Dash Decision?

We may have actually had that big step forward in Dash's case this morning - for the first time ever he allowed one of us (John) to walk behind him while he was eating, go up the stairs, and close the door. Amazing.

Let's see if this lasts...

Progress, January 2008

Since my last post, we've been continually working with Dash and Dot on our own schedule, without pushing them or doing any special tricks. Just trying to be sure that every interaction we have with them is positive, and as fun as possible for them (within the bounds of that they must come in the house and approach us properly in order to have fun).

Most of the 'fun' is really food. But some of it is the opportunity to play with the other dogs (especially Gator), in the house. And some of it is watching me make a fool of myself in order to see if I can trigger happy/confident/empowered behavior from them.

One strategy was suggested by my friend Dianne, who knows a thing or two about training animals. What would happen if instead of letting them act afraid of me, I pre-empt that by acting afraid of them? Like by wincing and hiding, and running away from them.

Doing this - esp. the part about moving away from them and trying to hide - definitely triggered something like curiosity in them. Especially Dot, but to some extent both of the dogs, wanted to follow, find me, and investigate. An excellent result!

But then I added sound (*whimper*) to my scaredy-act, and that was definitely a mistake. Dash was really startled by that, and it caused him to back off and watch me even more carefully, in case I was actually as crazy as it seemed. Dot didn't seem to respond to that one way or the other, so after one try, I stopped it.

And a few days later, Dottie seemed to make a decision. I went out in the yard one afternoon, and instead of her standard running-away-if-I-try-to-pet-her, she stood there and let me stroke her neck. And that evening she came in the house willingly, and was able to eat her food and let me and/or John walk around, including behind her and upstairs, and do whatever we wanted without it causing her to wig out. It was like she'd figured out that it was safe to be in the house, and while she's still going to be cautious about us approaching her, she's not going to let that get in the way of her getting lots of treats and kibble. What a good girl!

Dash has gone the other way, though. Now he's even more scared and jumpy than he was before the holidays. It's very odd, in that he's been more confident around us than Dottie pretty much the whole time. Now the tables seem to have turned.

We have determined that one problem in our 'come in the house and let us close the door behind you before you can have fun' strategy is that we have tended to leave one of us right at the door, so that the dogs have to walk right past us to get in the house. Now we realize that if the door-closer stays away from the doorway, but still upstairs, that both dogs are fairly willing now to come down into the living room. Once that happens, the door-closer can wander over and close the door behind them while inciting minimal trauma. It definitely takes two people - Dash will not let a person walk from in front of him to behind him if there's an escape route behind him. That still causes him to freak out. But if the person was already up there, and didn't seem to be paying much attention to the whole in-out of house thing, then it's apparently not scary.

While this has been going on, we've also fine-tuned the psychotropic meds so that each dog is on a combination of prozac and amitryptaline. Of which I'll bet I spelled amitryptaline wrong. I don't have any kind of strong feeling as to whether the meds are making any difference at all, either in a good way or in a bad way...but am trying to let them stabilize for a while while we (hopefully) continue to make *very* incremental progress. I think it may be with this kind of thing that even the regression part is progress - it's maybe the precursor to a big step forward?

Taking Stock

It's been a long time since I've posted, and I guess it's time to take stock of where we are with all the doggy craziness. I really didn't think, back on June 13 when we met Roxie's new puppies, that we'd still be trying to sort things out at the New Year.

Roxie is still outside, most often with Haku - but she seems to want to be with us now, even when he wanders off. We moved our dogloo into the carport so that we could be sure she could stay warm enough, and she took to it right away. John brought her in the house once to meet Sally - and it was a tense and scary meeting, but didn't result in violence. Roxie backed off and asked to go outside, Sally was happy to see her go. I wish we could just bring Roxie into the pack, but it's clear that would be bad for Sally. And, of course, there's no guarantee that Roxie'd decide to stay.

Dash and Dot are well integrated into the dog pack, and have lots of fun running around with Zero, Gator and Sally. Sally lays down the law for them, and they respect her - so that seems to be just fine with everyone.

