Sink or swim

I'm going to jump off the chronological thread of this blog for a moment to comment that dog people are an interesting bunch. Some are really nice, some are really strange, and some are really holier-than-thou. Kind of like humans in general, I suppose. There is a lovely dog beach near me on Lake Michigan - a microcosm of these dog people in action.

Nadine and I started going to the beach in March. The first time was with Melissa and her dog, Emmett, and went really well. I hadn't gone before then because when I got Nadie, she couldn't walk that far; once she could walk longer distances, it was winter and the beach was iced over from our blizztastic December and February. I didn't really know how she would react to the sand and water, but on her first visit, she really took to it. Well, the sand at least.

I call Nadine a little truffle hunter because she loves to sniff things out. It's probably her favorite thing to do. Her favorite toys all involve sniffing (such as Kong-type toys) and she'll spend 5 minutes snorting her way around a well peed-on tree. So on her first beach visit, she didn't do much other than sniff about and get three paws full of burrs. Emmett was the only other dog there so there wasn't much playing...just nosing around for dead crayfish.

The second time at the beach, she played shy and refused to play with the other dogs, instead hovering around my feet like a 4-year-old. We didn't get close to the water because it was still really cold and I was more focused on getting her to play with other dogs.

Today, her third visit, there were quite a few other small dogs playing. We were a ways from the dogs and I had gotten closer to the lake to introduce her to the water and see her reaction. Before I could do that, three of the small dogs came over to meet her. She may have been a little wigged by all three at once, because when they walked away, she followed their humans instead of playing with them or staying by me. One guy with a little dachshund was right at the edge of the water and Nadine walked up behind him. She follows people around on the street, so I wasn't surprised to she her following him.

The dachshund jumped toward Nadine to play and suddenly Nadine sprung toward the water, ending up with a couple paws in the lake. I was still a good 15 ft away. She had never gone into the lake before nor even got a paw in, but she hates baths so I figured she would feel that water and jump back out. Nope. Not even close. Instead, the water must have riled her up even more and she dove DEEPER into the lake, well over her head. I raced over as soon as she did that, watching as she began to sink under the water. The dachshund guy looked back at me, a concerned look on his face. As I reached the edge of the lake, her head popped to the surface as her little paws started to paddle! Just as quickly she went back under again. I looked at my brand new, not-yet-waterproofed Keen hiking shoes that I bought to wear on safari in Africa in one month....and walked straight into the lake. She popped up again, this time paws flying. Nadine could swim! She was paddling like mad, and thankfully, coming right toward me.

I fished her shivering body out and turned around to put her down and start wiping the water off. I was at first so frightened for Nadine, while simultaneously thrilled by her Phelpsian breast stroke, that I didn't notice the stares. I looked up to the concerned dachshund guy to explain that she had never swam before and that I never thought she would jump in like that and she was a puppy mill rescue so she does unexpected things sometimes. As I began speaking, I saw behind him a sea of disapproving faces, staring at me. I wasn't embarrassed by Nadine's first attempt to swim or my going in after her, I was actually amused once I saw she could swim, yet suddenly I was ostracized from this pack of dog owners. They were embarrassed for me. Only the owner of the dachshund would even speak to me, everyone else just glared at me down their superior noses, as if their dog would never dream of doing something so horrifying. Yeah, right. Don't pretend like your puggle doesn't eat his own vomit, Mr. Fancy-pants.

But as Nadine started to shiver from the cold and the shock of her very first polar bear plunge, I could feel the eyes continuing to glare at me, willing me to take my foolish dog and go. After all, what if her naughty dogness rubbed off on their perfect widdle puppies! So, while loudly exclaiming that Nadine, "must be cold so we will just have to go home," I picked up my cold, wet mess and, head held high, carried her through the gauntlet of chastising faces and off the beach. Dachshund guy left at the same time. Whether that was on purpose or coincidentally, I like to think he was my lone supporter in the sea of holier-than-thous.

But hey, Nadie can swim! Good dog!

