Category: Animules

Wherein I talk mostly about dogs.

The Foster Chronicles: Buffy, Week 3

Day 1

Remarkably, I refrain from texting or calling my babysitters 1,000 times during the day.

Buffy is doing well at Wa’s house, though she won’t go near the Scary Man (my brother-in-law, who Violet has always been terrified of, despite his being a totally righteous human being).

Buffy is a super-snuggly bunny with my sister. Won’t leave her side. My nieces and nephew are delighted to have Buffy around and, on their errand to Target, ask their mother to buy her a bed. She says no.

Day 2

Wa takes Buffy on a 3-mile run. Buffy is a runner.

My girlfriends and I are late getting back from Georgia, so my sister meets Redford’s sitter at my house and gets Redford and Buffy settled inside. I pick up Violet, who wags herself in circles, from my other friend’s house.

I talk to my sister on the phone. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have brought her back to you,” she says. “The Scary Man is unmoved by her cuteness.”

Day 3

On our neighborhood walk, Buffy poops! While on the leash! Right in the middle of the street…? Close enough. I’ll take it.

Buffy has not yet figured out the outside-bell system, but Redford and Violet are back in the swing. On one jaunt outdoors, they sprint off the deck to corner a white miniature poodle in the yard. I’m just wondering how it got in there when the pits get too rough with it and—schloop—it squeezes between the slats of the deck rail. Buffy, naturally, vaults the gate and gives chase. I call her back, and she comes. After spending years with dogs who have selective deafness, I do not understand this. But I appreciate the crap out of it.

After dark, the dogs notice a dude walking by the house and SOUND THE ALARM. All of them. My foster dog is not a mute.

Day 4

Redford gets so excited about the treat that Buffy is about to receive for getting in her crate that he crawls into it first. But she too is motivated to get the treat, so she wiggles her way in there. For a moment, there’s 137 pounds of pit bull in a kennel made to hold 60.

On our neighborhood walk, Buffy poops! While on the leash! In the grass by the side of the road! But she doesn’t get it all quite out and hops in circles with a turd halfway out her butt. I put a bag over my hand and grab it, but she gets poop on her butt cheeks and legs. She gets a sponge bath when we get home.

I post on CCB‘s foster parents’ page:

Unlike my dogs, Buffy plays real-live Fetch. Like, she brings the ball back to you and drops it, instead of trotting around the yard with it or shredding it to pieces. Totally potty-trained now. Still snuggly as all-get-out. She’s a wonder-dog really.

Day 5

Not totally potty-trained. Dammit.

Day 6

Buffy chews through her collar while I’m at work. It looks like maybe it got caught on the crate and she pulled away until she could get at it. I buy a new one, size Medium. Fifty to 55 pounds is Medium, right? Nope. My medium-sized dog has a large-sized neck.

Day 7

When I return from the gym, there’s resistance against the door and a sound I don’t understand. I push the door open further to find shattered glass and a half-dozen rawhide sticks all over the kitchen floor, drops of blood on some of the shards, and Buffy standing there looking antsy. I check her paws and mouth. Just one drop of blood on her snout. Can’t find the source. I put her outside with the other dogs and try to figure out what happened.

Her crate is overturned, but the doors are still locked. One of the latches is open, and the top of the door bent. The best I can guess is she opened the latch and squeezed out through the top of the door.

It’s clear that once she executed her escape, she went to the kitchen, knocked the cookie jar off the counter, and ate more than half a jar of biscuits and rawhides.

I know she’ll have a belly ache from all the snacks, but mainly I’m concerned that she’s swallowed shards of glass. I put her in her crate and commence fretting.

The Foster Chronicles: Buffy, Week 2

Day 1

My friend invites me on a road-trip to Atlanta. I must find weekend lodging for three dogs. I email three friends, asking them to take one dog each. Two accept; one is out of the country and offline.

Day 2

I go on a 4-mile walk with my sister, Wa, and her two older children (7 and 9). Though my foster is a little timid, all-sized humans think Buffy’s adorable. We coach Little Dude to use a quieter, lower voice and not make sudden movements. We have only moderate success.

The subject is brought up, not by me, of their adopting her. I do nothing to discourage this discussion. I suggest that, as my sister is a runner, a pit bull might be a more effective deterrent to a would-be assailant than a can of pepper spray. And more fun to cuddle with at night.

Day 3

In the medium-dark of the house, I mistake Violet, who is sitting on the living room floor, for Buffy, who I believe to be peeing on the living room floor, and terrify them both nearly to incontinence by clapping and “Ep”-ing.

