A larger-than-truth story

 Oh, Woolly Night

Tonight as I got ready to close up the kennel, looking forward to a quiet Christmas Eve with the family, a young couple came through the door, with a puppy. 

"We must leave town and we need a place for our little Jaspar. Just for two days."

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm all full."

"Not even a small cage for a puppy?"

I let them peek inside the rooms and showed them we were full. Plus he hadn't had all his shots. They couldn't hide their disappointment but were very polite. 

"Is there nothing you can do for us?"

I have to admit that I was tired, and there was corned beef in the pot waiting for me, and while I normally try very hard to help people in need, I just wasn't feeling it. Still, they were so nice, I had an idea.

"I have a barn out back and he can stay in there. There's an old whelping box and a bale of straw, and you can bed him up in there. I'll go out once a day to feed him and only charge you half price."

Now, I kind of meant it as a joke, because no one would really agree to that. But they looked at each other for a moment and then said yes. I grabbed a flashlight and showed them the way. We filled the box with straw and got him a bowl of water and they left without so much as a look back. It hit me then that I was likely going to get stuck with a puppy. Still, I was getting hungry and more than a little chilled. 

The kitchen table overlooks the back lot where the barn and kennel are. During dinner I noticed a lot of activity near the barn. A couple of raccoons scurried in and out, a small gaggle of Canadians wandered in; the stray cat that hangs around slinked into the corner; and an unusual number of cardinals landed on the railing next to the door. A sheep from the Joseph farm down the street even made an appearance.

As I watched, a bright light rose over the barn, bathing it in a welcoming light. Out of the shadows came three people—men it looked like, carrying rifles. Hunters from the acreage out back I surmised. This was starting to get interesting and I wiped the coleslaw off my chin and went outside. 

"What are you doing here/" I asked the hunters, noticing that none of the animals were scared away by us. A cardinal even landed on my head.

"We heard there was a puppy here," said the tallest hunter, "we wanted to see it."

"Why?"

"We heard it's a really excellent puppy," said the hunter with big feet.

The hunter with glasses said, "Yeah, maybe even a champion."

"Where'd you hear that?" I asked.

They looked at each other and shrugged. It was then I saw that the rising light in the sky was a police helicopter. The hunters tossed some beef jerky and a handful of peanuts into the puppy's bowl and stole off into the darkness. The helicopter made a couple of passes around the barn, then disappeared behind trees. 

I opened the flashlight app on my iPhone and shone it in the barn. Two geese were keeping the puppy warm, and while cardinals kept watch, the cat watched mice play from his perch on a shelf next to an old carburetor. I shone the light on the puppy who was snuggled happily between the geese, sleeping.

"That sure is a pretty good puppy," I said aloud, and the sheep glanced at me. "But," I said to him," I wouldn't go so far as to call him a champion."

"Baaaa," he said.

"Humbug to you," I said. 

The gander eyed me scornfully.

"Don't give me that," I said, "he walked right into that one."

I went back into the house for a heavier coat, a couple of Christmas cookies and an old sleeping bag. I grabbed a box of Cheerios on the way out, and picked up a lawn chair from the garage. Then I set up inside the barn and settled in for the night, tossing cereal to the geese and the birds, and eventually falling asleep next to the sheep. When I woke in the morning everyone was gone except the puppy, who was curled up under a half a foot of straw. I figured the kids would be up pretty soon and would be getting restless.

One of the hunters, the one with the big feet, ran into the barn.

"You ain't seen the other two, have you?" he said.

I shook my head. He looked past me toward the whelping box. 

"What are you going to do with that puppy?" he asked.

"He's not mine," I said.

"Yeah well," he said, "we'll see about that."

"Who are you people?" I said. 

He peeked outside, looked one way, then the other, then lit off for the wood line. I looked down and the puppy was peeing on my shoe.

"You're not THAT good a puppy," I said, and he looked at me with guiltless eyes. I fed him some Cheerios and he licked my hand, wagging his tail. I thought, "Still..."

 

Why Good Food Matters

Before May we had one dog, Leo. Then we adopted Gordy who has filled the slot of emergency back-up dog. You should always have a dog and an emergency back-up dog. I have told the story of where he came from, but the short version is he was being trained to be a service dog but didn't quite make the cut and washed out. Thanks to Sue, who works for me, we were able to adopt him. He's been a great fit for everyone and is a great dog. Here they are together, Leo on the right, Gordy on the left.

When we got Gordy we noticed that his coat was coarse and a little scraggly, and he shed a lot. A LOT. We have always fed high quality food, in our case we have long used Hills Science Diet but there are many fine brands. We give a few treats and the occasional people food, but mainly our dogs eat Hills. And come September we noticed a funny thing. His coat was significantly better. It was smooth, soft, glossy, and it just looked better, like a golden retriever should. And we have noticed a lot less shedding.

