Memoriam

This is not a post I thought I would be making so early in this blog's existence.

This past Tuesday morning, I was awakened by a phone call. My parents were calling with the news that they had decided to put Molly to sleep.

Molly, as those who read this blog's earliest posts may remember, was the world's biggest golden retriever. Just last month we celebrated her seventh birthday. (Any excuse for a cake...) In recent weeks, it's become more and more difficult to get her to go outside to do what she needed to do, because her legs were in so much pain. She's been sleeping downstairs on the sofa with Mom because she couldn't go up to bed anymore. Ultimately it was determined that her back knees were shot, and by the time the heartbreaking decision had been reached, she was no longer capable of standing. Knee replacement was an option but a bad one, and even if it all went according to plan she'd still be in pain for the rest of her life. So mercy was applied instead.

Molly was a naughty puppy. She didn't mean to be; she was just big and playful and goofy. As the dogsitter-in-chief, I had my share of growing pains with her. I distinctly remember sitting at Mom's one day with the laptop on my knees and a golden retriever puppy teething on my arm while I typed.

"Run for your lives," I told my friends, "it's Dogzilla!"

As she got older, though, she became a really very good dog. She liked to wash Sheela's ears for her. She loved "babies" (stuffed animals) and would carry them around for days, washing them and cuddling with them. She also loved big towels, and we could trick her into coming inside by asking "What happened to you!?" and giving her a rubdown with a towel, telling her that "Now you're gonna be all right!" Oh, and snow - she loved to play in the snow.

The end was a little confusing to her, partly because she was on so many painkillers. All she knew was that everyone had come to see her, she was having a party. That wasn't too unusual, really, and it made her happy. I couldn't be there at the very end, but Mom said she went with a smile on her face. (Dogs smile, you know.)

So dogsitting just became a lot simpler. Mom's house just became emptier. Our lives just became emptier.

But I believe there's a heaven for animals. And I believe there are a lot of stuffed animals and towels up there. And she's gonna be all right.


Molly
March 2004 - April 2011

The Sheela Dilemma

As longtime readers and real-life friends will recall, my parents have three dogs, all of whom have had blog entries dedicated to them at some point or another. The eldest of these is Sheela, the one who doesn't understand that my husband actually belongs to me and not to her. (I've got the ownership papers, but dogs can't read.)

We had a recent scare concerning Sheela because she developed a large tumor in her little eight-year-old body. We were pretty sure it was cancer, so it came as a surprise and relief to learn that it's only Cushing's syndrome, which is not uncommon in dogs and is quite treatable. Thank goodness for that.

Today, Sheela had surgery to remove the large fatty tumor from her body. The indignities to which she's been subjected are at least tolerably amusing. She's been shaved and stapled. The vet told my mother that she wasn't sure where the tumor ended and the fat began, so "I probably gave her some free liposuction while I was in there." Mom has her dressed in a baby's onesie so she leaves her staples alone.

The other two dogs are less than sympathetic to their big sister's plight. Molly is sulking over the amount of attention and fussing Sheela is receiving, while Rikki is disturbed by the hospital-ish smell she's emanating. He sniffed her wound when I was there earlier this evening, and ran away shrieking. Sheela was still too doped up to care much, fortunately.

Hands down the funniest part of the whole ordeal is the list of rules the vet sent home with Mom. Most of them are tolerably sensible; she needs to be carried outside to do her thing, can't go down or up stairs on her own, and must not be allowed to lick her incision or pull at her staples (hence the onesie). It's the first item on the list that made us laugh.

No running or jumping for the next several days.

My immediate reaction: "Has the vet met this dog?"

"I looked at her when she gave me the list," said Mom, "and said, 'Sheela doesn't run or jump. Ever.' The vet replied, 'I didn't think so.'"

"Hey, now, she does run," I objected. "She's the Squirrel Scout leader. She runs to the window when there's a sighting."

No Squirrel Scout meetings for a while, I guess. I sure hope the neighborhood will be able to survive until she's back on active duty.

Doing Good While Staying Warm

I'm up at my parents' house to write today's blog entry, once again looking after the dogs. It's quite lively up here; the temperatures are below freezing, and the Squirrel Scouts and I are having a fine time. Rikki and Sheela take turns at the window, watching the endless parade of squirrels, cardinals, chickadees, and other unidentified birds as they gather on the back deck to enjoy the corn and seed that my parents have left for them.

