Pawcurious Vet Blog: Pet help, stories, and information with Dr. V

I just got off the phone with Reggie’s foster dad in Phoenix. He arrived safe and sound and is already making friends with the four dogs who live there permanently. He will be seen by a vet there soon for a checkup and a more thorough medical evaluation than we were ever allowed to do by his previous owners.

Looking to a happier tomorrow…

Now that he’s safe and sound, I can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

The doggie angels at Another Chance for English Setters made this all possible- well, that and a great college student named Brett, may you make all A’s my friend- so my thanks are out in the universe to them all.

I donated the money I had put aside for gas, which Brett refused, to the rescue, which wasn’t a whole lot but I figure anything is helpful. If you just happen to have a spare dollar or cent kicking around in your Paypal and you feel moved to send it on in Reggie’s name, their donation link is here.

Not that I am asking, mind you, just putting it out there in case you had been thinking to yourself, man, I wish I could send that dog a quarter. The idea of a bunch of little pennies tricking in under his name delights me and would hearten me after hearing how many bloggers put up a sob story and have readers fund them trips to conferences, new computers, that sort of thing.

And if not I still love you anyway. This has been a good day.

Ah, freedom. I have just gotten to the point where my kids sleep through the night. This is the first time since, oh, 2004 that I have had the luxury of sleeping in every once in a while. My son is just about potty trained and I was looking forward to a life free from diapers, with a tad bit more independence.

Then I got a puppy. Oy.

I haven’t raised a puppy since, oh, the early 80s. My parents got a Lhasa-something-or-other from a neighbor, which we had for 15 years and did just about everything wrong if you want a well adjusted dog. We never had her trained. She hated kids. She was food aggressive and allergic and peed in the house till the day she died. We fed her Gravy Train. And although some of the early details are fuzzy, I do remember those first few bleary eyed weeks sleeping in the living room so she wouldn’t whine (yes, that task got assigned to the youngest kid in the house. Of course.)

When my husband surprised me with Brody, my first reaction was “OMGSQUEEPUPPY!!!!!” but I will admit there was a teeny part of me that whispered, “Oh my god, a puppy.” Adopting adult dogs has been my modus operandi my entire adult life. Don’t get me wrong, I love puppies, but I get to see them every day- biting, peeing, wiggly little maniacs that they are. I see parents covered in scars and black eyes from their unruly charges, hear the stories about the challenges of raising a puppy well. The owners are always tired.

And now I am one of those exhausted owners, getting yet another lesson in humble pie. How often have I said, “Oh, you just have to watch them every second! They’ll figure it out as long as you are consistent,” to puppy owners. Now I have a roll of paper towels, a box of treats, and a handy array of curses at the ready as I scoff at the recent report that Goldens are the fourth smartest breed. Ha!

I just had an owner brag that her nine week old Yorkie is housetrained and goes 4 hours at a time without needing to go outside, and Brody still sneaks a pee every half hour if I’m not paying attention. Well, even if I am paying attention, eyes glued to him while he sits 4 feet away in an exercise pen. He doesn’t seem to care. He likes the positive reinforcement he gets when he goes outside, but if he goes inside, my correction doesn’t seem to bother him a bit. He looks at me like, what? It’s cold out there. Then he continues to go until I physically pick him up.

You talkin to me?

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I have a newfound respect for rescue workers. Not that I didn’t have respect for rescue volunteers before, mind you. I think I just forgot how much dang work rescuing can be. I was part of a group in vet school that rescued dogs from shelters, put them in foster homes for 12 weeks, trained the dogs once a week, and at the end of the 12 weeks adopted them out. I was just one of the adoption coordinators and it was a ton of work, happily done but work nonetheless.

We had a dog at our clinic who was, for lack of better words, a hot mess. He is a sweet, purebred setter who looks like he got run over by a train. Bad skin, bad hips, bad teeth, you name it. His owner always brought him in to be looked at and then declined everything he needed. We would do all we could to help her, but at the end of the day the dog just didn’t get what he needed and deserved.

I had mentioned rescues a few times when the owner mentioned not wanting him anymore, since he is after all a purebred. Not that mutts deserve less- it’s just easier to place a dog in rescue when they are a purebred. She never called them, of course. So when he came in for a torn toenail last week and she yelled she was going to just euthanize him since the antibiotics were too expensive, our office manager convinced him to relinquish him to us.

And by us, she meant, “Dr V will figure it out.” Fortunately, we have a tech who was able to foster him for a bit, and somehow I had the daunting task of trying to find a home for a dog I really knew nothing about except the fact that he was a total mess.

The rescue I got in contact with was based in another time zone. Bless her heart, this woman agreed to help me find a foster home. The only problem is, the closest foster home was in Phoenix, and I was tasked with finding a way to get him there.

Lucky me!

So off I went to twitter for help, and was given a recommendation from Phetched to try and arrange a transport on the Dogster forum. There is a huge database there of people all over the country who are willing to donate their day to drive a dog from point a to point b. If you get enough people together all in a line, you can get a dog cross country. (I know my friend Karri has volunteered with the Drive for Life group on LiveJournal, which is similar.) Talk about angels on earth!

Now, in between getting the kids to bed and making dinner and cleaning up dog pee since Brody still needs hourly potty breaks or else, I needed to try and coordinate 5 or so people to relay race a dog to Arizona.

Or, as another friend suggested, try craigslist. I’m lazy, and this appealed to me.  I went on the rideshare section, and somewhere between “Need a lift to LA” and “Can drive someone to Oregon this weekend” there appeared a new ad saying “Can anyone take a rescue dog to Phoenix?” An hour later, an ASU student heading back to school on Saturday offered to take our elderly hero with him.

