable, and as much of a treasure as Iorek is.

Chris picked Iorek up and took him home about a half hour ago, saying that he had a buddy who he was going to tell about Pan, and he was hoping that he could get his friend to adopt Pan too. There have been a couple of other people answering our ad in the paper, so hopefully Pan will find his new home soon also.

John and I have very mixed feelings - we're really pleased that Iorek's got a good home with someone nice, and we are glad to have N - 1 dog problems left to resolve. But we're going to miss our little Iorek very much, and never ever forget him.

What we've learned about Roxie

Roxie had her wellness check at the vet this morning - she got her vaccinations, and we talked about when to schedule her spay (answer - in three weeks, when her booster shots are due). Here's what we learned:

• She's 60 pounds, not 40 pounds, as I had guestimated


• She's likely 2-3 years old, rather than 1.5-2 years, as I had guessed


• She's immediately, totally, lovable to anyone who meets her

Actually, we already knew that third thing, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

Tomorrow, we shall learn more. I've hired an animal behaviorist to come out and consult with us about how best to manage all these dogs when I have to be back at work full-time, and so can't have the current dog-segregation scheme anymore (it crucially depends on one of us being home if it's too hot or stormy for dogs to be stuck outside w/o adequate shelter). We shall decide whether the thing to do will be to try integrating the current two dog pods into one, or trying to come up with a way for Sally, Zero and Gator to be crate trained or something so that they can be in the house while we're away. Pan and Iorek have gotten much less nippy since John and I have started enforcing rules with them - I'm anxious for the behaviorist to meet everyone and let us know what she thinks are the issues and solutions.

And, this afternoon something really nice happened. Dottie let me pet her. Kinda. I was able to hold her paw, stroke her nose, and put my hand on her back without having her panic and skitter away. I've told her that one day soon I expect to be able to hug her and kiss her head. She's still skeptical of that, but we are one step closer!

First Veterinarian Visit

Pan and Iorek had their first real vet visit (we don't count the emergency vet visit when they were 2 days old - we try to put that out of our minds) one day after their 8 weeks birthday. Here are some things that we learned...

• Iorek weighs in at 15.6 pounds; Pan is 14.4. This implies that they are going to be very very large dogs when they get done growing! For comparison purposes, Zero was 8.8 pounds at that age; Sally was 6.6. They are now 113 pounds and 65 pounds, respectively. BUT Zero and Sally were not well cared for and nourished during those first 8 weeks of life, as we only discovered them at 7 weeks. So they almost certainly would've been bigger earlier if their first months had been different.


• Frontline, the tick control medicine we planned to give them anyway (ticks are endemic to our area, and you just have to treat your dogs for them) has also recently been certified as a treatment for sarcoptic mange. Which they show no clinical signs of, but which they have been exposed to. So, yay! Preventing the mange is easy as can be!


• Our vet encouraged us to work on asserting dominance with them, as both are going to be so big, and both showed signs that they may want to assert their dominance over us. Problem is, it's very cute when they do it now. Dang it.


• Although I had read that neuter surgeries can happen as young as 8 weeks, our vet recommends not doing that until 4-6 months of age. She suspects that very early spay/neuter may be associated with urinary problems later in life.


• Little Pan's boy bits have both descended beautifully, but Iorek has one descended and one undescended item. This could complicate a neuter surgery, if the other item doesn't drop to where it ought to be. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't probably want to know.

This was also their first time on leashes, first time riding in the car, etc. They did great and got their little vaccinations and are all set. We left one of our 'adoptable dogs' fliers at the vet's office to post, and she said she'd recommend us to clients who are good dog parents and who might want to adopt a dog, but not to any of the scary clients who are not. She's a great vet...(Dr. Sherry Johns, Sonora Animal Hospital).

Another set of milestones in the puppification process, complete. Check!

Evil Adoption Scams

I posted classified ads about Roxie and the pups at Petfinder.com, recently, even though they've made it so that normal humans (non-shelter groups) can only post in this sad little area under 'classified ads' > 'adoptable pets (not in shelters)', where you can't post photos, and your ad is not findable using the main search tool. I knew it was a long shot that this'd work, and I collected info on how to screen out evil people who want to adopt your pet for nefarious purposes, just in case I got any nibbles from the ads.