Teeth are like badges, we don't stinkin' need 'em

In a few days I heard back from the vet about the mammary mass. It was non-cancerous! Big sighs of relief from me and my mom, who had proudly adopted the term "granddog" and was as worried about the Toothless Wonder as I was. Future masses may be in the cards and, as of this moment, I will likely have to ignore them due to various other issues that have manifested over the next few months. I make no promises though. I am a bit of a sucker for Nadine and keeping her healthy...if you hadn't noticed.

As for her mouth, she was a few teeth lighter, in a mouth that wasn't a full set to begin with, but Nadine took on her new chompers as if nothing had changed. Once healed, she was gnawing at her Dingo bones as if she still had a full set. No doggie dentures needed here! (My friend Beth had visited early on with her pup, Rupert, and introduced Nadine to Dingos. They immediately became numero uno treat and are now purchased in Costco-sized bags as she can gum her way through one in less then an hour.) I'm pretty sure Nadine was short on teeth originally, likely what caused her tongue to flip out of the side of her mouth...in any case, she now had just a few in back, none in the middle, and her canines in front - which the vet wanted to eventually remove.

"Oh yeah, I can still chew the hell out of this thing! I'll gum your cute, brown shoes, if you'd like too!

Whaddya mean, I can't do much damage?? Ooohhh, I'll show you...watch me eat up your TimeOut magazine!"

Now for our next challenge...housebreaking. She loved going outside and quickly learned what words were associated with it. She was also starting to enjoy the attention she was getting outside. Everyone stopped to say hello, and the neighbor dogs like Moe and Zoe, Heather, and Quinn were some of her favorite friends. Watching a 10lb dog trying to antagonize a 40lb one is a lot like an adult holding a kid by the head at arms length while they swing away at you.

Yet, for all her love of outside and marking up her territory with squats and leg lifts - she does both, which J.R. Ackerley called "necessity vs. social urination" -  understanding to hold it for outside was another story. She remained crated at night because I couldn't trust her with free-reign over the house. I had to watch her like a hawk when she was indoors, even taking her into the bathroom with me while I took a shower. Walking across the living room rug with my bowl of cereal in the morning was like maneuvering a field of land mines...you never knew if you were about to step in a sopping wet and possibly still warm puddle.  It always seemed to happen when I forgot to remember; step and "oh fudgesicle, Nadine!" But with more "uck" and less "udgesicle".

I read the books that said to repeatedly take her outside for just 5 minutes and if she doesn't go, to then right come back in and then right back out after 10 minutes. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Okay, that may be lovely for your suburban-dwelling, backyard-having, McMansion-owning, gas-guzzling, pesticide-spraying, excessive baby-having, environment-destroying...  whoops! Sorry about that. I meant to say, that may be fine for those with one door that leads to a yard, but it doesn't work so well for an urban apartment dweller three floors up. With a dog who can't walk down stairs. And a scary elevator.

After a month of accidents with no improvement and a fraying, overlaundered kitchen rug (her favorite spot, both in my house and, I shortly discovered, other people's) I decided to try another tactic...the puppy pad on the balcony. I thought this would save me from carrying her up and down the stairs 3 times a night. It did, but it wasn't any more pleasant...

All this and no cone of shame?

After eight years of dental neglect, Nadine needed a thorough cleaning and surgery to remove two bad teeth. In addition, I decided to go ahead and have the small mammary mass removed while she was in surgery. She would spend the day at the vet so I dropped her off in the morning to a warm reception by the receptionists, who knew Nadine and I by this point, as we had visited a couple times recently for pre-surgery blood-work and "sample" deliveries. (At her first check-up, Nadine's bladder was empty so they couldn't retrieve a sample. Nadine was regularly peeing on my kitchen floor, so they had given me a plastic syringe in the hopes I would be able to slurp some up. I spent a week trying to get her to pee on my floor - um, kind of NOT what I was training for, people!)

