“He doesn’t know his name.”

Courage wobbled past as she and I stood in her backyard. “I don’t know what they called him before.” The dog bent his head to sniff a rock pile and steadied himself. The brace of his forelegs reminded me of a giraffe bending to water. “Do you think he can learn a new name?” She asked as though his life depended on it.

I watched as he pottered alongside the back wall. He racheted his head up and faced into the breeze as though transfixed by its cool freedom. Squeezing his nostrils open and closed he stood, carved, a wraith with an outline of life. The plane of his back slid into his tail, the tail that swung heavy as he turned.

He shuffled more than walked toward us.

“The sooner he has a new name the sooner he’s really yours,” I said. I felt him lean against my leg. “Like when the Shakers adopted children.” My discourse into American utopian societies seemed not to interest Courage, nor she. “It’s important.” Neither of them inquired about the Shakers. Or the Oneidans. Even the vegetarian Fourierists evoked no spark.  I turned my attention back to training, sad to leave my treasure chest of history unopened.

She and I taught his new name that afternoon, and in ten minutes, he responded to “Courage!” with a turn of the head and increased interest. It was impossible to ask him to run back and forth. The training game we played was made for him, he of the bright and willing mind and weak body.

She sat on the bench and he stood beside her. Each time she called out his pristine name, she popped a treat into his mouth. “Courage!” arrived with a liver chip. When she sent the new sound into the air it was paired with a delicious event. Soon, when he heard the new name he swiveled his head and looked.

We spent the afternoon watching a new name attach itself to a new dog. He followed her as she wandered around the yard, calling out his new name and offering a treat when he responded. I heard his feet sliding along the cement begin to slow. He trudged the last few feet to the bench. His foreleg quivered.

 He collapsed on the patio and looked up, still interested.

“Try it now,” I said.

“But he’s lying down.”

“Sure, his brain works no matter what position his body’s in.”

She sat and he lay. “Courage” rang out. He looked at her and just like in a perfect world, a treat appeared. Time after time on that bench and in that yard the world worked as it should.

   “Did you do this with your Border Collie?” she asked. Courage inspected the breeze again and now, a chillier one moved into the yard. He thumped his tail, once, then stretched out on his side. He lay with his head across her foot and sighed.

“Borders always have one syllable names…at least for us traditional folks.”

“What was he before Bob?”

The breeze brought along the sea and salt.

“Axel,” I said. “Like a car wheel thing.”

We three sat that afternoon. She and I talked of dogs past while Courage dozed. The sun escaped behind the wall. The yard, his yard, surrounded him on all sides. The breeze became less friendly. I reached for my jacket.

“Next week?”

“Let’s see what he remembers,” she said. She stood up, adjusted her treat bag and called, “Courage!”

Up came his head. He struggled to his feet and stood in front, with an open mouthed smile. He swayed a bit, then caught his balance. The wind was stronger than he. He swayed and caught himself again.

If I squinted just right, I could see him doing a Shaker dance, here in his perfect world. Utopia had arrived.

Todays' post hails from Kerrville, Texas, where folks and dogs do a lot of hailing. Master Orson Ping McFarland read of Harry's plight, picked up his pen and sent a poem to cheer Harry. Orson, a Yorkie who never barks has an extensive collection of his poetry. He now wears a Stetson that drops to his doggie knees.

                    Hi - diddle - diddle,
                    Its down in my middle -
                    I'll pay for my "munchie dog" sins!
                    Small dogs will go grazing
                    On items "hair raising"
                    Like pills, tiny buttons, and pins.
                    Oh, its Hi -  diddle - diddle,
                    All stuck in my middle -
                    No "high fives" or puppy dog grins,
                    Yes, the floor is my platter -
                    Please observe things that matter,
                    For the vigilant dog owner wins!

Harry, we love you and wish you a quick recovery. Please come with your chauffer, in your electric car, and descend into our group with your majesty and well girdled self, soon.

The electric car glides into the parking lot. Harry the potentate lounges in the back seat. From his half reclining position he swivels his head and looks out upon his subjects. His chauffer, Elisabeth, opens the car door. Harry declines to join our class until he has been properly girdled with harness and leash. Now, attired in the finery that befits him, he glides out the door and joins the waiting throng.

Small dogs cheer him. Large dogs bow and scrape. For Harry, wonderful, expressive Harry of the large and luminous eyes brings a glow to our little group. Catching up his leash in his mouth, Harry is wag propelled. He steams ahead and lands in my lap to remind me that a seated position comes with surprises. An adult Golden Retriever who thinks of a folding chair as a love seat makes for interesting teaching.