But Dash and Dot are not well integrated into the person pack. And we're having a really tough time trying to understand what to do for them. Both are on amitriptyline, Dot is also continuing with the doggy prozac. It's not clear whether or not those medicines are making any difference for them.

And of course we've been working with Vanya and Ben, the behaviorists. But things have not gone according to plan. Some of the assignments we've been given we haven't been able to follow through on, as D & D find new and creative ways to be non-cooperative. And the assignment we should be working on now, we've decided we just aren't willing to do. So, I need to confer with Vanya and come up with some kind of plan B.

The basic problem is that D & D aren't progressing fast enough in terms of letting us handle them. Vanya & Ben advocated techniques that involve putting additional pressure on the dogs - rather than the slower strategy of rewarding desirable behavior and ignoring undesirable stuff. So we had the lesson in which we leashed the pups, dragged them downstairs and then rewarded them as they began to calm down again after freaking out. D&D's reaction? Refuse to come back into the house.

Vanya's response? Have them wear leashes all the time (thus making them catchable by us). D&D's reaction - eat the leashes. Our next move, provided by Vanya? Get leashes made of chain so that they can't eat them. Haven't done that yet - and am having a hard time getting over the sense of doom I have about having dogs dragging chains around with them all day in the yard. It doesn't seem safe to me. So.

In the interim - we have been cajolling/tricking/luring D&D into the house so that we can close the door behind them, with decreasing success. When we could get them trapped, they would freak out. We were putting the leashes on them, thus freaking them out more, then trying to give them lots of treats and praise when they calmed down. Oh, and having them eat their food either out of our hands or else in their crates.

The food part has been consistent, and they're happy to eat their food either in the crate (provided nobody's lurking behind them in position to possibly shut the door of the crate on them) or from our hands. If we can get leashes on them, they're even walking with us pretty well on the leashes. It's just that they're so weirded out by being caught in the house, that we mostly don't get the chance to do anything with them other than give them handfulls of kibble.

What we're supposed to do now is (somehow) shove them into their crates and close the door; then go to a phase where they're always either in their crates or else on leashes with us. But we're convinced that the result of trying this will be:
(1) We will have to forcibly push them into their crates, which means will have to muzzle them, or else we could certainly get it - they're really frightened of getting shut up like that.
(2) Then they will either (a) destroy the crate by freaking out or (b) become completely petrified of it and refuse to ever go into it of their own accord.
So, I think that trying to follow this advice right now will just succeed in creating yet another phobia in them; crate-o-phobia. And either us or them getting hurt.

But it's not as though I have a good alternative. John came up with the idea of taking them out for a walk to the park whenever they get leashed. That way they'd always have something really good to associate with the leash. I think this is a great idea - but we haven't been able to get them into the house to test it since he came up with it.

So, I'm dreading talking to Vanya about this, and feel like we're kinda just stuck for the time being. D & D are so sweet and charming when we're not trying to do things to them - they come up to us quite willingly, they even give us kisses. But the minute we reach out to touch them or catch them to do anything, they're gone. And if I put them on chain leashes and collars (they eat the nylon ones off too, so that's another problem) all the time, I'm going to live in fear of someone accidentally getting hung up while we're at work.

And I'm not OK with the Roxie situation either. I want her to be safely in someone's home and yard - I don't want her to be out where bad things can happen to her. She seems content with it, and I don't have any way to get her to safety anyhow. So I'm still trying to ride the wave and accept that I don't have control over these things. Ugh.

And, they also meet Zero and Gator

And a few minutes later, Dash and Dot came face to face with all three of our doggies - Sally, Zero and Gator.

Again, all went well. But a few minutes after this video, Roxie came up to the fence to check on what was going on, and a fence-line scuffle ensued. Dash got a little wound on his ear, and Dash and Dot decided it was best to pair up and be more worried about Sally and Zero's intentions. Gator, with his superpowers of friendliness and cheerfulness, does not seem to elicit so much worry - but Dash and Dot are keeping their distance from him too. So, we'll have to see how things go from here. So far, no more skirmishes, but a whole lot of wariness and warning barking from D & D towards S, Z and G.

I'm very proud of our Zero, Sally and Gator - in spite of a lot of chaos, and getting barked at and growled out, they've done an exemplary job of being hospitable, friendly, and easy-going.