My wife the veterinarian has always touted the benefit of quality food but this is the first time we've been able to experience first hand how amazing it is. It's one thing to tell people something you've learned from the Hills sales representatives, and it's another to be able to say, "My dog..."

I want to mention the service dog facility for a minute.  They are a fine place and do great works in trying to supply dogs to people who need them, but they are a non-profit and run on a tight budget. I cannot fault them one little bit for having to save money on food. If they have X number of dollars to spend on food and they can get 100 pounds of brand A or 200 pounds of brand B they are going to choose B and I don't blame them. I would too. It's up to the forever home to upgrade foods.

Any good brand is fine, Hills, Iams, Pro Plan, and the many, many, many small label premium foods.  But don't expect instant results. It took a good four months for us to notice and we weren't looking. I guess we could have seen subtle changes earlier but for us it was kind of a light bulb moment, where we said, "Hey, do you think his coat is better?" So it pays to either be patient, or to just not be paying attention.

8 Thanksgiving foods that can kill your dog

How's that for attention grabbing headlines? Well, we don't want to se your Turkey dAy ruined by a trip to the vet. Check it out.

Helpful Tips to Kick off the Food Season

Tis the season...to eat.  Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving leftovers. Halloween candy that you hid from your kids. Christmas cookies friends made and gave to you two weeks early. Little bowls of red and green Hershey kisses at reception desks and bank teller windows. The freaking Mallomars that only come out this time of year. Parties. Office parties (they are distinctly different beasts and deserve their own category). Recipe testing for things you want to make other people. The bread/soup cook-off you signed up for at the office (okay maybe that's just a few of us). Christmas eve dinner. Christmas dinner. New Year's Eve. New Years Day football watching snacks. All the stuff you haven't eaten by January 2 but can't bring yourself to throw away.

So in an effort to help you make the food BETTER, here are turkey tips from Alton Brown, and Ten Turkey Alternatives for Vegetarians. Enjoy!


Later maybe we'll post tips for kicking off the diet season. 

Packing for the Great White North

As you may remember, my daughter  graduated college last June and has since moved to Toronto to carve out a life for herself. After a wee bit of homesickness (which she alleviated in part by getting a dog)

she is now doing very well. So we have planned a trip to visit her on her birthday in a few weeks.

Now, I usually wait to pack until the last minute, but I figure what with it being a foreign country and all I had better make a list of things to take, because who knows what they have in Canada? So here is my list so far.

Brand new undies for the border crossing strip search.

American to Canadian dictionary

Rolls of pennies to make up for the one cent difference in the exchange rate.

Parka, boots, scarf, mittens, long johns, electric socks, Chap Stick

'Curling for Dummies'

American bacon

All my Neil Young and Bryan Adams cd's.

My 'Annotated Guide to Canadian Prime Ministers' coffee table pop-up book.

Moose repellant


Plus, I'll have to practice saying, "It really sucks they're not playing hockey yet," with a straight face. 

If you have any suggestion, I'd be glad to hear them.

How I start my day

 It's like were leading parallel lives...except for reading Cosmo.

When dogs do amazing things.

This one is pretty cool. Got this in an email. I stripped out most of the overwrought narrative.

During an early morning response, to a house-fire in Santa Rosa de Temuco, Chile ,

firefighters witnessed the unbelievable. A mother dog risked her life to save her

puppies from the fire surrounding the burning house, which started because of

a car bomb. 

The mother dog, Amanda, raced back and forth between the house, putting

her 10 day old puppies in the safest place she could find - a fire truck!

She didn't stop racing back into the fire until all of her puppies were safely away

from the fire.

After rescuing all of her pups from the blaze, Amanda sat down next to them,

protecting them with her body. Onlookers called an emergency veterinary

service, and she and her pups were rushed to the hospital. Aside from one

puppy being treated for serious burns, the entire family are alive and well

- thanks to the bravery of Amanda!

Not a lot of dogs would have done that. The coolest dog I ever met was one who woke up his family when the smoke detector failed and there was a fire. His name was Theo. Everyone was fine. The cynical could say that the dog was just saving his own skin but I prefer to give him more credit. I miss Theo.

9/11 Dogs

This is from an email I received. Most email like this I toss but this one is pretty cool. I'll paste it as I got it. I didn't do any fact checking but I'm pretty sure I don't need to.