What I've learned is that it's not at all hard to tell when you're getting an inquiry from a certain kind of evildoer - because I started getting occasional emails that read like this:

"Hello seller. How are you today,my name is CLIENTON JOHNSON. I browse across your dog which i am interested in buying your dog and i will like to know the asking price and the condition of it. So I would like to hear from you if you still have it for sale with your final asking price Thanks. Best Regards."

All come from free e-mail accounts, all contain lots of spelling/grammatical errors (esp. weird capitalization), and all give off this CREEPY vibe of 'I am a robo-adoptron and I want to purchase your pet'. Some of them don't even refer to the 'pet' as a dog or cat or whatever - they just use the generic word 'pet', and ask for things like 'the dimensions of your pet'. UGH!

I've logged one or two of them into scambusters.com, but haven't found anyone else reporting this particular kind of scam. I don't know what these people would do if I actually responded to their emails - but I am certain it'd be nothing good.

Evil by email, baby.

Escape?

Monday afternoon, I come home from work, and head out to visit the pups and make sure everyone's OK. Of course our dogs (Zero, Sally and Gator) are here, and muddily frolicking away. In the back, I find Roxie, Dash, Pan and Iorek - but can't find Dot. I scan the perimeter, and see two areas where it looks like someone has dug under our fence back there. Ack. I call Dottie, and nobody answers. Weirdly, the areas of digging are under the fence that separates our back yard from our neighbor Bill's. So, if someone dug under, they should still be in (ack ack) Bill's yard. Perhaps playing with his dog, Little Girl.

After a few minutes of panic, I see a little black nose emerge from the doggie door. Dottie's in the puppy room! All dogs are accounted for, and I immediately feel relieved. I start piling rocks in the areas where there was digging, but I think to myself 'now I know - she's decided to stay'.

Then, John comes home from work, and I take him out to show him the areas of digging, and tell him the (I think) happy story. But Bill comes over to the fence and says 'your dog was in my yard, you know'. Dang. It turns out that the dog Bill saw in his yard wasn't Dottie - it was ROXIE. And when he caught her in there, she ran home by climbing up and over the chain link fence, like a cat. It was at that time that I noticed that Roxie's nose was all scratched up - don't know how that happened. I suspect that she entered Bill's yard by digging under the fence, but decided that digging back would take too long once she'd been discovered.

Bill has a little granddaughter who spends time at his house, and he was (rightfully) concerned that some strange dog was back there, without his knowledge, when she might have gone out to play. We apologized, and chatted about how we might prevent her from doing that - we're really lucky that our neighbors here are nice and understanding people. We assured him that we didn't intend to let any of our dogs into his yard, and we'd work to make sure it didn't happen again - he was very graceful about it.

But, we also agreed that it's going to be really hard to figure out how to prevent Roxie from climbing the fence if she's determined to do it. Hopefully, getting chased home was traumatic enough that it's convinced her not to go back over there. If not, we may have to take drastic measures to secure the yard. Ugh.

But for now, everyone seems to be back where they belong. I sure do wish we were having more luck placing these dogs - we really aren't equipped to take care of this many dogs for this long...

A Good Morning [def]:

I have developed as of today a new definition for what counts as a good morning. It's one where the following conditions hold true:

1. There are the same number of dogs in your yard when you wake up as there were when you went to sleep.


2. There exists no dog in any kind of trap or crate at the end of your carport, or anywhere else.


3. You do not have to try to catch or trap any dog or vet any dog who is terrified of being handled.


4. Your sweetie is just as invested in this whole dog rescue thing as you, to the extent that he gets up extra early to do dog feedings and wellness checks in spite of that he's got an actual work schedule to deal with.


5. You have an excuse to share lots of dog-related photos and anecdotes with your friends, who tolerate your dog obsession as though it's not at all pathological, and as if they're not completely bored of dog stories.

By this standard, this was an excellent morning! Thanks Itchy, Colleen, Diane, Mike, Mary Ellen, Patep, Alina, Marian, Adam, Shannon, Jennifer, Jian, and everyone else who's listened so patiently and been so supportive over these weeks! xoxoxo

Amazing Coincidences

Dash came home from the vet this morning, and Dottie stayed in the yard last night. We're really hoping they decide to stay for good rather than finding ways to escape from the yard, and we're happy and relieved that they both seem to be doing well. They'll accept treats from our hands, and while Dash is still stand-offish, he and Dot both seem to want to approach us and, maybe someday, play or be petted. At the moment, Roxie, Dash, Dot, Pan and Iorek are all outside playing together - very sweet. Zero, Sally and Gator are in the house with me, being hyper-alert to all sounds from the outside. This is stressful for Z, S & G - but they're handling it well.