My pal Harry has been sick, terribly sick. Harry suffers from a common belief held by most Goldens, Standard Poodles and Doodles, Labs and Dobermans. These dogs, and lots of ‘common’ dogs, stuff non edible items into their ever moving mouths and swallow stuff whole. Jonah didn’t disappear as fast as a dishtowel down the gullet of a Golden.

Dogs are unable to predict the distant consequences of their actions; except the lowly Dachshund, who plots third world take overs. Dogs spy the socks, underwear, bars of soap, shirts and queen size mattresses, kitchen knives, cell phones, dominoes and hardbound books, picture frames and toy stuffing… lots and lots and lots of toy stuffing...and down the doggie hatch. Presto! One second you see the stuffed armadillo toy and the next, poufy white bits and pieces on the floor. For every piece on the floor sixteen churn inside the dog.

Harry was hospitalized last week. Two days ago a surgeon opened him up and a ball of red toy stuffing was plucked from Harry’s innards. That tennis ball size of tangled red stuff had created a blockade. Yes, in the dog trade its proper name is blockage, but blockade is more like it. Nothing was allowed in Harry and nothing was allowed out.

If you’ve got a goat that masquerades as a dog hypervigilance is your watchword. Many kitchens march onward with no towels draped on the oven door, and I’ve seen laundry baskets larger than a Buick. Dogs who help on laundry day can enjoy that time in another room. Socks, the best friend of goat-dogs, can stay on human feet until they find their natural resting place in the oversize and impossible to miss basket. It’s people who learn this game and dogs who win.

No doubt genetic mischief is afoot. Standard Poodle chats and lists are filled with desperate stories as are the Golden sites. These breeds are so famous for the ‘steal and swallow’ one Poodle breeder calls her dogs Stomachs with Barettes.  Golden breeders call it “it’s the stud dog’s fault.”

Genetics, those hobgoblins of the past, express themselves in a kaleidoscopic fits. Yes, we love to watch our Retrievers fetch and our Border Collies do algebra. Then there are the black sheep of the genetic family. They must be watched with a shepherd’s eye or out of the pen and into the dog’s intestines they scamper.

Training helps; training always helps. But training doesn’t stop an unsupervised, tricky little Golden from catching the gleam of forbidden cotton fruit across the kitchen and mashing the dishtowel down. And, when we hand a new toy and say “Look what Mommy brought you!” a second thought about the stuffing inside is needed. Despite the cheerful labels stating otherwise, impossible to destroy dog toys, in the jaws of these special breeds, are about as common as the dodo.

 Harry is now home and past the first landmark on a long recuperation. His summer bikini days are over and the hair on his foreleg needs to grow in, too. He’s a little thinner but the bounce in his tail and those eyes those eyes! Gleam again.

Harry the potentate will again roll up in his electric car, and out he’ll come, a properly outfitted king. We wont tell the other dogs about his scars, and I know his classmates are too polite to look.

An Ice Storm blew in from North Carolina. It arrived with yellowed coat, atrophied muscles and flea bite dermatitis. But blew in he did. Ice Storm has joined his sisters Frost and Bear, to live in luxury in California. The six year old sisters recognized him and invited their littermate to join them in their salt water pool to wash off the trail dust.

He’d taken the noon stage called a Dog Transport company and been driven cross county, non stop, along with other canine travelers. Humans traded off driving, potty stops and feeding duties. Ice Storm became attached to his wagon masters and cried when they left him in a loving, but new and strange home.

The ‘shock of the new’ is now Ice Storm’s world. He, who once lived twenty hours a day in a laundry room sees the vista of a grassy yard. He is welcome to join his sisters and humans in the great expanse of the communal bed, but, he seeks a tiny, dark closet with the door shut for sleeping.

Learning to share a home with Frost and Bear and three humans takes mental work. At night, the sound of whining and paddling in his sleep floats through the door. The routine of the new home with new voices, sounds and smells bewilder him. Those who arrive at the ring of the doorbell are strange, as is the fellow laden with sweepers and brushes to attend to his new bathing pool.

Ice Storm and I went for a ten minute walk and as we headed home, he shuffled his hind feet. He’ll slowly grow into a vibrant, healthy white German Shepherd, with a coat as blinding as his sisters’. When out on a walk Frost and Bear are show and traffic stoppers. Their impeccable coats are the color of Wayne Newton’s teeth. Ice Storm’s yellow, dry coat is already brightening. Soon, the trio will apply for a parade permit to stroll around the block.