[Note (11/17/12): Some people have had trouble viewing these images so here is a link to an article that contains them]

Nearly 100 dogs worked at the Trade Center ten years ago; only 12 are left. THESE OLD WONDERFUL FACES SAY IT ALL These are the surviving dogs that worked the trade center that are still alive but retired, they are heroes too, their eyes say everything you need to know about them. Just amazing creatures True heroes of 9/11 still with us today. Moxie,13, from Winthrop, Massachusetts, arrived with her handler, Mark Aliberti, at the World Trade Center on the evening of September 11 and searched the site for eight days. Tara, 16, from Ipswich, Massachusetts, arrived at the World Trade Center on the night of the 11th. The dog and her handler Lee Prentiss were there for eight days. Kaiser,12, pictured at home in Indianapolis, Indiana, was deployed to the World Trade Center on September 11 and searched tirelessly for people in the rubble. Bretagne and his owner, Denise Corliss from Cypress, Texas, arrived at the site in New York on September 17, remaining there for ten days. Guinness, 15, from Highland, California, started work at the site with Sheila McKee on the morning of September 13 and was deployed at the site for 11 days. Merlyn and his handler, Matt Claussen were deployed to Ground Zero on September 24, working the night shift for five days. Red, 11, from Annapolis, Maryland, went with Heather Roche to the Pentagon from September 16 until the 27th as part of the Bay Area Recovery Canines. Abigail, above, was deployed on the evening of September 17, searching for 10 days while Tuff arrived in New York at 11:00 p.m., on the day of attack to start working early the next day. Handler Julie Noyes and Hoke were deployed to the World Trade Center from their home in Denver on September 24 and searched for five days. Scout and another unknown dog lie among the rubble at Ground Zero, just two of nearly 100 search and rescue animals who helped to search for survivors. During the chaos of the 9/11 attacks, where almost 3,000 people died, nearly 100 loyal search and rescue dogs and their brave owners scoured Ground Zero for survivors. Now, ten years on, just 12 of these heroic canines survive, and they have been commemorated in a touching series of portraits entitled 'Retrieved'. The dogs worked tirelessly to search for anyone trapped alive in the rubble, along with countless emergency service workers and members of the public. Traveling across nine states in the U.S. from Texas to Maryland , Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas, 34, captured the remaining dogs in their twilight years in their homes where they still live with their handlers, a full decade on from 9/11. Their stories have now been compiled in a book, called Retrieved. Noted for her touching portraits of animals, especially dogs, Charlotte wanted 'Retrieved' to mark not only the anniversary of the September 2001 attacks, but also as recognition for some of the first responders and their dogs.' I felt this was a turning point, especially for the dogs, who although are not forgotten, are not as prominent as the human stories involved,' explained Charlotte, who splits her time between New York and Amsterdam. 'They speak to us as a different species and animals are greatly important for our sense of empathy and to put things into perspective.

Grieving Pet Owners want Imported Treats Pulled From Shelves

Have you heard about the chicken jerky treats? While it would be wrong to pre-judge before science gives us an answer, our gut tells better safe than sorry. 

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

This is how I know it's really Fall: when the 8:00 pm kennel hours roll around and I walk to work in the orange-yellow glow of the barn lights.  

 I didn't even notice the days when it was almost dark; it sort of snuck up on me, like it didn't want to give me time to prepare, then one day I'd go out and the transition would be complete.

We used to have two sets of three 150 watt floods, which drew a lot of juice and tended to burn out frequently and one at a time. I tried long lasting bulbs and I tried replaceing them all at once and I still lost the battle. So I decided to get those tungsten halogen fixtures figuring I'd have to change bulbs every five years or so. Nice thought except that the starters or whatever keep going out and I've had to have to have someone out here twice a year fussing with them. Every penny we've saved in electricity has been spent thrice fold on service calls. And by way of jinxing myself I'll say here that I believe they finally solved it for good. Until they fail again.

One theory is that the barn is haunted and they keep messing with the lights. If that's the case I give up. But I do avoid the barn at night. It's creepy.

How Many Cats Does One Novel Need?

A terrific writer friend of mine has written a novel and has asked me to help her publicize it. "But my blog is mainly a pet blog," I said. "It's got cats," she said. She also pointed out that I once had a post titled How to Play the Cymbals.

Here's Kristen Tsetsi

And here are her cats: Hoser is the brown & white, Simon is the black & white.

Her book is titled 'Pretty Much True' and I will let her tell you all about it.

Most blog posts, articles, or interviews about new novel releases focus on the author, the novel, or the human characters in the story. But what about the story’s animal(s)?  