I tearily left her in the kind hands of the vet tech, Amanda, and headed to work. Side note about Amanda: I'm sure she loves all the animals, or at least most, that she works with, but I was particularly impressed on Nadine's follow-up visit when she stopped in the exam room to "just say hi" to Nadine, even through she wasn't working with her that day. What did I say about everyone loving Nadine?!

I spent a fretful day at work, hoping the surgery would go smoothly. I repeated like a mantra that both surgeries were simple and straightforward, but that only got me so far. Luckily, I have a wonderful volunteer and friend who helps me run my department at work and she was there that day. Julia was a welcome distraction to my worries as we chatted and whittled away the minutes watching videos of a cat named Maru who loves big boxes and little boxes.

The vet called later that afternoon with a report. Overall, everything was a success. Nadie had come out of the surgery and was in recovery doing fine. The mass was removed, but they also had to take off her nipple because it was so close to the mass. I suppose Nadine doesn't mind - she has five others after all and no plans, much less ability since she had been fixed, to have more babies. This gal's uterus has seen enough action. The mass would be tested for malignancy and I would find out in a few, yet very long, days if it was cancerous.

The teeth cleaning was a slightly different story. They determined in surgery that she needed 5 teeth removed - 3 more then expected - leaving quite a few gaps in her set. In addition, the vet recommended that her two front canines be removed. They were both loose and wiggly making them vulnerable to becoming abscessed. My last pet, a crazy and fantastic cat named Cheska, had developed an abscessed tooth when she was 19 years old. At that age, there was no surgery her little body could handle so I had to make that awful decision to put her to sleep. Because of that, hearing that Nadine could also develop an abscess had me quite worried.

Good kitty!

Additionally, this would be a much more complicated operation and not one the veterinary office could perform. Canine removal in small dogs can break the dog's jawbone. My vet doesn't have the ability to handle that so the surgery must be done at a dog dentist who is prepared for that complication. Dog dentist? Who knew? Me and my wallet groaned. Again.

Thankfully, that surgery wasn't urgent so I decided to hold off a bit to let Nadine recover from this surgery and give us a chance to finally get to know each other. It had only been 4 days since I had picked her up from my parents' house, after all. She needed a rest from vet exams, traveling the midwest, and a succession of new homes while I needed a chance to learn her traits, attempt to housebreak her, and train her on the basics.

Julia, being an animal lover and a very thoughtful person, offered to pick up Nadine and I from the vet. With a purse full of meds, no cone of shame (unless she started to lick her wounds which she never did), and Nadine curled up on the passenger's side floor quite possibly ruing the day she meet me, we headed home.

The Big C, and it ain't chew toy

Before Nadine and I even had a chance to become accustomed to our new lives, a stressful roadblock was dropped in front of us. From Anti-Cruelty Society, I knew she would need extra veterinary care for her teeth and knees. That I was prepared for, but they turned out to be only the tip of the Nadine health problem iceberg. Maybe glacier is more apt?

We had made a preliminary visit to what would become her regular vet office, but she needed a booster shot a very specific period of time after her first shot received at Anti-Cruelty Society. She was at my parents at that point so my mom had to take Nadie to a local vet to get it. The vet couldn't just give Nadine a shot without a check-up, so the pooch had to go through another round of poking and prodding.

At Nadine's first check-up with me, she was still very wary and timid. When the vet tried to examine her belly, Nadine wouldn't roll over. Of course, I can't stop her from rolling over now for a belly rub, but in the early days, Nadine wasn't going to flash her six boobs to just anyone. Maybe she thinks she has a college tuition bill due or something... hoping Maverick next door might have a few singles in his wallet, perhaps?

In any case, her vet couldn't do a thorough exam of her belly at that time, but the vet my mom brought her to was able to. He found a very small mammary mass. With mammary masses in dogs, all you can do is remove them. There is no biopsy taken - the whole thing must be removed to determine if it's cancerous or benign. It's the only way and it meant Nadie would need to have surgery. Mammary masses are very common in dogs that have not been spayed before having a litter and it isn't unusual for dogs to have multiple masses, so this might not be the only time a mass appears. Each one may or may not be cancerous and there is only that one way to tell.