Ice Storm lives with humans who are as smart as they are kind. And, in the next six weeks they’ll watch him unfold day by day, hour by hour. Who he is today is not who he’ll be tomorrow. Newly arrived dogs need a minimum of six weeks to adjust. The nuances of temperament appear slowly and with a shimmer. Quiet and ‘under the radar’ for the first few days, new dogs soon become comfortable enough to bark, run through the house and text while driving.

Six weeks is a minimum. Many dogs need six months to fully unwind, and one of my own dogs needed two years. It was worth those slow years. That skinny collie was my husband’s best man at our wedding and both looked handsome and formal that day. I’m still not sure who held who up….

Welcoming an adult dog into our home and seeing it bloom under our patient hands and minds is deeply satisfying. And, that blooming comes on its own schedule, one usually longer than owners predict. A safe and forgiving environment is what our new dogs need. Time is its own master, and we cannot hurry its process nor twist it into shapes we desire.

Ice now feels only kind hands and hears encouraging voices. As he plows through his minimum six week adjustment period, he’ll change, then change again, and again. And again. No behavior is permanent and all behavior is fluid. His new owners and sisters ride the waves of change and smile. The White Wonder Trio are soon to walk in a neighborhood near you. If you wear white, even after Labor Day, you’ll be invited.

The heat seared into the dog trailer. Loaded in slender rows were the track greyhounds, the dogs with failed careers as racers. Few barks or whines came through the tied down doors. A brindle face slid by the small window.

“Got twelve?” asked the tall man.

“Yeah, twelve real dogs but not on paper,” replied the other.

The tall one grinned.

“Good job. Just like always. Where are the rest?”

His comrade gestured toward the desert.

“See ya for the next ones.” The tall one climbed into the dog truck and sped north to the California border, the Mexican dog tracks at his back. The sun climbed and dropped as he drove, without listening, to his destination.

*************************************************************************************

In Orange County, Courage lay on the steel table. The cold swooshed; no fat cushioned him against it.

“There was too much damage. His body pulled the marrow out of his bones.”

She stood and listened to the veterinarian. The Shepherd’s coat was like broom bristles under her hand.

“He’d been starved so long his body took anything it could find. Including him.” The stethoscope picked up a heartbeat weaker than yesterday. The veterinarian shook his head. “He needs new blood to replace what his body stole.”

“Is that why he’s thirsty all the time?” she asked. She stroked his ears, feeling the small patch of new growth soft against the grainy coat on his neck. “He just drinks and drinks.” The dog’s tongue dabbed her hand.

Faster and faster, time swept through the room. Two attendants wheeled in a gurney and slid Courage onto its blank whiteness. His tail drooped over the side. A young intern paused and arranged it into place. The gurney disappeared through wide white doors.

“He needs it now…now. Get it!”

 Scrambling across the tiles the intern raced through the swinging doors, down the hall, into his car and drove through the night traffic. He gunned the car and only paused at red lights. At the neon sign for the Greyhound Blood Bank he parked the car and raced inside.

“We called it in a few minutes ago,” he panted.

The red and white cooler slid across the desk. He grabbed it, ran back out into the darkness and drove back to the emergency room. He paused as a young couple with a wounded rabbit crossed in front. The rabbit lay, paralyzed with fright, in his owners arms as they comforted him.

The dozen greyhounds arrived at the receiving station, silent. The two handlers dropped leashes over their necks and encouraged them to come down the ramp into the holding pen. Deep beds covered the cement. Stainless steel troughs of water sparkled. The smell of baked kibble moistened with canned food floated as the dogs stretched, and stretched again. An older brindle moved through the swirl of confused, lean dogs until he found a black female. They touched noses.

“Did you count fifteen?” asked the new employee. “That’s what’s on the invoice.”

“ They’ll say it’s a mistake. We’ll pay for fifteen,” answered the woman.

“Isn’t that illegal?”

An elderly male greyhound pressed himself against the wall. The handler slipped her hand under his chin and smiled. “It’s okay buddy. We’ll fix you up.”  He rubbed his face against her leg and she stroked the muscles on his neck. She shrugged. “We can’t do much about it. Twelve saved is better than none.”

She sat. The plastic chair was hard underneath her. Tattered magazines lay in spineless mounds on  mismatched tables. A mother talked on her cell phone.

“It will cost more than he did! No, we aren’t going to spend that kind of money on a parakeet.” She picked at her fingernails. “That was different…he was your Dad’s dog.”

