The Dog Days of Summer

This post was originally published August 14, 2010.

With the oppressive heat settled in -- 109 F (43 C) on Thursday -- drought conditions, and Sirius, the Dog Star, rising in the east, what better time to introduce you to the dogs at Rainbow's End?

There seems to be a misguided belief by those living in the city that dogs abandoned in a rural area have somehow been dropped off in doggy Eden. That they will be free to run and play and that generous country folk will take them in. I'd like to introduce those city folk to the coyotes, wild hogs and bobcats that hunt the countryside. Or to the wily prey that laugh at the dogs who have never been taught to survive. Or to the neighbors with shotguns out to protect their livestock.

Sure, there are kind-hearted folk to be found. People who will take in strays even though the number of animals they already have is straining the limits of their abilities and their budgets. The lucky ones find cramped quarters and a daily dollop of dry food. The unlucky ones are spotlighted on the news when the authorities raid their compounds.

Even I can't handle every animal that comes around. A few months ago I had to take a litter of beagle/bassett-mix pups one of my dad's caregivers found and brought to me to the county animal shelter. These seemingly sweet, adorable pups were actually little devils in disguise. Faced with five unexpected dogs, I plopped them in the only place I could -- the pen with Lucy and Rowdy, the two pygmy goats. The cute puppies immediately turned into a precision hunting machine, their clumsy puppy bodies transformed into something resembling the wild cats of the Serengeti Plains and their attack as coordinated as the Blue Angels' aerial maneuvers.

The goats, however, have attitude and horns, and the pups learned pretty quick not to mess with them. Still, things went downhill from there. Some of the pups dug under the fence and escaped into the pasture where they found some chickens to harrass. A couple wriggled through the gate into the backyard and attacked the ducks. It was a Keystone Cops moment chasing them all down. Had I been prepared for them and had proper fencing and facilities, it all might have ended differently. As it was, I had little choice but to either turn them loose farther down the road or take them to the shelter. I hoped their Houdini impersonation was what put them on the road in the first place and their family would turn up to claim them. Unfortunately, what could only be their mother turned up instead in the classifieds a couple of days later as a free dog needing a home.

Still, the occasional dumped stray does find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Four years ago, a 4-month-old brindle-and-white mix with a hint of pit bull and precociously cocky behavior wandered in off the road. He was skinny and hungry and I offered him a handout. Four years later he's still asking me for handouts. I named him Loki, after that trickster of a god.

It was clear from the outset this little dynamo had ambition. I already had four dogs and by rights the interloper should have been at the bottom of the pack. But he was an alpha male (though not an intact one for long) and he knew it. Three of the other dogs -- all betas by nature -- knew it, too, and they deferred to him. The fourth, though, was Bailey, an American Pointer mix, who had ruled as alpha queen for four years. Like Loki, Bailey always wanted to be top dog, but she'd had to wait a few years for the then-reigning king, a Doberman named Lance, to die before she could ascend the throne. And like Bailey, Prince Loki had to wait his turn as well. I'm still not convinced Bailey wasn't cleverly assassinated.

To me, Loki is the epitomy of a country dog. More than one person has told me he reminds them of Chance from The Incredible Journey. He's annoyingly full of energy and always ready to play, and too friendly for his own good -- he'd leave without a thought if someone opened a car door for him. He regularly goes off to visit an 8-year-old neighbor girl who absolutely adores him, goes fishing with another neighbor's family, and goes swimming in their pond. He gets along with the chickens and ducks and cats.  He plays tag with a neighbor's calves -- he chases them, they chase him, and they all know it's a game. He kisses the horses on their noses. He hangs inside during the heat of the day, and he sleeps on the bed with me.

But he's also quick to defend his extended family. Whether it's a rogue coyote hunting in the daylight or a neighbor's bull that's broken through the fence, if it comes on the property, Loki is after it. It never occurs to him that, tough as he thinks he is, he is, after all, only a 40-pound dog.

What I admire most about him is his boundless optimism. Each day means an opportunity for new friends, new fun and new adventures. His glass is never half full -- it's always full. Such a positive outlook exhausts me sometimes, but I never fail to be seduced by it. If I'm mad or sad at life, I have only to look at Loki to be reminded that there's joy just in living. That it isn't circumstance itself that defeats us, but how we respond to it. And that we should always hold to the hope that this time we may finally catch that squirrel that's been teasing us so mercilessly.

Second Chances

This post was originally published August 22, 2010.