But the coolest thing happened when we went to pick up Dash this morning. We were talking with Rose, who turns out to be the president of Animals' Crusaders, as well as a vet tech for Santa Cruz Vet Clinic, as we were trying to get Dash to go into his crate for his ride home. I mentioned that Dash and Dot's dad, Haku, was still hanging around our place, and did my usual 'Haku is the most amazing dog' speech. Rose then related a story about a dog who she's in love with, and has been trying to catch for years, but who has defeated all her efforts to trap him. 'In 20 years of trapping dogs, he's the only one I haven't been able to get', she said. I said that we were hesitant to try to catch Haku because of his size, and the fact that he trusts us and is doing so well on his own, and then I said something like 'Dash has his pappa's paws'. Rose looked at Dash's feet, and asked 'are you talking about a big lanky red dog, with one ear up and one ear floppy?' - it turns out that her uncatchable dream dog is, in fact, Haku - and she lives down the road and around the corner from us. Both of us have apparently been telling him for years that he could come in at any time, and he'd have a great home - and he's spurned us both.

Rose has known Haku for longer than we have (she calls him 'Old Pup'), and she actually knew a lady who was feeding him when he was a puppy. So we now know his age (about 7 years) and his provinence...he was abandoned when he was little by some people in a trailer park nearby who moved away and left him behind. She showed me a new trap she'd bought - it's HUGE - just to see if she could catch him and get him neutered and vaccinated. She again volunteered to come to our house to give the pups (D&D as well as P&I), and Roxie, their anti-mange shots in two weeks - and after thanking her for that, I said she could bring the trap if she wanted and we could try to catch him together. She'd bring him in for his neuter and shots, and release him back to where he is - hopefully to stay at our house or hers of his own volition for another 7 years.

Amazing. She's also volunteered to let us post pictures & bios of our adoptable dogs on the Animals' Crusaders website, which is connected to the proper petfinder.com search engine and allows the posting of photos. Then she said 'Animals' Crusaders is going to pick up part of your bill', and we ended up paying only 1/2 of what we really owed. So, I will be contributing regularly to AC for the foreseeable future. And we now have a Haku/Old Pup fan club.

On sleeping in the carport in Tucson

Just since it seems to be the subject of some comment - sleeping outdoors at this time is very pleasant, temperature-wise. Cooling breezes, and post-monsoonal temperature decreases, as well as a nearly full moon, made that part lovely. However, Patep is correct that one worries about the creepy crawlies (ants, mostly) a bit, less so than the snakes (since snakes will be snoozing at night, and too cool to really slither around much looking for a bite). The carport is perhaps not as pleasant as other outdoor locales would be - but it's not too bad, especially if there's a puppy nearby.

Also, John Ivens offered repeatedly to take carport duty, but I declined. Just for the record...

Dottie's Home from the Vet

We picked up Dot at the vet's this morning - and deposited Dash. Dot did fine - she's got a collar on now, and she's got to be awfully hungry, but she seems OK. She got her spay, her vaccinations, and her first round of treatment for sarcopic mange, a parasitic skin infection that is, unfortunately, highly contagious. But it is also, fortunately, readily curable. Treatment requires a set of three injections, two weeks apart, and this will be required for at least Dot and Dash, and probably Roxie and the puppies too, since they're in contact with Dottie now that she's back from the vet. And maybe Sally, Zero and Gator. Potentially, the little bugs can also get on people, but apparently if they do they don't last long, and just make one a bit itchy. They prefer to live on dogs.

The hitch with that whole plan is that we may not be able to actually manage D&D well enough to bring them to the vet for these follow-up injections, or maybe not even to catch them in the yard (though we will be working on that dutifully in the coming weeks). The lovely Rose from Animals' Crusaders has already volunteered to come out to the house to give them their injections, if needed. She's very cool.