So then I had to e-mail the rescue person in Virginia to contact the foster in Phoenix, and arrange for my tech to bring the dog to me to bring to the student who is driving him to Arizona. Got that? My head is swimming from too many things to keep track of.

I didn’t exactly volunteer for this, but I had a feeling when I first met him a year ago that I would be a part of trying to give him a better life. I’m just grateful that I have the opportunity to do this for this dog. He spent his life a yard on a choke collar by himself; five different strangers who didn’t know him, or each other, are coming together to erase that life and give him a new one. How fortunate am I to get to be a part of something good, to see the kindness out there and experience this kind of generosity given with nothing expected in return.

Now I need to just hope, pray and keep everything crossed that everything works according to plan. If you could all send good travel vibes in a southwesterly direction on Saturday, we would much appreciate it.

P.S. This is who awaits our pup on the other end:

I was chatting up an owner today and talking to him about his dogs. Both dogs and owner were nice, genial types. The owner started talking about his history with dogs growing up.

“My first dog died at 16,” he said. “A boxer.”

“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “That’s a great lifespan for a boxer!”

“Yup,” he replied. “She died of cirrhosis.”

“Uh oh,” I said, “An alcoholic, eh?”

“Yes,” he said, “She really was.” I laughed. “Mom made three martinis a day- one for her, one for Dad, and one for the dog.” He grinned.

I looked at him, confused. He grinned more widely. “Oh- uh- you are kidding, right?”

“No,” he said earnestly. “Things were different back then.” Indeed they were. “She got a martini every day, but I did get Mom to stop giving her chewing tobacco when she was 10.”

And he really wasn’t kidding. I felt guilty over the occasional Lays potato chip Emmett would get- guess I should go a little easier on myself!

Thank you for all the congratulations! I’m still reeling a bit myself. Normally I’m against surprising anyone with a puppy, but when that anyone is me, and I’ve been lamenting my dog deficiency since January, I’ll make an exception.

I tried to come up with a list of things that would surprise me more than my husband showing up with a Golden puppy this weekend. There isn’t much.

• My husband joining the priesthood
• My husband getting into the space program
• My husband renouncing his Chargers fandom to become a Raiders fan

All things that fall into the realm of very, very unlikely. I was well and truly shocked, which is hard to do because I am one of those people that it is very hard to surprise because I’m nosy. My husband’s cover story, the bike ride, caused no shortage of grief since I sat him down and explained to him in depth the concerns I had for him, and made him take lots of electrolytes and Gu and granola bars. He had to get up extra early to hide his bicycle, pack his helmet, and go to Fullerton.

I woke up long enough to ask him why he wasn’t in his biking clothes.

“We’re changing there,” he said. “Go back to bed.”

He is a saint for putting up with me.

Anyway, as I stood there with my hands to my face, shaking and crying like a beauty pageant winner, my kids immediately jumped into the car, hugged the dog, and started grilling me on names.

“How about Cutie?” asked my daughter. As you may recall, this was also her suggestion for the doomed guinea pig. This was nixed.

“Oooh! Oh! I know! Let’s name him Lucky! Can we name him Lucky?”

As my husband burst into laughter and I stood there horrified, I realized I had better nip this in the bud and declare a name lest things get out of hand. I had no time to ponder his personality, no time to think on Christmas specials past and cute double entendres and esoteric movie references.

“His name is Brody,” I blurted, for no apparent reason. The only Brody I know of is Brody Jenner, and I don’t actually know anything about him other than the fact that he exists, and is somewhat of a Z-list celebrity. Brody sounds like a surfer dude name. Brody sounds mellow and chill and a guy who lives on the beach talking about the perfect wave.

I tried to think of a wittier reason to make up to tell you all, but I can’t think of one. It was that or Lucky, and considering my feelings on the topic I think just about anything that came out of my mouth would have been OK.

For reasons unknown, my daughter has taken to calling him “Brodo.” She has never seen Lord of the Rings. My husband thinks she is extra-cool for that.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know all about Skippy. Ah, Skippy. The dog who made me realize that I am not meant to live with a toy breed. He stressed me out. He was yappy. He pooped in the house. We were not a match.

Today, I got a call from Skippy’s new owner, who needed a couple extra bits of medical history. “How is he doing?” I asked, hoping the answer would be, “OK, despite running away and pooping in the house. We still like him.”

The person paused. “He’s SO great,” she said. “We just love him to pieces.”

“Oh,” I replied, pleasantly surprised. “Is he housebroken?”

“Yes,” she said, and then I was just shocked.

Skippy is living with a family who has a history of adopting shih tzus, Lhasas, and other small, yappy dogs from rescues. He moved in with a 17 year old chihuahua, who within 2 months of Skippy’s arrival decided death was preferable and quickly made his exit. He has that effect on dogs, I’ve noticed.

Nonetheless, his family found him a great source of solace during their time of loss, and I can’t tell you how relieved I am that he has found, finally, his true forever home. These people are in it for the long haul. They love him because of how he is, not despite it. He deserves that. I can now happily file that debacle under “Everything happens for a reason.”

While I was on this rather long phone call, my husband arrived home from a long morning bike ride. I was glad to see him well, since this was his inaugural ride on his bike and I was a bit concerned about him out in the heat- he took one teeny bottle of water and that was it, despite my warnings. Men.

“Can you help me get something out of the car?” he said.

“Hold on,” I told him. “I’m getting a Skippy update.”

He waited impatiently while I finished  talking, then gestured me to follow him out to car. “What?” I said. “Is your bike in pieces? Dead biking companion?”

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