This meant that, on top of the teeth cleaning and extraction of two teeth that the vet had previously told me was required, Nadine would also need surgery to remove and test the mass. Poor dog had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I don't know who she pissed off in a previous life, but she was paying for it in this one!

Thankfully, surgery couldn't be for a few weeks, so she and I had a reprieve until then and I had time to consider it. Most of my Spain trip had been paid for months ago, luckily, but it would still be an expensive surgery. The teeth cleaning was perfect timing because she had to be under anesthesia anyway so the vet could do the mass removal at the same time. A surgery two-fer!

I joke, but it was a really stressful decision. I was crazy about this dog. In less than two weeks, she was a part of my family...whether my dad liked it or not. My friends loved her, my cousins and aunts thought she was adorably odd (therefore perfect for me), even strangers on the street stopped in their tracks to say hi and comment on her.  My neighbor, who had never managed more than a grunt in my direction, stopped unexpectedly on his way to work the first time he ran into us. Looking slightly shocked and with a bemused, lopsided grin on his face, he stumbled out nearly an entire Yodic sentence! "Her tongue, always like that?"

It's just that, like many a great dog, Nadine makes people uncontrollably happy when they see her. Rough-looking kids traveling in packs on the street stop to say hi to her. They don't even keep up the act of being hard and bad-ass; they drop down to give her a scritch behind the ears and it's no matter that their friends are watching. Gay, straight, male, female, black, white, rich, homeless, young, old...everybody loves Nadine.

Mammary masses very often turn out to be benign, but I could only know by having it removed. What would I do if it was cancerous? I wasn't prepared to fight that with an older dog. In that case, what would be the point of removing it, if I had already made the decision? Had I made that decision? Could I really accept letting Nadine die so soon? Just letting cancer take over? This little black and white cookie was too sweet and crazy to lose, but realistically, cancer wasn't something my bank account, much less my heart, could take.

Finally, I chose to go ahead with the removal, since she was already scheduled for her teeth, but I feared what future decision I was going to be forced to make.

Nadine finds her Green Gables

After three weeks at my parents' house, learning how to go to the bathroom outside, destroy a metal gate, and expressing her strong fear of thunderstorms, it was time to return to Chicago with me. Having not notified the car rental agency that I had a dog (and therefore incur yet another fee), I was relieved when she climbed right into her crate in the front seat, and relaxed when she plopped down inside and proceeded to take a nap as soon as I hit 196 South. I even risked a stop at the Dutch Farm Market for a basket of apples, garlic, and other fresh-from-the-farm autumn treats. I was there less than 10 minutes, but as I walked back to the car, I could hear that high, terrified bark emanating from my little economy car. As soon as I opened the door, she stopped, now safe as her two-dog pack was once again complete.

Home for good, Nadine began to rediscover a world she last saw as a sickly and frightened pup. Where she once cowered in corners, Nadie sniffed and snorted her way along every square foot of my little condo, turning each piece of furniture into her seasonal allergy scratching post. Her 10 lbs was suited perfectly for condo living as she no longer had to worry about monitoring her pack in a 4-bedroom, two-story house with a garage. Laps around the dining room table were no longer possible, but laying in the hallway with one eye on the living room and one on the bedroom while I wandered back and forth was Nadine's little Avonlea. We still had to establish a routine, but it was certainly clear that this pooch was going to make herself right at home. Nadine really was a new dog, as I hoped she might be once she had a taste of what dog life was supposed to be - one that didn't involve awful living conditions and giving birth three times a year. After eight years of hell, Nadine was finally home.