My novel Pretty Much True…, released today by Missouri Breaks Press, has an oft-overlooked animal character in Chancey, the cat belonging to (or living with) Mia, the protagonist, and in two additional cats who live one floor below Mia with her hippie neighbor, Safia (one of whom suffers what has to be the ultimate cat humiliation when his owner/mother waves his paw for him while holding him in her arms).

 It’s safe to say that if Pretty Much True… were about cats, Chancey would be the protagonist. While not described in much physical detail, Chancey is a gray and brown cat who coincidentally resembles my cat Hoser. While his appearances are relatively few, his presence is always felt, even when he’s hiding in another room to avoid cigarette smoke and/or Mia or just sleeping in another room because that’s where the sun happens to be coming through the window. 

Because John’s readers come here for his animal-related posts, it made perfect sense when he agreed to allow me some space on his site that I would talk about Pretty Much True…’s animal characters. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to do that, so I’m pretty excited.

The questions below are questions I imagine readers would ask about Pretty Much True…’s cats.

Q: Why is there what might be called “the protagonist of cats” in Pretty Much True…?

A: It started out as a natural decision to make. I’m almost 40, and I’ve never not lived with a cat (or more than one cat). So it’s difficult for me to imagine a character, a house, an apartment, an existence absent of a cat. He just showed up.

After a while, though, Chancey became a helpful little character, providing yet another way to illustrate the change in his mother/owner (who really does love him) after her soul mate leaves for Iraq. For example, she feeds him absentmindedly, or she forgets to feed him. And when she smokes after having quit several months before, he’s there to communicate, as he runs out of the room after smelling the white stream, “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Q: Why does the neighbor have cats, too? How many cats does one novel need?

A: It depends on the novel. This novel apparently needed exactly three cats. One for Mia, and two for her neighbor, Safia.

If Mia had more than one cat, there would be too much cat activity distracting from the story (one cat is normal, but two protagonist cats is a bit intentional).  

On the other hand, if secondary character Safia had just one cat, it wouldn’t suit her personality, nor that of her cheery, loving husband. They have a happy home down there, under Mia’s linoleum floor, with “two cats in the yard.”

Safia’s cats, who frequently escape from the apartment and wind up in the stairwell, also gradually bring Mia and Safia together. In one early scene, Frankie the cat is sitting outside Safia’s closed door, and Mia finds (what I think is) a funny way to let Safia know her cat is in the hallway. This is the first interaction, of sorts, between Mia and Safia and sets up their later acquaintanceship.

Q:  Why is the cat named Chancey?

A: I honestly don’t know. It’s a strange name, and I’m not sure why it came to me. If I think about it now, it makes sense and seems appropriate considering the novel’s subject matter, but I didn’t give his name a lot of thought before assigning it to him.

Q: Does Mia ever mistreat Chancey? I don’t like reading books (and will in fact often refuse to read books) in which animals are mistreated or killed.

A: I refuse, also. No, she never truly mistreats Chancey, but they do have an argument, and he’s in danger of being burned in a fire, at one point.

When you live alone (as Mia does after Jake leaves for Iraq in 2003), and when you have emotional needs (simple affection), sometimes the cat becomes the target of too many expectations. In one scene, when Mia is feeling particularly vulnerable and sees Chancey on the other side of the bathroom door through the small crack near the floor, she reaches through the space with her finger to try to touch his paw. When he immediately backs away, she’s, I think, understandably (and very vocally) angry, even if it’s not Chancey’s fault.

The fire is best left a mystery, here.

Q: Does Chancey ever meet the downstairs cats?

A: No. They never meet.

Q: Does Chancey get to have any fun in the novel?

A: He does. Mia brings home a sucker-dart gun (originally intended as an addition to a care package for Jake, but she decides, after a hellish few days with Jake’s mother, to keep it), and when she uses it to shoot at pundits and politicians on her TV screen, Chancey bats them down. It’s a great cat toy.

If you have any of your own questions about Chancey and the downstairs cats (anyone need a band name?), I’ll be happy to answer them. For more information about Pretty Much True…, please visit my website. You can also purchase the just-released-today(!) novel on Amazon, either in paperback or for your Kindle. (It’s also available through most other book retailers.)

Thank you Kristen. I cannot wait to read it. (Note to readers--I've read much of her work over the years and the girl can write.)

Lastly, the correct answer to the blog post title question is: All of them.

Hardest Staff Update Ever

Tonight as I play drums for the wonderful folks at Danbury Retirement Community, one of our cherished staffers will be working her last shift.

Lauren (my daughter) moves to Toronto this weekend, hanging up her earmuffs for good. She has a longtime boyfriend and job opportunities, and Canada has no idea how lucky they are.

Fare thee well Lauren Z. 