Day 4

I remember that both Violet and Redford learned to ask to go outside by ringing a bell hanging from the doorknob. I rig up a cat toy bell-ball with a hair ribbon to the back door. I ring it each time we go out.

Still unable to get ahold of my third friend, I email my sister, a currently catless cat person:

I know you’re tremendously busy right now, and even if you weren’t, know that it’s absolutely, positively OK for you to say no to this. I’ve found slumber parties for Redford and Violet for this weekend, as I’m hoping to head to Hotlanta. However, I was hoping Erika could keep Buffy, but Erika’s in the Carribean, and I’m not sure when she’s coming back.

Buffy can absolutely go to the kennel—no worries—if you don’t have the time/space/energy to keep her. 

Also, in no way is this a ploy to make you see how adorable and sweet she is so you’ll keep her, unless you fall in love with and adopt her, at which time I will say I planned it all along.

Love you!

ame

Wa agrees. Yay!

Day 5

Buffy pees on the floor first thing in the morning. I stop her mid-stream, ring the bell, and take her outside.

Day 6

During the dog-sitting tutorial for my small relatives, we throw a tennis ball around my sister’s yard. Buffy races after it, sprints back, drops it at our feet. We throw it again; she delivers it again. Repeat 50 times. Unlike her foster brother and sister, who know only to race after it (unless it stops before they get to it, at which point they meander in another direction because what’s the fun of chasing something if it’s not moving?), Buffy plays real-live Fetch.

Day 7

I distribute pit bulls all over Durham. At the last deposit point, whilst I’m telling my friend, “Redford gets confused by carpet. Sometimes he p—“, he pees on her carpet.

I head to Atlanta with my girlfriends, and commence fretting.

What a Hitter

A whole group of my friends went out last night for a birthday celebration. In keeping with New Year’s Resolution #1, I wore a silky brown criss-cross t-shirt, my DKNY sweater, the Gap jeans that I had tailored, and my witchy Danskos. I blew my hair dry and even put on some lipstick.

I arrived a little late for dinner because my pit bulls had been piled on top of me on the couch, and that’s a pretty pleasant state to be in. There was a space at the table across from an apparently single male in my age bracket. He was cute, had a little beefy-Matt Damon thing going. We chatted over our meal. We discovered we had the same taste in TV shows. He mentioned struggling to come out on Friday nights these days because of the two dogs that he had at home who really enjoyed cuddling.

The whole gang moved to a bar, and dude and I sat together, still conversing easily. He invited me to his Superbowl party.

It got late. Finally, he put on his jacket, looked me in the eyes, and said, “So…”

And I’ll tell you, nothing makes you feel like Marla Hooch like when the guy you’ve been flirting with all night asks if your beautiful, thin friend is single.

The Foster Chronicles: Buffy, Week 1

Day 1

The transport, who runs a shelter down in Beaufort, and I agree on a pick-up spot: Cary, after my weightlifting “competition”. We meet in the parking lot. She has the little blue pit—probably not more than 55 pounds—on a red leash. Buffy, as the dog is called, is very nervous. Tail as far between the legs as it’ll go.

The lady tells me that there’s a woman who breeds pit bulls down near her. “Whatever she doesn’t sell, she dumps at the shelter.” We let out a sympathetic, exasperated sigh.

“Buffy hates the crate, but she’s housebroken,” says the lady. She hands me a blue, plastic folder containing some medical records. And with that, she takes her leave. She’s already spent nine hours in the last two days on the road, delivering dogs to foster families.

I walk Buffy back and forth on a grassy strip in case she needs a potty break. She doesn’t go. She’s trembling. Eyebrows perpetually knitted. I pet her and coo at her.

Some of my friends come out of the gym to say hello. She’s making wide arcs at the end of her leash, trying to keep as far away from everybody as possible. I sit on the sidewalk, hug her, and pull her into my lap.

Lindsay: How long do you keep her?

Me: Until she gets adopted.

Lindsay: What happens if you fall in love with her?

Me: If? I think that’s inevitable.

I don’t actually answer the question.

Buffy curls up in the back seat for the ride home, even endearing herself to avowed cat person, Kate M., with her pitifulness. Once at the house, I force her into a crate (coaxing with treats did nothing), walk Redford and Violet for an hour, and then introduce everybody. It goes fine. Some limit-setting, but Buffy’s submissive, so it works out.

I take her outside to try to get her to go potty. She stays at my feet.

She won’t eat. Not treats, not kibble, not anything.

I settle with Redford and Violet in their room. Even after I correct them, every time Buffy comes to the door, they woof her out. She goes into the kitchen, pees on the tile, and poops on the doormat. So, not housebroken.