An older couple sat with hands entwined. She caressed the photo of a tiny kitten as he tapped his upper lip. A man in a t-shirt read the same tabloid again and again. The door opened and a young, too young, boy trotted in with a box of puppies.

The greyhound handler shut and latched the pen door. “Night guys. See you tomorrow.” The brindle raised his head from the flank of the black female and wagged his tail.

“What’s next?” asked the new handler.

“We’ll get them up to speed physically, they’ll spend about six months as blood donors and then we adopt them out.”

“To a home?”

The brindle dropped his head back and sighed deeply. The female shifted under his weight and yawned, and yawned again.

Courage’s heart beat more steadily. The blood of a once racing dog filled him and offered him life. The blood circled his brain and urged him on, on in a race nearly lost.  The young intern straightened up and walked into the waiting room.

“He’ll be going home with you tonight, later.” The intern hesitated, then touched her hand. “He really is better.”

They watched the couple with the rabbit walk toward the door, she smiling and he triumphant. The rabbit peered out from a carrier laden with hay and comfort then gnawed at the carrier’s wire door. “Shhh,” whispered the couple in unison. “Don’t hurt your stitches.” The door swung open. The rabbit was carried out into a night of vespers and stars.

 The intern moved closer to her. And they sat, together, on hard plastic chairs.

Can a geezer Samaritan help get your doggie home?

Dog tags of 2010 are an array of colors, shapes, new technology and national heritage. ‘Goulash’ the Viszla wears a tag that plays the Hungarian National Anthem. Another tag glitters with red, white and blue to announce a Chesapeake Bay Retriever’s origin. Inside ‘Charlie’ the Labradoodle’s tag a microchip  announces his name, owner’s phone number and birthstone. However, the microchip ‘speaks’ in a monotone harder to understand than a Basque sheepherder.

Is the glitz fun? Yes. Does it help? No.

In the old days, those days when my dog ‘Lassie’ and I were pups, dog tags were plain and useful. They hung like little glum ornaments on dog collars made of modest leather. Discarded when the wearer had either a new address across the Heavenly River or across town, tags claimed nothing but function. These unsung little soldiers in the war on homelessness enjoyed neither an exalted social position or ceremonial burial. They were, after all, just ‘things.’

Now, dog tags are as personalized as our cell phones. And, equally annoying.

 Imagine a kindly geezer, who sees your unexpectedly ‘out and about’ pet and tries to help. Can he read the tag without a magnifying glass? Will he squint and fumble for his reading glasses as your pup squirms? As Mr. Helpful of the Geritol generation twists and turns his neck to examine the tag can he see the phone number?

If your dog’s tag is so full of gimcracks a helpful person can’t read it, frustration over rides the desire to help. Yes, a microchip implanted helps the shelter staff identify your dog. Let’s make it easy for kind humans, even the geezers, to help skip that trip to the doggie big house.

It’s lots of fun to make our pets look cherished. And the best look we give is from us, as our pets snore in the living room and we talk endlessly about the “Time when Buster got out the gate the gardener left open and that nice man what was his name? who found Buster and called us from his cell phone right where he found him running running! toward the street the busy street and if he had not called we never could have hugged Buster again and aren’t we so lucky I could not have forgiven myself if anything happened to him.”

May you hear the heart of your dog today

“What do you think she’s doing?”

My husband’s voice was soft, soft to not frighten our new dog.

“Why is she going in circles? I’ve never seen a dog poop like that.” His voice trailed off in the tone small children reserve for a sighting of Santa Claus.

“Neither have I.”

We stood in the yard, transfixed at the tiny wonder before us. Our not yet named rescued Pomeranian, her back shaved over the places where maggots recently burrowed, concentrated on her mission. Her knees wobbled at odd angles as Ross and I stood mute before this natural phenomenon. A welt of a surgical scar criss crossed her belly where five inches of dying intestine had been removed three days past.

I heard my Border Collie whine behind the back door. My black and white bullet was too much for this German mite to withstand, now. Her full recovery from emergency surgery was still in question. It would be weeks before my Scottish trajectory in a collar could safely visit our new pearl.

In a perfect circle, as though mounted on an invisible turret gun, our girl rotated at a smooth and measured pace. Her pointy ears tipped toward the sky. Her plump rump tipped toward the ground. At precise moments she released a thimble size of poop then continued her rotation. She might have planned with a compass and pencil, for pooplets were left every two inches as she moved in stately precision.

Ross and I watched as she completed her circle with a final plop. She straightened up on all fours and marched away, her tail like a proud apostrophe. I remembered the surgeon’s warning that “if she lives, she’ll poop like a duck for quite awhile.” Live she did and duck she was.