Look at that sweet face. Isn't she an angel? Admit it. In fact, her name is Angel. And a more ruthless killer you've never met.

Okay, maybe that last is a bit of an exaggeration. But mice, rabbits, squirrels ... if she can catch them, she kills them. And eats them. What very nearly got her sent to doggy prison, though, was chickens. My chickens.

Let me back up. Angel was one of those strays that saw the flashing neon sign I must have at the end of my drive that reads SUCKER Lives Here Homeless Animals Welcome Here. I found her by my porch 4 years ago patiently waiting for a handout. I obliged. She stayed.

I did my due diligence trying to find her owner. While we waited, I introduced her to the dogs, the cat, the guineas and the chickens. She was calm and fairly disinterested. I wanted to make sure she stayed that way so I kept her bowl filled with tasty food and treats.

A couple of days after she arrived, I found a half-eaten chicken. With coyotes and other dogs in the area, I had no real proof as to what had killed it. A few days later, I caught her red-snouted, with her muzzle buried in one of the birds. I gave her the benefit of the doubt -- after all, she'd been on her own for awhile, having to forage for herself. How else had she survived? But I also gave her the what-for and laid down the rules of the house. She seemed to be an intelligent dog; I was sure she understood.

Oh she understood all right, which led to me discovering another trait of hers: sneak thievery. When she thought I wasn't looking, she went after another chicken. I was watching from a window, though, and gave her an immediate correction. When she tried it a second time, I knew we had a real problem.

How do you teach an adult animal (Angel was about a year old) not to kill? I was pretty good at teaching dogs to sit and come and shake hands, but this was not anything I'd tackled before. One neighbor, a dog breeder, suggested the albatross cure -- tie a dead chicken to Angel's collar and let her live with it for a couple of weeks. Maybe the old Mariner learned something by it, but I felt it was a bit extreme and not a little barbaric.

What I came up with was to keep her inside and only take her out on a leash for a couple of weeks. I made sure she saw the other dogs coming and going without a leash. I'd walk her by the chickens a couple of times a day and tell her what pretty birds they were. If she made a move, no matter how innocent, toward them, I corrected her with a tug on the leash and a stern "No."

I wasn't sure she would make the association -- it really was pretty tenuous -- but she did. Perfectly. The fact it didn't stop her from killing other small prey or prevent her other thieving ways convinced me she had gotten the message exactly as intended. So much so that it wasn't long before I trusted her implicitly around the chickens. In fact, if I want to leave a dog outside to protect them when I go into town, I generally choose Angel. It always amazes me what a little patience and understanding can accomplish.

Angel is sweet yet very independent. She has a calm, easy-going personality and a Southern-lady sensibility. Very litttle ruffles her fur unless it's Loki insisting she play when she doesn't want to. One thing, though, can always excite her: A pack of howling coyotes. She pricks her ears and whines and paces toward them, clearly torn as to where she belongs. Remember how the howl of the wolves affected Buck in The Call of the Wild? It's those glimpses in Angel that I see when she's chowing down on a rabbit or mouse she's caught or when she's listening to the coyotes that I remember tame is only a breath away from wild.

She may not kill chickens any longer and she may love to be brushed, choose to lie on a soft blanket under a fan getting regular tummy rubs, and wait expectantly for her nightly dessert coffee, but that doesn't mean she isn't still a wild lady at heart. I would not be surprised to one day discover she's run off to join the coyotes just like Buck followed his Call. And you know what? I might just join her.

Angel's song, I think, has to be "The Cry of the Wild Goose:"

My heart knows what the wild goose knows,
And I must go where the wild goose goes.
Wild goose, brother goose, which is best?
A wanderin' fool or a heart at rest?

High Anxiety

This post was originally published August 28, 2010.

Where Loki is my happy-go-lucky dog who rolls with the punches and holds no grudges, and Angel is my mellow girl taking life as it comes, Ginger is the poster child for the psychological scars even a short time of abuse and neglect can imprint throughout a lifetime.

I was living in a suburban area outside of Dallas a few years ago when a very dear but very old Doberman of mine died leaving my American Pointer, Bailey, without canine companionship. An alpha dog, Bailey really needed another dog around to worship her, so we went to the local shelter and chose a timid, 6-month-old shepherd mix to join our little pack.