Day 2

Everybody does their morning stretching, and Buffy comes out of the kennel wagging her tail. Yay! It wags!

She still won’t eat. I pour some chicken broth over her kibble and microwave it for ten seconds. She eats.

I guess the imprinting has taken place. Buffy won’t leave my side for a minute, except to pee and poop in the kitchen, which she does again, despite repeated trips to the yard.

She still resists the kennel, but I am no-nonsense with her. I give her a treat once she’s in there, but the entry requires my physical insistence.

We walk the 2.5-mile neighborhood loop. Buffy is tense. She does pretty well on the leash though she pulls out of her collar a couple times. I just put it back on her, as she doesn’t even seem to think about bolting. So different from Violet “Freedom at Any Cost” Scott.

At one point, I’m sitting at the computer, and I turn to see Buffy with her paw on Redford’s shoulder. Classic wrestle-with-me move. They don’t. Yet.

Day 3

She eats. Faster than Violet, and that’s saying something.

I put her in the kennel and go to work. Worry, worry, worry. I come home. She’s fine.

She pees and poops in the yard! There is much jubilation and giving of treats.

There’s wrestling in the living room. Fast and furious. It’s adorable.

Day 4

Headed out for work, I pick up the treats and tell Buffy to get in her kennel. She gets in. No arguments. Good girl, Buffy.

I decide to try to leave her in the yard with Redford and Violet while I go to the gym. Just an hour, no big deal. She’s been getting along great with them.

When I come home, she’s not there. I curse and, for the next 20 seconds, spin horrific fantasies of her kidnapping. I start to run into the house to get a flashlight when she trots up the street and around the corner to the back door.

Good god, the relief. Both of us feel it, I can tell. I can’t believe she’s pulled a Shawshank Redemption—I was only gone an hour—but I vow to search for the escape tunnel tomorrow.

Day 5

I look for a hole under the fence. Then I figure it out.

Parkour!

That’s the shorter gate that leads off the deck, but she also has to have jumped from the steps to the yard over the gate leading to the deck. Could my foster dog possibly have a 43″ vertical jump?

In the evening, I try to get her to go out because I think she might have to go potty, but it’s raining, and she doesn’t wanna. I walk into the kitchen a little bit later. She’s mid-pee. I clap my hands and go, “Ep, ep, ep!” She looks at me, and I think she understands that I want her to stop, but she can’t stop.

Day 6

Buffy’s going number 1 and number 2 regularly out back, and she runs to me when finished because she knows I have a beefy treat for her.

I confine the dogs to the yard so my friend, her one-year-old, and I can sit in peace on the deck. Buffy and Redford do wild laps around the shed. Buffy gets tired of being that far from me, and I witness the jump over the tall gate. My foster dog is a hard-core parkourist.

Day 7

I realize in one week I’ve never heard Buffy make a sound. No barks, no snarls (play or otherwise), no whines. Is my foster dog a mute?

My brother: How’s the foster dog?

Me: She’s cute and sweet and wonderful.

My brother: Does this mean you’re going to be Amy3Dogs from now on?

Me: No… Probably not.

Excellent peeing and pooping in the yard happening. I’ve potty-trained my foster dog!

She pees on the living room floor as I write this.

A Clean & Jerk Parable

One of my bits when I hosted the Monti StorySLAM on Tuesday (oh yeah, I hosted the Monti StorySLAM again last week) was that Coach Dave kept harassing me about signing up for an Olympic weightlifting meet, and you could all go ahead and wipe that skeptical look off your faces because that didn’t mean this fatty would be trying out for the Olympics. It simply meant a competition of three attempts each at the two Olympic lifts: snatch and clean & jerk.

I hemmed and hawed and made excuses about not having lifting shoes. Then my birthday rolled around, and my family got me

Pendlay Do-wins! Lollipop laces provided by my sister-wife. (Photo by Coach Dave.)

So then I dug my newly-clad heels in about the world’s least flattering garment, the singlet. (Just google ‘singlet’; focus on the athletic ones, not the sparkly ones you see at Pride parades.) Well, then this gym in Cary scheduled a “developmental meet”, which means yes on shoes, not necessarily on singlet.

I still hesitated, but Coach Dave, he’s a wily bastard, and he knows me. He said, “It’ll give you something to blog about.”