Dash and Dot Meet Sally

Today was a big day at the Casa de Ivens-Fountain. We decided it was time to introduce Dash and Dot to our pack - Sally, Zero and Gator. If they can all integrate themselves into a single social group, preferably without trying to kill each other, this will be good for everyone, we think.

Here was the scene during the first, and scariest, introduction. Sally meets Dash and Dot, and all seems well!

The rest of the story

A few nights ago, I spoke with Kate - the former neighbor who told me she knew Haku. And now we know a lot more about a bunch of dogs in our area, including but not limited to Haku and our own dogs Sally & Zero.

Kate used to live nearby, and she had a dog called Toby who she used to walk around the neighborhood. She met Haku's parents because the humans who owned them didn't bother to keep them fenced in a yard or anything silly like that.

It turns out that Haku's mother was a fawn-colored mixed breed dog who lived one block over from our house. She, and Haku's father, were part of a 'loose confederation' of quasi-stray dogs on that block. I shall call her 'Sugar', because we don't know what her actual name was.

Haku's father was called 'Lobo'. He was one of a pair of wolf-hybrid dogs owned by a family who lived across the street from Sugar. Lobo and his brother, we'll call him 'Ban', were in a fenced yard, but this was a technicality because they were easily able to jump the fence to come out and travel with the pack. And they apprently did so frequently.

Lobo and Sugar fell in love, and over time had at least 3 litters of pups. Haku was one of the second litter, which also included at least 2 girl pups. We'll call Haku's sisters 'Hope' and 'Faith', because I want to believe that they've survived and found good homes. As Haku and his littermates grew to adulthood, Ban began to behave weirdly with the other dogs, and towards Kate and Toby when they'd come walking by. Whereas he had previously been friendly and gregarious, now he was behaving aggressively. An aggressive, off-leash wolf-hybrid dog is not a good thing for anyone, and so Kate called Animal Control on him.

As a result of that call, Animal Control offers started patrolling the neighborhood. The pod of neighbors responsible for 'owning' this loose confederation of dogs apparently decided that the thing to do was to shut their gates and deny that the dogs were theirs, thus avoiding any culpability should the AC officers approach them.

The officers ended up not catching Lobo or Ban, but they did catch Hope and Faith. They did so using have-a-heart live traps (the same kind that Rose uses for her Animals' Crusaders work), and Haku saw it happen. He clearly learned at that early age to avoid the traps - and he learned how to flip them and get the bait out of them without he himself being trapped inside.

At some point soon afterwards, Lobo was hit and killed by a car. The rest of the 'wild' pack, including our own Haku, saw this happen. So, Haku learned to be very afraid of cars. Kate doesn't know whatever became of Ban, Sugar, or the rest of Haku's siblings.

One of the dogs who lived in the area at that time was an unspayed female mixed breed dog who was apparently huge, and looked like a big white German Shepherd. This dog was Haku's first love. Let's call her 'Eve'. Kate says that Eve was gorgeous, but also pathologically shy of humans. Haku courted her and eventually they had several litters of puppies together. But Eve was elusive, so Kate could never be sure of how many litters, and how many puppies in each litter. Kate ended up adopting one of the Haku/Eve progeny - and she still has this dog. Her name is (actually) Grace.

There is good reason to believe that our own Zero and Sally are Haku/Eve babies as well. The timing is right, they physically look like it, and they have odd pathological shyness behaviors that are just like their sister Grace's. We discovered Zero and Sally lying under a tree at the back of our property when they were seven weeks old - with no humans or dogs around. But our property is contiguous with Eve's human's land. So, Eve may well have been watching us adopt them from some safe hiding place. Haku may have been there with her.

Kate has many stories about her nearly 10 year long friendship with Haku. He is clearly devoted to her and loved her dog Toby very much - but he would never agree to go in her house or cross the fence line into her yard, no matter how often she invited him over the years. She said she's even got a picture of him staring in her front door, toes on the threshold, thinking about it. But then he walked the other way.

That's probably enough of the Kate info to pass along for one post. It was good to talk with her, and good to know that the Haku fan club is continuing to grow.

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.