Bailey

It was clear from the outset that Ginger had self-esteem issues. She had no confidence and was frightened of everything. The first thing she did when we got home was gather up all the toys and hoard them. She had no interest in playing with them -- in fact, I don't believe she even understood the concept of play -- she simply needed them as reinforcement she had some control over her environment. She continues this behavior even today. Where the other dogs gobble down treats immediately, Ginger will carry a treat around with her for hours, owning it and protecting it.

On our first walks through the neighborhood Ginger stayed in a state of near-panic. She would cringe at the sound of an air conditioner starting up 100 feet away. Cars, people and dogs all frightened her. She hated taking walks, but if I tried leaving her at home when Bailey and I went out, she'd howl and cry the entire time we were gone. Separation anxiety was strong in her. I knew there were drugs that could take some of the edge off, but I wanted to see how much we could accomplish naturally. So I set out to build her confidence as much as possible by encouraging her to try new things and praising her for even the smallest attempts on her part.

From the first, Ginger accepted me and Bailey. But any other person, any other dog she was suspicious of. Winning her trust, even today, is almost impossible. My dad interacted with her nearly every day for 4 years and she would still bark at him each time she saw him. He was quite patient with her but she refused to be won over. The best she managed was to cautiously accept a treat or a small pat from him before quickly retreating.

Part of her issues, I think, have to do with gender. She's more distrustful of men, although she's only slightly more accepting of women. She barks at everyone, the one behavior I haven't been able to influence in the slightest. While she's never tried to bite, I'm careful to never put her in a situation where she feels cornered or threatened by a stranger.

She still suffers separation anxiety, although it's more under control now. However, I can't leave her outside when I go off to see a neighbor or drive to town because she'll try to follow me. Thunderstorms terrify her. She also has the occasional epileptic seizure brought on by anxiety. Thankfully, the seizures happen only once every couple of months or so.

What most breaks my heart is that other than her barking -- which comes from a place of fear and insecurity, not aggression -- she's a really good dog who tries her best to do what's asked of her; yet even after so many years, she still behaves like she's afraid she's about to do something wrong and get beaten for it. If I ask her to stay still for a nail trim or a brushing or I try to roll her over or make her lie down, I see the panic in her eyes. Her entire body stiffens. The innate fear that something truly bad is about to happen is so palpable in her no amount of petting or soothing words can make her comfortable, even though I've barely ever raised my voice to her, let alone my hand.

Part of it is that in a wild pack she would naturally be the delta (most submissive) dog, the "whipping boy" that gets kicked around and takes all the abuse, so in a way she's wired to expect that. I've tried to elevate her role by encouraging her to do small things such as walk beside me instead of behind me, by putting her food down first, and by giving her special privileges the other dogs don't get -- to no avail. With her, nature seems to be winning over nurture.

I often wonder how it must be to live in such a state of anxiety and fear. I prize few moments more than those when Ginger simply relaxes with me. Mostly that happens in the early morning when I reach over on the bed and wake her up by rubbing her belly. She'll roll onto her back and let her body go limp, enjoying the feeling of security and contentment. I touch her and kiss her often throughout the day, and she always responds with a return kiss and a tail wag -- but she's always just a thought away from cowering in fear at anything out of the routine.

Loki and Ginger (Angel in background)

I credit Loki for helping her learn how to enjoy life beyond me. Ginger idolized Bailey, but they didn't really play much together. Where Bailey loved to chase balls and Frisbees and lived to please me, Ginger stood on the sidelines and watched. When Loki came along, he and Bailey became good buds and exhausted themselves playing together. When we lost Bailey, Loki refocused all his energy onto Ginger and forced her to learn how to race and chase and play-fight through persistence, his own brand of exuberance and his patented optimism.

Whether they happen to our real kids or our fur-babies, neuroses and other conditions such as autism or ADHD are often as exasperating and frustrating for the caregiver as for the caree. All those years ago I was sure it would take only weeks -- maybe a few months at most -- for love and patience and constant encouragement to completely cure Ginger of her anxieties. The hard reality is, no matter how good my intentions, I'm not a miracle worker. I can only provide her the safest environment possible to deal with her persistent condition, encourage her to push her boundaries, and rejoice with her in small progresses as she makes them. The rest is out of my hands.

That I can't save the world or every animal in need, that I can't even save every one of the few I cross paths with, is the most hurtful, damning lesson I've ever had to learn.

Still, in its way, it's also the most freeing counsel I've ever received.

For me, someone for whom failure has never been an option, it's the great truth that drives me to try the impossible, that gives me permission to fail, and that still allows me to respect myself in the morning.