It was quite the deal to see her handling Dottie - she had to take Dot out of the trap, carry her over to her kennel and put her in. This is not as simple as it sounds when you consider that the dog you're trying to move has never actually been touched by humans before, and is going to turn into a kind of canine Tasmanian devil on you as soon as she feels really cornered. So there was a thick blanket, lots of patience and some tugging/flipping out before it all came together. When Dot realized that she was going to get carried no matter what, she went totally limp - just like what they tell protesters to do so it'll take more cops to drag you into the paddy wagon. Her head seemed to weigh 100lbs, and she was a complete rag doll.

Poor baby. But she got her necessary medical care, a life free from unwanted pregnancy, some absorbable sutures, and no bucket head...so it's not all bad. Hopefully she'll rest and heal without additional complications. And she got to come back and be with her little brothers and her mommy - and I think that's really good for her. She surprised me this morning by actually approaching me a couple of times as I sat out in the yard with her for a while to see that she could get settled in. I figured she'd be thinking of me as satan after this whole ordeal.

Now, will she stay in the yard, or will she escape again? What will happen with her brother at the vet's today? Who can tell? Who can predict? Not I.

Dash, Dot and Dog Traps

The last three days have involved a lot of interaction with dog traps, as it turns out.

We hired a local company to help us trap Dot, and the only way they would do it was to come on Saturday morning and set the trap. They did so, and she walked in and tripped the gate mechanism within about 20 minutes. So, she was trapped. And stuck in that trap until Monday morning when we could take her to the vet for her spay.

Meanwhile, Dash was enjoying himself in the yard with his mom and little brothers. They all get along very well, and are very cute together. But he's not at all willing to let humans touch him, so we had been worried about how we were going to be able to catch him and get him to the vet on Monday with his sister.

So, this weekend was spent mostly out in the carport with Dottie in her trap, sitting with her, talking to her, and sleeping with her so that she wouldn't panic. She seemed to be most afraid of being alone, and having someone out there with her calmed her right down. We gave her treats, which she mostly ignored, and ice cubes - which she loved. The first thing she had done when she was caught was to destroy the two plastic bowls that were in the trap - and we couldn't get anything as big as a bowl in to her without risking her escape. So, it was a mess. I slept out there with her both nights - sleeping on the driveway is uncomfortable, even with the little mats I had to sleep on, but it was better than having Dottie crying all night long and even more traumatized.

At long last, Monday morning arrived. I tried to think positive, happy thoughts of success in terms of catching Dash, but that was to no avail. So, we had to take Dottie in and tell them that we weren't able to get our hands on Dash.

Luckily, the lady at the vet who has been helping us (she's a volunteer for Animals' Crusaders in Tucson, the only rescue group who cares about feral dogs, I think), once again came through. She had a trap she loaned us, so that we could set it out in the back yard for Dash, and she moved his appointment to Tuesday morning.

John and I set the trap with bait=hot dogs (argh - had to buy hot dogs at the supermarket! ugh!), and then left Dash alone in the yard with it. Since we had tried to catch him in various ways earlier this morning, he wasn't going to have anything to do with us - and he wasn't going to come near any weird trap-looking thing, at least as long as we were around. So, John left and I went inside and waited.

Two hours later, I heard the 'clunk' of the gate closing in the trap, and went out to the yard to find Dash sitting in there, wondering what the heck he'd gotten himself into. John was able to come home over the lunch hour so we could move Dash in his trap to the carport, where it's cooler and sheltered from any rain we might have.

So, we again have a dog in a box in the carport, one more night. It's good, but I was so looking forward to being done with this whole trapped, panicky, puppy gig! And it turns out that Dot has sarcoptic mange - which is curable with treatment, but is infectious...so we'll see how Dash and everyone else does. We may have to end up treating a lot of dogs for mange, since we don't have a way to separate Dot away from everyone else, given that Roxie and her pups are already segregated from Zero, Sally and Gator. We've maxed out on our ability to segregate dogs.

The big question that neither John nor I know how to answer is this: what happens to Dash and Dot in the long run? We haven't been able to come close to finding homes for the eminently adoptable Roxie, Pan and Iorek - and D&D are not at all close to being adoptable in any reasonable sense. They may never be. There is no room at the Animals' Crusaders shelter, and no other shelter takes ferals; several animal rescue types have told us that they'd recommend killing D&D, because they're not going to be placeable. We've taken that option off the table - but we don't have a workable option to substitute it with. Yet.