TheBanyanTree: [External] Re: a real life adventure involving dogs

[Pam James]

I am finding in my more mature age, as I find out more about myself, that I
am a champion for underdog dogs, and kids!!  I don't know if this is
something new, or something that has been there all along, just tamped down
and hidden while I was busy growing up, and divorcing husbands, and raising
kids!

My last husband and I had two Danes.  When we split, he took the puppy and
I kept the 4 year old.  We lived together and I left her whenever and
somewhere along the line, we seriously bonded.  And when she died, I was
devastated!!  I finally, and truly GOT IT!!  Before that, while I had owned
some part of some dogs, I hadn't had that bond, and when they died, I was
removed from the sadness.  But with Annie, I was THERE.  And I felt it in
my bones.  It was such an eye-opening moment!!  So then I got Axel, my
first rescue.  And he came with a whole barrel of issues and I loved that
dog from my soul!!  We went about everywhere together!  And if I couldn't
take him - he hated other dogs! - I wouldn't go!!  He would sit in my car
motionless, and focus on the door I went into, waiting for me to come back
out!!  I'd leave the car unlocked and the A/C on in the summer, but I'd
take him with me because he hated to be left alone!

We had three amazing years together, and then he too died on me...  I lost
a part of myself when I lost him, but I had a hole to fill and I knew that
there was another dog out there needing a mom, so I immediately got my next
rescue!  Bo is a major pain in my ass!!  Totally undisciplined (only partly
my fault!), out of control hyper, he's on meds and still chews stuff -
going long periods in between until I let down my guard and leave something
unattended!!!  He is not graceful and he has no respect for anybody's
personal space!!  But this dog... <sigh>  because he can be so hard to
love, I love him more!!  We rescued another Dane - she's deaf! - but she's
company for him.  He can't go with  me because he will NOT sit still and
nothing is safe in my car, so!  They aren't necessarily close, but they
coexist and that's the most I can hope for at this point!!

And the children...  Because of my own childhood, I made sure my kids
didn't have the same experiences.  Their parents divorced when they were
very young, but they never heard an argument regarding their custody or who
had who when!  We shared and adjusted according to what was best for the
kids!!  So yes, okay, I admit it!  I take a lot of pride in knowing that!
And now they are grown up and moving on with own lives - both productive
members of society taking their own roads to their futures!  (Neither
appears to have any intentions of gifting me with grandchildren, but those
are their choices and I can't question them.  I wouldn't ever have
tolerated anybody questioning mine!!!)

And so I have taken to champion children thru our County's Guardian ad
Litem program.  A friend suggested it and I said 'yes'!  And I have never
looked back!  As it turns out, I"m kind of good at this!  I am not perfect
at this, but I feel like it's a real calling!  I've got seven cases and
thirteen kids right now who need a loud-mouthed old broad to speak for them
in court and protect them from crazy and/or addicted and/or negligent
parents!!!  I have a very low tolerance for bullshit, and I am more than
happy to call them on it.  Thank goodness those nice social workers balance
us out!!

Anyway.... this started with dogs and the crazy love we have for the
creatures... but then it turned into all about ME!!  :-)

p.s... for those wondering about Clifford, the little rat dog that I
inherited:  my neighbor's daughter and son-in-law basically took him out of
my arms when they found out that he hadn't gone to the home he was supposed
to go to before I inherited him!  They had fallen in love with his picture
and they had in-laws who had lost a little puppy and a father who was dying
and little children who loved him and they were beside themselves to
forgive any of his flaws so that they could take him home... and so they
did!!  He is happily spoiled and surrounded by many who love him.  And
nobody to step on him!!