That said, the stairs of my building were a trial. Two flights up was possible, but down was her haunted forest. She wouldn't even enter the landing unless she was being carried. The other option, the elevator, is a creature from a bad horror movie - slow moving, unexpectedly noisy, eerily unresponsive, and apt to make you jump (in an attempt to get it moving again) - so I tried to avoid it. I carried Nadine down the steps and was determined to get her to climb up them. After a week she was marching up the steps and none too proud of her new trick. She would trot up ahead of me, sometimes overshooting the third floor and cruising right up to the fourth. I quickly learned not to let her off the leash or she would be on the top floor before I could blink. Not to mention that she didn't seem to understand the edge of the steps was open. Occasionally she would get a little too close, setting my heart pounding that she would tumble straight down two or three flights to the cement floor below. Twice her foot slipped off the side while I dived to grab her.

The elevator took a little more coaxing. As I've mentioned, Nadine wouldn't take treats when she was frightened, so luring her into the elevator with food was pointless. The elevator was small with a very loud door that banged every time it opened or closed. Quite disconcerting to a little dog, although once inside, the mirror was endlessly entertaining as she gazed and pawed at her own Katie Maurice in the window. The bigger issue was the inch-wide gap between the machine and the building. One paw or another would fall into that gap and she didn't like it one bit. She would sit on the solid tile floor while I knelt in the elevator, pleading with her to come inside. The only redeeming quality about the elevator, in Nadine's little world, was that it led to the great outdoors, which in Chicago is chock-full of the most wonderful thing a dog can experience - other dog smells. Smells that are new every day! Smells that worked magic in housebreaking Nadine; they said what she was supposed to do outside, in a way that English simply couldn't covey.

So, I carried her down the steps and mostly climbed up the steps, until one event after which we had to turn more and more to the elevator. As she swaggered her way up the steps one day, glancing back at me occasionally for my approval, her back legs fell out from under her. I don't know if her knees had slipped and locked up, but suddenly she was sliding back down the steps in front of me and getting no purchase with her furry paws. Her head swiveled back to me, eyes wide open, scared and looking for help. I covered the few steps between us and swooped her up, but that scare was enough to keep both of us from attempting the stairs again for a few weeks. After her fall, she never balked at entering the elevator. She just finally learned to avoid the gap.

Nadine and I settled into our new life, full of accidents and trips and falls by both of us. But, even though there were many pee-soaked rugs during those first months, as Anne would say, at least every morning was fresh, with no mistakes in it. Yet.

The beer barrel polka

When my parents returned from their vacation in 1984, they had no idea what was waiting for them. These were the days before cell phones made us each a flip and a text away from each other; where Facebook and Foursquare let us know what our friends were doing the very second they were doing it. In 2011, there's no way a kid could sneak a pet into the house for four days without the parents knowing...even if the parent was in Peru. But, in August of 1984, my parents were obvious to the furball sleeping in the garage until they pulled in the driveway and opened the garage door. Oooh boy, they didn't stand a chance. I honestly don't even remember the conversation - I may have already been in bed - but Tigger got to stay and was the Best Dog Ever for 14 more years.

 Tigger and I...kickin' it circa 1985. Totally rad.

To this day, my dad complains about Tigger and what a naughty dog he was. One day I came home and there was a huge barrel in the middle of the kitchen. Looking in the barrel, there was Tigger asleep at the bottom of it. His whole life, he was always running away (which likely explains how we got him in the first place) with my dad begrudgingly running after him. My dad even tried to change Tigger's name to Bob to prevent the embarassment of walking up and down the streets of our neighborhood at 10pm yelling "Tigger!" On this particular occasion, he had run away and, once found, my dad decided to put him in a barrel as punishment. Not much of a punishment, as Tigger was at least 12 years old at the time and just slept off his time in the clink. Actually, he probably liked it in there, all cozy and den-like.

Early on with Nadine, my dad commented about what he would do during Nadie's visit if she was a Naughty Dog. No need for a barrel, he figured. She was so small, a bucket would do nicely! And now, on those very rare occasions when I mention some teeny, tiny, insignificant thing that Nadine has done that ever so slightly inconveniences me...my dad's only words are, "Time to get out the bucket!"