I guess some people, when they sign up for a competition, follow some sort of plan to prepare. I went strict on the Pretend It’s Not Happening program. Coach Dave watched some lifts, Coach Phil at CrossFit RTP helped me work on my snatch for an hour and a half [insert punch line] last week, and my buddy Liz gave me some pointers and wrote me out an extensive list of tips on yellow legal paper. Other than that, I just kept CrossFittin’ and whistlin’.

Meanwhile, my support team was rallying. My dad was thinking about driving down the mountain for the meet. My friends were conspiring about a banner. My sister was going to bring her kids. But on Thursday, when I realized I was starting to hyperventilate a little bit about the whole situation, I sent out the following email:

So, with going to Boone last weekend, the stray pit being put to sleep, the StorySLAM, and getting a foster dog, it’s just all too much. I’m still going to go and participate in the meet this weekend, but I’ve decided that no fucks shall be given by me that day. Therefore, I would not mind if you saved—nay, I would encourage you to save—your fucks for giving to some other event which might require given-fucks.

I adore you all,
ame

And that worked. I did not give a fuck. Until Saturday when I walked into the place. It was so quiet in there, and there were people in chairs watching, and the women in the first session (tall, skinny ones; itty-bitty ones; really fit ones) were putting up some big numbers on the board. Like, way more than I could. I mean, I knew calling what I was doing “competing” was fallacious, but I didn’t want to look like a charity case.

At that point, I got all weepy, and poor Coach Phil had to shush me and tell me it was gonna be OK.

The situation was bad. Earlier in the week, I would’ve been satisfied to hit a Personal Record at the meet. Now I had a new goal: not to shit myself on the platform.

I weighed in, 77.2 kg (170 lbs), and rolled around on a foam roll for a while. Coach Phil helped me warm up. My cheering squad did not heed my emailed advice.

Get it? teAMY… Team Amy, but combined. There are multiple advanced degrees in this picture.

Snatches first. There was one woman in my session whose three lifts were all smaller than my opener, so she went. Then I was up. I hit my opener at 33 kg (72.6 lbs) and my second lift at 36 kg (79.2), but I missed my third. I can’t even remember what it was…37? I got it overhead but crumpled underneath.

Several more women (all of them at least 20 pounds lighter than me) went, lifting enormous amounts of weight over their heads.

After that came the clean & jerk. I hit them all: 42 kg (92.4 lbs), 46 kg (101.2 lbs), and 49 kg (107.8 lbs). (Phil had wanted me to do 51 kg (112.2 lbs) because it would’ve been slightly above my PR, and I should’ve listened to him. Those clean & jerks didn’t feel very hard.) Most importantly, I did not shit myself.

Again, the real weightlifters came next and lifted some real weight.

The organizers totaled everything and called up the winners by weight class. As I was the only competitor in the Over 75 kg group,

I won first place in my weight class. (Photo by sister-wife.) 

The lesson, children, is this: Sometimes it pays to be the fatty.

[Ed. note: I feel a follow-up post bubbling in my Broca’s area. But for now, to bed!, for I rise before daybreak.]

M.O.

My super-friend at the shelter and I were having an email conversation after my meltdown on Sunday, and she said, “I don’t think you’re irrational. I think you’re angry. I wish more people were angry and we could channel it, make it into something productive.” And something in my brain went ding. My modus operandi when I’m angry is to seethe, stew, cast aspersions onto everyone (including myself), and curse the world.

But, by design, anger is a motivating emotion—it can drive us to action; that action can be harmful or productive. Like my friend said, we just have to channel it in a positive direction.

I wondered, what productive actions can I take? My thoughts jumped to this Facebook note from the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, which is enormously powerful (the note and the organization). But I immediately got overwhelmed thinking about “the hard work of relationship building and education”. Made me want to stand in the middle of the living room with my hands on my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m overwhelmed.

I backed up. If I wasn’t emotionally equipped to build relationships and educate people right at this moment, what could I do? I follow Carolina Care Bullies on Facebook. A few days ago, I saw that they had pulled a blue and white pit from a shelter but had to leave her sister behind because they didn’t have a foster family for her.

And I fretted, ate compulsively, and scratched at my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m nervous. Three dogs is so many dogs. What if she didn’t get adopted? What if she didn’t get along with Redford or Violet? Could I afford it?

Then I thought about my friend Kate K. Every year, she makes the same New Year’s Resolution: Say yes.

So I said yes.

I'm picking Buffy up on Saturday.

Maybe that can be my new modus operandi: Say yes, and see what happens.

Irrational

So I was pretty hysterical last night when I wrote the last post, and I woke up in the middle of the night several times with half-thoughts that I wanted to get out there.