We stood, staring, as though admitted to a secret Louvre. The pooplets shone in proud, small mounds every two inches. No great architect could have measured with the ease and accuracy our pet demonstrated. I heard the Border Collie scratching at the door.

“It’s Poophenge!” breathed my husband.

In her past, the one of which we have no knowledge, perhaps she joined Pommies in the forests of Germany where the magic little dogs methodically spun, pooped and left their mark of greatness. When common dogs came along and found ‘Poophenge’ they worshipped the Dog Gods from the sky.

 Many times a day, as her Pommie innards healed, ‘Poophenges’ were created, over which my husband and I exclaimed. Her poop circles were the pride of our yard. Our Cheeto colored pet was healing and able to demonstrate her creative force. ‘Poophenges’ eventually gave way to more ordinary leavings as she grew strong and mighty.

But once a year, at a time when only she could hear the calling of the ancient ones, a ‘Poophenge’  appeared. A full moon with a ring of mist was seen on those wild nights, when she was stirred, by deep and mystical gifts, to create a work of art unequaled.

May you hear the heart of your dog today

Home

New odors drift his way. He lies on his side in a cocoon of soft to protect his bones. The blankets underneath his rackety spine smell of clean. He breathes in and out as the house and all it’s quiet safety envelop him.

He raises his head at the sound of her step. The floor sounds a dull thump as he moves his tail. His tail, a flag of the life that gains in spark and deep, thumps harder as she moves closer.

She raises his body and steadies him on his feet. The dirt that was his only food for weeks has long been washed from his cracked paws. He sways and she catches him. Sways and catches. Sways and catches. Now, she guides as he shuffles toward the door and out to his new yard. The hipbones, sharp enough to cut, are hollowed in her hands.

She encourages him in whispers as he squats. Too weak to keep upright, it is she who gives him strength for such a routine task. He remains in this hunched position as the sun drops. The breeze picks up and he shivers. She stays and sees him tremble.

He creaks to stand and wags his tail. It leaves brittle hairs with no gleam on her pant legs. She whispers again and with hands as soft as voice, turns him. He sees his home and pricks his ears. The crusts of fly bites are there no longer. His ears show the early crop of new growth and lay soft against his bony skull. He shifts forward and totters his way back. To Home.

Courage. It is she who demonstrates it, every three hours as she guides him out. Then back to Home. And she will be his guide forever.

Ding Dong. Knock Knock.

“Honey, get your dog.”

“Bitsy Bitsy, come. Come here!”

“Just a minute…..wait…the dog…Honey!!!”

“Bitsy, come here! Stay! Quiet…down…come…stop….BITSY BITSY BIIIITSY!!!”

Ah, yes ‘tis true. When the doorbell rings all hellhounds break loose. Like a game show contestant galvanized by the bell, the dog launches toward the door barking as fast as his legs can skitter across the hardwood. We trundle behind, shouting, ordering, commanding, pleading and threatening.

Chaotic commotion commences quickly. When the visitor enters more hilarity comes as the dog jumps, barks, sheds, circles and leaps as we grab, clutch, yell and grin. What’s an owner to do?

God made doors. Use one. At the sound of the doorbell, call the dog and escort the barking beast to a room. Did you leave delicious treats there to scatter as a reward? Shut the door. Now as leisurely as a society hostess glide to the door, open with a relaxed and graceful gesture and invite the visitor into your serene foyer. Don’t have a foyer? Use the hall.

Putting the dog outside is another choice. Some pets like to stare through the sliding glass door. Others circle the yard like mad things or hop onto the nearest planter to spy. No matter. As long as the celestial barrier is in place you’ve accomplished the task.

Let the dog listen to, watch and smell the visitor for about five minutes from his closed door hide a way. (Yes, from behind a closed door dogs get odor cues.) Your pooch gets meaningful information such as the visitor’s sex, attitude, hormonal status, age and possible voting preferences before the actual meeting. Fearful dogs are grateful for the added time to adjust and more forthright dogs write in their diaries.

Now, when you let the dog out to actually get ‘up close and personal,’ most of the steam is out of the greeting. After all, the dog got introduced while he was tucked away in the bedroom or backyard. Now, the dog has thought up two conversational openers. Instead of behaving as though he grazed on locoweed, your dog will ask if the visitor would like a drink out of the toilet.

 Soon your dog will take himself to the back door or bedroom as soon as he hears the doorbell. He’ll be calmer and better able to make small talk when he says “Hello, my name is Bitsy…how do you use your opposable thumbs?”