No matter what kind of front my dad puts on, or all of his complaints about Tigger, aka "that ND," when we finally had to say goodbye to him, there was no doubt that my dad loved him as much as the rest of us. I mentioned that my dad is stoic and emotionless; well, that is not quite true. He simply doesn't show those emotions as bluntly as the rest of us. Instead, he builds a cradle for your new dolly, or silently changes your car's oil after you've ignored it for an extra 2000 miles, or fixes your broken kitchen sink that has dripped for six months.

They day we put Tigger to sleep, my dad spent the afternoon hard at work in the garage. Tigger was buried in the backyard in a casket built by my dad.

Superdad, Man of Steel

So far I have written a lot about my mom and all she went through with our Little Pot, the basket case that is Nadine. My mom did a bang-up job with the Nadester. It was, and still is to an extent, nearly impossible to predict Nadine's behavior. As her health and comfort-levels improved, her behavior's altered as well, so things were really in flux those first few weeks and months. Point is, my mom was a trooper for taking on Nadine and I could never have adopted this poor wee thing without her help.

So anyway, remember how excited my mom was to meet Nadine? My dad was the opposite. He's not a bad man, just not big on pets...unless they are raccoons named Ricky with sweet little hands (that are used to break into coolers when camping, but that's another story). His cold heart of steel is not due to a terrible childhood or soul-crushing job. It caused by his ancestry: West Michigan Dutch. We are a stoic and emotionless people. With absurdly large feet.

Pops wasn't all that interested in meeting Nadine. He wasn't particularly happy about having a dog - a non-housebroken dog no less - in his house. He was possibly a bit worried that having a dog in the house would prompt my mom to adopt a dog at some point in the near future, which might cause additional poop stains in the house and pee stains on the driveway. He made jokes about putting her in a barrel, as he was known to do with other wonderful dogs beloved by his one-and-only daughter. My dad is simply not a pet person and pets would not be welcome in the house, unless said pet could be kept in a cage or tank, explaining the parrots, fish, and chameleons we had growing up.

That is, until my parents went on vacation when I was 10.


The Story of Tigger

My parents traveled a fair amount when I was a kid. Apparently they needed to get out of the house, which I'm sure had nothing to do with me. How could it?! I'm perfect! Anyway, on one such trip, my aunt and uncle were taking care of me for the 5-day weekend while the parentals went to Stratford for their annual trip to see lovely Shakespeare plays and drink lovely wine and do other lovely things couples do on mini-breaks that I would prefer not to think about in regards to my parents. Ahem.

I had been asking for a dog for a while at this point and always getting a pretty convincing "not a chance in hell" in reply. A week or so before, my babysitter's family had found a dog. He was lying in the middle of the street with his legs splayed out behind him. They assumed he had been hit so they pulled up next to him to see if he was hurt. On opening the door, this sweet 20 pound black and brown Spaniel mutt hopped up uninjured and jumped in the backseat!

They spent a while trying to find the owners of this pooch and then trying to find someone to adopt him. He was housebroken but didn't have a collar. Finally, a day before they were planning to bring him to the Humane Society, my babysitter came over with him on the off-chance my family would want to adopt this nice dog. Guess who IMMEDIATELY fell in love? No, not just me, but my aunt and uncle too. Being as impulsive as the 10-year-old they were babysitting, my aunt and uncle agreed to take the dog. The deal was that if my parents wouldn't let me keep him, they would adopt him.

Tigger was the nick-name of my favorite counselor at Girl Scout camp that summer, so I named him Tigger. I never even considered that Tigger was a Winnie-the-Pooh character and even now, when I hear the name Tigger, I automatically think of my dog and not Pooh.

Tigger spent the next few days becoming the "Best Dog Ever" to me. We became buddies that no parent would rend asunder. Especially the parents of a child who had perfected the bottom-lip-jutted-out, eyes-watering, chin-quivering pout. No doubt, the parental guilt of raising an only child would help my cause. "I have no one to play with!" I would cry. Like Ralphie and his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, I plotted to keep my Tigger...