Dog Farts, Kibble, and My Hairy Lifestyle

Let's see, can I remember them all by name?

Butterscotch, Wiggles, Ashes, Bear, Gypsy, Muffin, Sequoia, JB, Miko, Bastion, Cowboy, Cammo, Cricket, Calvin, Baci, Blue, Mei-Mei, and Grapes.

I have, by my reckoning, have had at least one dog for as far back as I can remember, except for a cumulative period equaling about two years when I lived in dormitories, etc. The last four of those names up there are still with us. I honestly cannot imagine my life without a dog.

I'm ready for my close-up.

I am one of those people (and luckily so is my husband and most of my immediate family) who includes their dogs as part of their family. Our dogs know no difference between outside and in and they have no understanding whatsoever of the phrase,"off the furniture." They are where we are, albeit sometimes it is a distraction when Blue decides he wants to see what I am doing in the shower, or when I am reading quietly and they (all) decide to demonstrate their affection, and they provide my husband with a reliable alarm, even on weekends.

Just another night at our house.

Cesar Milan would be extremely disappointed in the way we live with our dogs.

Ahh, dog ownership. Every evening they bring my slippers, and on Sundays one of them retrieves the paper. They sit quietly and obediently at my feet or by the fireplace.They proudly and with dignity guard my home and family. They find missing children and rescue small woodland creatures... O.K. sorry, getting a bit off into Fantasyland. The truth of it is that our dogs splay themselves shamelessly anywhere they deem comfortable, they beg for food, the 60+ pounders think they are lap dogs, they bark at anything that moves and they crowd me out of my bed on an irritatingly regular basis. One of them barks at level TEN all the time because he is 90% or so deaf. And, being the leader, when he barks the others MUST. One of them has a favorite treat-paper. One of them has allergies so bad that we treat her with Benadryl and her already short Shar-pei coat gets seasonal "patches."

He said, she said: Blue and Mei-Mei

They eat a lot, they are expensive and they are lots of work. We can't travel unless we have a house-sitter because they get neurotic if we are gone too long. We have funded a wing at our local Vet's office. We have dealt with heartworm, tooth extractions, mystery impalings and attendant abscesses, and a particularly nasty and heretofore unidentified intestinal issue that had our Papillon vomiting blood and spending the night in the emergency room (as my cousin the Vet said,"Sometimes you never know the cause." How comforting.). At one time or another most of them have been on special diets or special instructions ("You need to keep Blue calm"...riiiiiiiiiiight). They are vaccinated regularly and get bi-annual heartworm tests and preventative medication. Cha-ching!

They are a pack and act as such. The level of group-think is as astounding as the traffic when they all move at once through the house. They ALL shed (you'd think that I would learn to rescue poodles or Maltese or some other non-shedding pooch) and all come with their own special needs: Grapes is a Mexican street dog (ancestry complicated) who was shipped here by my brother because I can't say "no." She craves attention to the point that if she were human,s he would be a stalker. Blue is a mostly deaf Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler mix who needed a home after my friend's husband threatened to poison the area for feral dogs and didn't much care if he was collateral damage (and because I can't say "no."). Mei-Mei is a Shar-pei "mix" found on the streets and taken to the shelter and who it turned out is a purebred but she was so underweight they thought she was a mix. I call her my Land Manatee. We took her because my friend introduced us and...yup...I CAN'T SAY NO. Baci was my last (and final) purebred puppy purchase. We bought him (and drove to South Dakota to pick him up so he wouldn't be shipped) a year after I lost my other Papillon,Cricket (who was a rescue). He is my little old fella at 11 years.

The velveteen dog.

They also chew. They have four trillion toys in the house and out and yet when Blue and Mei-Mei first arrived (two and a half years apart) they insisted on letting us know they were part of our world by chewing up shoes, wood blinds, my passport, various and sundry toys, and several books. I am grateful they don't chew on the cat and, thankfully for my shoe budget, that the behavior in general corrected over time. I have yet to get my passport replaced...

Now, the one thing I have going for me in my house is that I am alpha. The pack respects me and when I say "no" (with a hand signal for the deaf one) they tend to obey. My poor husband set the wrong tone from day one; he is a member of the pack which makes him a target for rough-housing even when not convenient (Blue considers my husband's feet, once his work boots are on, as fair game for picking a fight).

Additionally, to not put too fine a point on it, dogs smell. Now, honestly I don't mind the smell of "wet dog" when they come in wet from rain or playing in the snow. They also, however, can discharge the most noxious gas; something akin to what I imagine is emitted on lifeless planets. It is amazing to think that they can create such confounding odors on a diet of kibble and free range chicken broth (and the occasional piece of paper, in Blue's case).

Grapes and "Dad" chillin.

So why in the heck do we do it? Why keep all these beasts?

Because, as someone wise once said, they love us the way we think we deserve to be loved; unconditionally and timelessly. At our worst moments they are there, offering a hairy head to pet and lower our blood pressure from the day we've spent with people that will never love us as these canines do. They do not judge (a least not outwardly) our size, fitness level,
income bracket, IQ, business acumen, job placement, religious inclinations, choice in partner (well, that could be debated), sexual orientation, sports fandom, or taste in shoes. They ask to be with us and to be loved, to be given adequate food and water and some exercise. Small price to pay for a lifetime of love, affection and surprises (and in our case, a share of the blankets on cold nights). I see Cesar's disapproving looks in my mind more than occasionally.

Sharing the warmth

When I don't feel good, my dogs know it and get as close as possible. When I am sad they try to comfort me in their way. When I am grouchy they don't hold it against me. When I am happy they seem even more joyful.

And if you really pay attention, you know on some abstract level how they are doing too. The day we lost our 13 year old Rottweiler-Shepherd mix, we knew it was time, he had lived (well)for a month after his initial diagnosis but one morning (after sleeping with him through the night) I knew he was done and he slipped gently away. They also seem to know when we are trying to help them. When my Papillon was mysteriously impaled (stick, teeth, spider bite?), he patiently put up with me irrigating and dressing the wound twice daily; never a whine or a nip (he healed beautifully, by the way).

Baci

 It is this amazing ability to be there for us and let us be there for them that makes me so sad when I see abused or neglected animals. When I read stories of dogs who are brutalized, murdered, starved or just forgotten. To quote Dr. Doolittle, "Why do we treat animals, like animals?" SCience is just now beginning to admit (because THEY have finally figured it out) that canines are vastly more intelligent than initially thought and that they truly feel emotion beyond the basic instincts of living creatures. Well, DUH. Dog guardians have been saying that FOREVER, only to be told we are anthropomorphising (as if being human is so very special?).

So for our part we make some small sacrifices. My house never stays clean for long and even my clean clothes end up with some sort of canine hair on them before I leave the house in the morning. I usually just chalk it up to my hairy lifestyle. The UPS guy is a little nervous when he comes to the house, and we don't entertain much. Additionally, as I get a little older, I think that maybe four dogs is more than enough and will not replace more than two of them when they finally go to the Rainbow Bridge.

Then again...I have a hard time saying no.

A girl and her dog, circa 2006