First, the title “No Reason” was supposed to reflect my state of mind, not the shelter’s motivations. Yes, I am mad at them, but as a third grader is at the nurse who gives him a shot: reasonable enough to understand why it’s happening but still angry about it and misdirecting that anger at the messenger.

My anger should really be directed at the stupid fuck who (most likely) bought the dog and then didn’t parent him and then decided even not-parenting him was too much trouble and put him out on the street. And the stupid fuck before him who didn’t spay and neuter the parent-dogs.

And, I’m very thankful. Thankful to the shelter for taking on this Herculean task of maintaining a reasonable pet population. I also know that the pit bulls they send into the community have to be ambassadors for the breed and that DW might have been detrimental to the cause of bully compassion.

I’m also so grateful for my friend who works at APS who (though she doesn’t even work on that side of the business) kept me apprised of the situation, who fought for me and DW , and who went over to be with him in his final moments, a task I’m not sure I would’ve done had our situations been reversed.

No Reason

Two weeks ago, I had the kids write short autobiographies. I told them that they should include some of their strengths and accomplishments but that readers also want to hear their struggles, challenges, flaws. “That’s what people can relate to,” I said. As usual, I wrote a piece to use as an example. One of my struggles is I get overly sentimental about dogs, I wrote. I explained how I feel really sad when I hear about dogs being hurt or put to sleep.

One of my students piped up, “That’s what they do at the shelter. They be killing dogs for no reason.”

I practically leapt at her. “The Durham shelter takes in over 6,000 animals every year, and fewer than 1,500 get adopted. What are they supposed to do with the rest? How are they supposed to take care of them? They do the best they can. They put down the ones that can’t be adopted. Not for ‘no reason’.”

On Thursday, my girl inside Durham APS called because she had the whole story on DW. He had shown a lot of problems in the temperament testing: along with the barrier aggression, wildness, excitability, difficulty following commands. They said he would have to go to a one-dog family, but with the heartworm diagnosis, they weren’t going to keep him around long.

He needed someone to walk into the shelter and say, “I have no dogs right now, and what I’m looking for is a black pit bull, preferably with issues. Behavioral and medical, if possible.” No one did.

I asked them to reconsider; could I please foster him? They said no.

On Friday afternoon, they put DW to sleep.

I was headed out of town with some girlfriends for the weekend, so I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. I went and lifted heavy things over my head at the gym, and then I put my emotions in a box and locked it in my house here in Durham. My friends and I drove up to my childhood home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We tried on my high school prom dresses, ate Mud Pie at Pepper’s, giggled at gaudy things in the antique mall on King Street, and hiked the Boone Fork Trail.

Then I came home, and when I unlocked the door, the box expoded open.

They killed my boy. Not for no reason. For lots of reasons. I know there were lots of reasons. And I know they know so much better than I do about these things, but I loved him. For lots of reasons.

I’m so sad.

I’m so mad. At them. At myself.

I can’t believe he’s dead, and I can’t stop hugging Redford and Violet, and I can’t, can’t, can’t get the lid back on the box.

:(

What’s Making Me Sad:

DW’s foster situation is not working out. Apparently, he’s shown some “barrier aggression”. “What does that mean? Fence? Crate?” I asked my girl inside.

“Yes, something like that, but they didn’t tell me exactly what,” she told me. He stayed in the crate at my house just fine. I wonder what happened. Can spending a couple weeks in a cage at the shelter made a dog squirrelly?

Also, he has heartworm. Treatable, but expensive.

So many strikes. I hope it’s not too many to get him adopted, but I have a bad feeling that it is.

DW Update

My girl inside has been sending me reports about DW. First thing, she told the front desk people and the vet techs at the shelter to keep an eye on him because he was special, and they were like, “Everyone says that about every dog.”

They put him in a cage for the requisite five days to give the owner a chance to claim him and then spent more than a week doing tests of various sorts: heartworm, temperament, whatnot.

Another friend of mine who has been considering adopting a dog went in to see him earlier this week. He wasn’t done with all his tests at that point, so he couldn’t play, but she saw how cute and lovey he was. Her concern: “I’m not sure his head will fit through all the doors at my house.”

On Thursday, APS of Durham dubbed him Grayson—come on, he’s not an English lord, for Christ’s sake—but whatever, they posted him on the Adoptable Dogs page! Which I may or may not have visited every other hour.

Then last night he was gone. I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find him. At shelters, Friday is often kill day. I frantically emailed my friend: Where did he go?

She said she didn’t know but got on the horn this morning to find out.

What’s Making Me Happy: One of those vet techs found my little guy irresistible and pulled him from the shelter to foster him until he gets a fur-ever home.