Friday, April 8, 2011

This dog is smarter than me (Patty adventure Day 2)

The first night Patty sleeps happily downstairs in a comfy dog fort, full of dog beds, bones, and blankets. But the next day it becomes clear that confinement of any kind make her very uncomfortable and so begins our battle of wills that Patty will ultimately win and that will define our relationship thereafter.

I decide that Patty needs to sleep downstairs confined to her dog fort. Not only because she has no house-manners but because I have not introduced her to my other dogs or my baby daughter yet.
No big deal right? For all my other dogs a baby gate fastened into a doorway has always been enough to ensure their confinement. I set up the baby gate as Patty watches me, as soon as I am done she reaches down and moves the gate aside with her nose. Oops ... clearly this is going to take more thought.

Next I set up two gates securily fastened on opposite sides of the doorway. She examines the gates for a minute and than in a single hop she is on the other side. Umm.....okay....so now I go all out.....two gates and two chairs, to add not just height but also depth to the barrier. Good, Patty is stuck on the other sided looking at the clutered doorway. I head upstairs, and after a moment I have a feeling that I am being followed.....I turn around and there she is .... Patty is following me up the stairs! How did she get out?! I go back downstairs, the gates are untouched, the chairs have been carefully moved back .... okay .... your on.....two can play at this game.....

I recruit my husband (an engineer) and together we design a series of three barriers in three different doorways. The first one is tall.  The whole doorway is full of boxes. The next one is heavy. We wedge extra pieces of baby crib, dog crates, the baby's car seat, an old chest full of old dishes. We fill the whole landing with any awkward heavy big object we can find. In the kitchen we create an obstacle course, chairs are wedged against each other and walls, baby gates in between, blankets covering everything. In the final doorway we create an unstable barrier. A book, a tray, a plastic box, and a few other nick-nacks are balanced in the air teatering upon pieces of wood weaved through the doorway, the smallest nudge of the wooden supports will result in the whole thing collapsing. As a final touch I hang a single bell from the top of the barrier and set up the baby monitor by it.

Of course I forgot to provide Patty with water. It takes me a half hour to make my way through the barriers with my husbands help.  There is no way she is getting out.

Regardless I don't sleep well that night. I have a nightmare that Patty appears in our bedroom upstairs confronting my sleeping dogs who she has not yet been introduced to. My dogs are startled and a huge dog fight ensues. I wake up from this nightmare just in time to hear a single quiet bell ringing in the darkness over the baby monitor. NO WAY!  I run downstairs and meet Patty in the living room she is panting hard, she must have been working for hours. I look at the barriers.  Untouched.  Unbelievable! To this day I can't understand how she did it.

I look down at Patty and realize that she is much smarter than me. At least I know when I am beaten. I decide to accelerate dog introductions and revise how I will teach her house manners. Okay Patty we will do this your way.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

OMG she is climbing the fence! (Patty adventure Day 1 continues)

We have one hour at home before I need to load her into the crate again and take her to the vet. She had never before been indoors so taking her into the house is out of the question. I drag her screaming-and- kicking into our yard and leave her there. I make sure to attach a long line to her collar, knowing she will never voluntarily come to me.

I go inside to get her water, I look out the kitchen window to see her climbing the chain link fence along the back boarder of our yard! My panicked re-appearance in the yard is enough to get her off the fence and scrambling. I go inside to get her food, when I return to the yard carrying the bowl of food she is gone. I panic again. Surly she didn't get herself and the long line over the fence without getting tangled up? Than I spot her in the far corner of the yard pressed against a tree almost invisible. I sit down on the other side of the yard, the food and water between us and I beginning talking sweetly to her. It takes half an hour, she approaches slowly sniffs the food and eats it, drinks some water, and returns to her spot by the tree. She lays down, listens to the birds, watches the cars pass, listens to people working in their gardens. We sit across the yard from one another. Another half hour passes. It is now time to take her to the vet, there is a clean crate in the car and Chris is home to help me shove her in it. I approach her, she wags her tail, I reach down, she wants her ears scratched ... And just like that we are friends.

She doesn't pee or poo in the crate on the way to the vet.

This dog is NOT shy (Patty adventure Day 1)

So on Friday I get the following email:
In the endless march of canine lost causes, I have stumbled on another one in the Shelby County dog pound – she’s a maybe 2 year old (her general appearance is puppy less than 1yr but she has some tartar accumulation on her molars) Golden-size dog that strikes me as just that – a Golden retriever in a black coat. She does have a blue right eye but gives no appearance of Aussie/BC/Husky. She is in a horrible pound that is a stray-hold then euthanize facility in a rural area – no one to work with the dogs, they basically get food and water, don’t go outside, no windows or fans, kennels cramped and wet and soiled. This dog was running at large and doesn’t know about leashes and fights the collar and is just terrified when she comes out of the kennel – hits the ground and crawls, trying to get away to go back in the kennel or climb in to one of the dog houses – she wags her tail when people come near her kennel or are walking behind her letting her go back to the kennel but doesn’t seem to understand people being close or petting her – she doesn’t get nippy or anything, just shuts down and goes ‘inward’ or looks away with the 1000-yd stare…she is a gorgeous girl who needs lotta work – I don’t think she’s had ANYONE show her anything or introduce her to the world and I am impressed that she is that scared yet never even thinks about biting. Do you know anyone who would work with this kind of dog? She could be a very interesting project and I bet she’s incredibly sweet under all her insecurity. I’ve attached an of her …She’s in a super high kill shelter.
P.S. – she does have a full tail but her entire back end was soaked with….well, you know, shelter yuck that she is sitting in in her kennel. Lovely.
Most dog people receive at least one such email per week. But somehow this felt different, I loaded a plastic crate in my car and drove the 1.5 hours to Shelbyville. The animal control holding facility was something out of a nightmare, the sight, sound, and smell of it haunt me still.

The black golden mix in question ran to greet us at the kennel door, and than valiantly fought the collar being placed around her neck, and the leash being clipped to it. She fought in a sincere and determined, gentle and non-aggressive way. But it was with leaving her kennel that she took real issue. She dug her nails into the concrete floor, put her whole body weight into the collar and fought to return to her kennel. Dragging her out into the pleasant spring sun onto the soft green grass only strengthened her resolve, and now she was panicking in earnest she tried to back out of her collar, she threw all her weight into it and frantically shock her head. When she felt tension on the leash she pasted her whole body onto the ground a glazed look would fill her eyes. Fear? Avoidance? Submission? Shut-down? She tried desperately to make it back into that dirty small kennel. "You know there is something wrong with a dog that would rather be in there" the police officer with me observed. My only question was "would she take a treat?" I had brought just the thing, ultimate temptation: sausage. I held the sausage out to her and for a brief instance she stopped smelled it and than ate it out of my hand with a mouth as soft as any pedigree gun dog, the moment ended and she resumed her fight. But Now I KNEW: (1) she was not shy (no shy dog greets strangers at a kennel door) and (2) I could work with her (though the road we will travel will be a long one...I had seen a glimmer of hope).

Within minutes we had her loaded into the crate in my car and she and I were on our way home. She peed in the crate at least twice and pooped too....I drove all the way home with the windows down.