On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 4:28 PM Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu>
wrote:

> Hahahahaaa.  I get your subtext.  I, too, was a cat-only person for 57
> years of my life.  I love cats.  I understand cats, as much as anyone CAN
> understand cats.  But life is funny that way.  Sometimes I make decisions
> that make no sense to my head, but total sense to my heart.   After my
> beloved Skittles passed away, and even though I've had a lifetime of sweet
> cats, I felt like no other cat could ever replace her.  She was the cat of
> all cats.  I cried for weeks after she passed.  And even though I missed
> having a fur baby, I couldn't look at other cats, not even many months
> later.  It hurt my heart. Then my mom started looking for a small dog, and
> I started helping her look.  Not for me, you understand, because I'm a cat
> person. I knew a dog would complicate my life.  I knew I didn't have any
> experience with house breaking or training a dog.  I knew they barked and
> slobbered and needed a hundred times more attention than the average cat.
> And then I met Tansy and my heart sproinge
>  d and I brought her home.  She is all of the above--an ill-trained (my
> fault), attention-seeking (again, probably my fault), pain in the tuckus
> (I'm not taking all the blame here), but the universe knew I needed this
> dog in my life.  I love her beyond reason.  I work from home more, just so
> I can be home with my dog.  I have given up any possibility of having a
> lunch hour, except when the husband pitches in ever so occasionally.  I've
> passed on dinner invitations because I'd been away from my dog all day and
> knew she missed me. I have less time and  less money, but I have so much
> more love.  I  still don't know if I'm gung-ho a dog person, although I
> have much more understanding of dogs and why people love them.  I'd say I
> like all other dogs more, now, than I ever did.  But I flat out love my
> dog.  Love her. Can't imagine my life without her.
>
> And poor Perkins, he is a pretty good little dog most of the time.  He had
> a really bad day on Sunday, for sure.  He's had other really bad days.  He
> was six months old when my mom got him from his foster home where he'd been
> kenneled for way too much of the time, because she had too many foster
> animals and Perkins had special needs.  We don't know what happened to him
> when he was younger, but it couldn't have been good.  He is so fearful of
> so many things, especially men (how could I not understand THAT), small
> children, joggers, cyclists, and coming through doors.  But he's ever so
> slowly coming around.  He loves my mom, he loves me as a second mom, and he
> loves Tansy most of all.  As obnoxious as he can be, I feel for him and try
> to be kind and calm with him to help him through his fears a bit more each
> time he's here.  I even talked to my mom about yelling at him.  She tends
> to get shrill sometimes, and I reminded her that I'd read that dogs aren't
> not obeying because they don't
>  HEAR you.  They hear you loud and clear.  And it turns out that Perkins
> comes better now that I've convinced her to keep a calm, quiet voice with
> him.
>
> Anyway, that's how this cat person ended up with a dog.  Don't know yet if
> I'd ever have another one, but I am one hundred percent nuts about THIS
> dog.
>
> Julie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TheBanyanTree <thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com> On Behalf
> Of tobie at shpilchas.net
> Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2019 12:46 PM
> To: A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own
> *original* writings. <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com>
> Cc: thebanyantree at remsset.com
> Subject: [External] Re: TheBanyanTree: a real life adventure involving dogs
>
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>
> I like cats
>
> > On Aug 13, 2019, at 6:49 AM, Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > A good friend of mine who blogs daily issued a blog challenge for August
> to write on "Action and Adventure".  Rather bad timing for me in that the
> first half of my year, and especially July, was chock-a-block full of
> travel and adventures, and in August I really wanted to stay home, piddle
> around the house, work in the garden, go to the farmer's market.  I craved
> a little domesticity.  So spending time with the dogs is pretty much all
> I've done so far in August, outside of the daily job, which is cranking up
> in preparation for the 48K university students about to descend upon us.
> Fortunately, there is never a dull moment with mygoofy canines.  I have one
> single, tiny, four and a half pound Yorkie named Tansy, but I often keep
> Perkins, my mom's rescued, half-priced, slightly emotionally damaged Parti
> Yorkie. My mom can't resist a half price sale. (A Parti Yorkie is basically
> a white Yorkie with strange fluffy, knotty hair.) I brought Perkins home
> with me last weekend. My f!
>  olk
> > s would
> > come on Sunday, spend the night, and take Perkins home with them Monday