New technology for lost finding lost pets

QR codes are not just funny looking checkerboards. Now they can help your lost dog find his way home.  Red Dingo, among other vendors, is now making a collar tag on which a QR code can be printed. When scanned with a smart phone, it can take you directly to a web page that tells who the dog belongs to, his medical history and other important information.



 

Pet hair sucks / sucks pet hair

Our love/hate relationship with vacuum cleaners has a new chapter. Okay, it's a hate/hate relationship. We have invested heavily in the genius of James Dyson 

and he had better come through (by the way, his bathroom hand dryers are amazing). Everyone says they work great for pet hair. Well, we have the ultimate test: Gordy. Our dogs and cats have killed more vacuum cleaners, cheapo and expensive, over the years and the very thought of spending a single penny on another one makes us surly. If this one lets us down we will take it out back and sledgehammer it into dust while playing Helter Skelter at full blast.

In Memorium

June was not a good month for old friends. We lost two in the past few weeks, and they will be missed.

Molly G was a blonde mix, about 20 pounds. She was a hard puller and always wore a harness. We were warned early on that Molly had attitude, and while we were always careful when working with her, she never gave us a bit of trouble.

She always came with her own bed, a little plaid and tan mat, and her own food. The instructions were to feed a tiny bit in the morning and a cup in the afternoon. Well, my staff had trouble interpreting the meaning of 'tiny bit' and often Molly would get a half cup or more. It's an easy mistake to make; when you feed lots of big dogs a half cup looks tiny. I had to find a way to make sure they were careful so I made her official feeding instructions to read: "Nine pieces of food in the morning".  This seemed to work as I would see them counting nine pieces of kibble into a bowl.

I like to make up little things for some of the guests and I used to call Molly-olly-oxen-free when I let her in from outside.


Baxter P was a Shiba inu, which is a Japanese dog that looks like a tiny Akita. He had black, black eyes like a shark, and I was told he was a super jumper. He was.

He also was a non-stop shedder. We were instructed to bathe him after most every visit, and we would brush and brush him, yielding enough fur to assemble a whole other dog. After he left, pieces of Baxter floated in the corners for days.

When he first started staying with us, he was an NCI: no-come-in dog. Which means that we would open the back door to his stall, and he would go out, but he would not come back in. We had to go get him. So we would always put him in one of several places that are close to a people door and it worked out fine. Then one day, all of a sudden he came in, and he never stopped coming in after that. I think he decided he'd tormented us enough.

Baxter was 15 and Molly was 17. Fare thee well my friends.

Cartoon of the Day

Thanks to my friend Allan.

Dogs happen

We don't usually go looking for pets. Pets usually find us.

Before last week we had a dog and three cats, all of whom were due to the right mix of time and place (or if you are a Star Trek fan (like I am) being in the right spot on the time/space continuum). Lucky, the cat, was hit by a car and brought to the Aurora Veterinary Clinic several years ago. My wife, the stellar veterinarian, pulled him from the brink of death, then stitched him together in somewhat Frankensteinian fashion. Then after the owner didn't want him, she was stuck bringing him home.

Cosmo the cat was born at the Aurora Veterinary Clinic. One of the staff had found a stray cat who turned out to be pregnant. All the kittens found homes, one of which happened to be ours.

Custard was a kennel boarder. The owner, whose name was Joe, needed to board him and when he got here he told me that the cat was a gift from his children and he really didn't have the inclination to mess with it. He offered me $50 to find the cat a home. Guess where he ended up.

Leo was one of a large litter of golden doodles that the breeder had a hard time getting rid of. As they got bigger and bigger, she made a deal with my wife to trade a puppy for veterinary services.

Pets who are no longer with us include Comet, a large mixed breed who was born at the Aurora Kennel after his mother was rescued form being tied to the railroad tracks in Solon; Buzzworm, who Robin got from a clinic she interned at when she was in vet school; Molly, a research cat Robin brought home form vet school; Mosey, a cat who moseyed into the vet clinic several years ago; Riley, a cat born of an accidental (aren't they all?) litter of my mother in law; and Hogan, a German shepherd who had a broken leg that the owner didn't want to repair so we had it fixed and kept him.

We've also had three dobermans, all of which we paid for. We like dobes.

And that brings us to Gordy.

 
My newest staff member, Sue, is a volunteer trainer for Pilot Dogs, based in Columbus. One of the dogs she worked with ended up flunking out of the program because he shied away from things like street signs and such. She mentioned she was going to Columbus to bring him back and try to find him a home. Eureka! That little light bulb that signals "Pet Opportunity" flashed in my brain. And we'd been wanting to find a pal for Leo.

Another pet has found us. I hope he likes it here.