> morning.  Most of the week was fine (no, really, it was FINE) except for
> Tansy's nearly-choking-to-death incident with the leashes. (I'm realizing
> I'm several story sharings behind in this venue.) So, the choking incident
> and then Perkins was almost attacked by a mother deer because he kept
> approaching and barking and she was protecting her baby.  Mother deer was
> moving aggressively towards him, ready to kick some ass as I yanked him in
> the other direction.  Even though I live in town in Bloomington, a few
> blocks from the city center, we have many, many deer in the neighborhood,
> most of them having produced fawns this Spring. We'd all lived through
> those adventures, but then there was Sunday.
> >
> > Sunday morning at 6:15 to be exact.  There I was lying in bed with the
> two dogs, trying desperately for a few more minutes of sleep.  Husband was
> in Florida where he loves to go but I do not.  I'm sure he was experiencing
> some really good sleep, though, which made me a little jealous. Perkins
> looked out the bedroom window at that wee hour and saw a large rabbit in
> the back yard.  He leapt off the bed and ran to the door.  I let him out,
> because he probably had to pee anyway, and he was never going to catch the
> rabbit.  I'd recently blocked a rabbit hole under the fence with a rock to
> keep rabbits out (not effective), so the rabbit ran to that spot to escape,
> hit the rock instead, bounced off, and ran across the yard the other way,
> with Perkins in hot pursuit.
> >
> > Well, something snapped in Perkins' acorn-sized Yorkie brain.  He'd seen
> rabbits before when we were out on the leash, but he'd never gotten very
> close.  It's as if he finally got the scent, and he went insane.  He hunted
> and barked and howled and ran under all the plants in my gardens for 45
> minutes, getting mud-covered in the process.  I finally got hold of him to
> try to calm him down, and I gave him a sink bath to clean him up.  But he
> was still insane, scratching at the doors and windows, whining and barking
> to be let back out. An hour of that passed and I was about to pull my hair
> out, so I let him out again.  The rabbit was long gone, but  he repeated
> the insanity for maybe another half an hour, until I once again chased him
> down and repeated the sink bath.  I felt sorry for the neighbors with all
> the barking, and Perkins has a particularly shrill bark. It goes directly
> to the center of the inner ear like a sharp knife.   This time I took both
> dogs out for a walk aft!
>  er
> > his bath
> > , thinking he'd get his mind off of the rabbit.  There usually aren't
> rabbits in the park, so we walked there.  It is normal for Perkins to pee
> 45 times on every walk.  Not this time.  Not once.  He just ran around the
> park like a dog possessed, sniffing for rabbits.  I was agog at his powers
> of concentration, since I'd never seen an inkling of concentrated effort in
> him before.
> >
> > I took him home, listened to more shrill barking, piteous whining, and
> incessant scratching at the doors and windows.  I tried distracting him
> with treats.  I gave him a time out in the front bedroom where it's quiet
> and darkish.  I tried holding him.  He was not to be soothed.  He couldn't
> let it go.  After the third hunt around the yard-yes, I let him out again
> because I knew he had to pee and poop at some point-and the third sink
> bath, and the third round of barking and howling at the door, I finally
> locked him in the front bedroom again for a bit.  He hadn't even stopped
> for food or water this whole time.  I'm telling you, the dog was off the
> deep end.  Finally, finally, SIX HOURS after this all began, I got him calm
> enough to lie on the bed with Tansy and me. Tansy hadn't been able to get
> her morning nap because of all of this, and she was so tired she could
> hardly keep her eyes open.  She'd been growling at Perkins from her perch
> on the sofa while Perkins ran around !
>  los
> > ing his
> > shit for six hours.  But, we got on the bed, Tansy collapsed and closed
> her little eyes, and Perkins propped his chin on my leg so that he could
> still see out the window (even though I'd closed the blinds). As his eyes
> drooped he let out one last shrill bark, and Tansy's eyes popped back open
> and locked with mine.  We were completely sympatico.  We were both over
> this barking maniac.   At last Perkins could fight it no longer and fell
> asleep for five or ten minutes. This seemed to reboot his pea brain and he
> was very normal after that.  When I say reboot, it was literally as if I'd
> unplugged him and plugged him back in. Sheesh.  By the time Perkins' people
> came for him, I was pretty much a basket case.
> >
> > And this, in a nutshell, was Sunday.
> >
> >
> > Julie Anna Teague
> >
> >
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> "Out of sight; out of mind."   old proverb
>
> "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  Old proverb
>
> "Nothing to see here, folks! Keep moving!"   Anonymous to Anonymouses
>
>
> Tobie Shapiro
> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
>
>
>
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