I have a love-hate relationship with winter. I love the holidays, I love snow, and I love the fact that everything I'm allergic to is currently dead. And I love the fact that this music station on the television shares odd bits of Christmas and toy-related trivia. (Did you know that stone yo-yos first appeared in Greece circa 1,000 B.C.?) However, I really hate being cold. So it's really very convenient, as far as I'm concerned, that I've recently been pointed to a number of places online where I can do good things for other people from the comfort of my own (or in this case, my mother's) sofa. And since one of them is relevant to the season and is therefore a bit time-sensitive, it seems to me like this is the time to write about them. I'll share some more of these trivia bits along the way, since quite a few of them are pretty interesting.

The first link is the time-sensitive one, which I learned of from my friend Irma. Let's Say Thanks is an initiative by the Xerox corporation to send holiday greetings to American service personnel stationed overseas. It's really very simple. Go to the website; select one of the postcards, which were all designed by children; fill in the information they request (your name and hometown); and click send. Xerox will take care of the rest, sending your card to a serviceman or woman in another country at no charge to you whatsoever. Also on the website, you can see postcards that were sent to the service personnel by celebrities, and read some of the responses the Let's Say Thanks program has gotten from those who have received the cards.

Trivia: The tradition of tinsel is based on an old legend about spiders whose spinnings turned to silver when they landed on a Christmas tree.

Next up is one that I've had on my links page since the beginning of the blog. Free Rice combines the ease of doing good online with the fun of building your vocabulary. (Some of us think that's fun.) For every word you correctly define, they will donate ten grains of rice to the United Nations' World Food Program(me) to help combat hunger around the globe. You even get a graphic representation of your winning streak; when you start to play, a wooden bowl appears on the right side of your screen, and every time you get a question right, ten more grains of rice appear in the bowl. 100 grains fills the bowl and starts a new one. It really makes you understand just how valuable a game this is. And most of the questions are not hard; I don't know too many people who are unaware that "vacation" is a synonym for "holiday" or that a "bug" is an insect. They do get a bit more difficult as you go, progressing up to level 60, but it's worth the attempt when you consider what the outcome will be. In my opinion, the hardest thing is stopping -- the game is a little addictive!

Trivia: In Hungary, the Christmas Eve meal can't be served until a twinkling star is seen in the sky. (I guess if it's snowing, they're out of luck?)

Free Rice is arguably the best known of the build-vocabulary-while-giving websites, but it's by no means the only one. If you'd like to accomplish something very different but equally important, there's Give Vaccines. Correctly pair up the synonyms and donate millileters of vaccine to protect needy children from infectious diseases. This one amuses me, because the questions tend to be recursive. I told it that "twelvemonth" was most like "year," and it then asked me to tell it that "year" was most like "twelvemonth."

Trivia: The famous poem "T'was the Night Before Christmas" was written in 1822 by Clement C. Moore as his children's Christmas gift.

Now, it may have escaped your notice, but I happen to be kind of fond of cats and dogs. As an aside, it's difficult to write a blog post when a puppy keeps trying to wash your hands. Anyway, when Debbie Tenzer told the fans of Do One Nice Thing about these next two sites, they caught my attention. They operate on the same principle as Free Rice, but in a different manner. At FreeKibble, answer a daily trivia question to donate ten pieces of kibble to a dog in an animal shelter. The down side is that there's only one chance to do this each day, but the up side is that if you get the question wrong, they still make the donation. At the sister site FreeKibbleKat, you can do the exact same thing to donate ten pieces of kibble to a shelter cat. Here's the thing that I find most impressive about this initiative: It was founded by an eleven-year-old girl, and has gone on to provide more than four million nutritious meals for shelter pets! (To my teenaged friends who are reading this, never let anyone tell you that you're too young to make a difference!)

Trivia: In Caracas, Venezuela, the streets are blocked off on Christmas Eve so that people can roller skate to church.

I've saved what is surely the best for last. The Non-Profits is essentially a clearinghouse of this kind of site, organized by category. Currently they list more than sixty causes and charities. You can decide which causes you really want to support -- they range from dental care in Nepal to planting trees to providing food for abandoned children -- or if you have the time to spare, you can go through and do them all. Every link opens in a new window, and all donations are paid for by advertisers and sponsors. Sometimes you have to click a button in the new window; for other sites, just opening that window is enough to generate the donation. A few of them are games; Free Rice, Give Vaccines, and the FreeKibble sites are all on there.

Trivia: In the 1700s, German Christmas trees were really just decorated tree branches hung upside-down from the ceiling.

Only two more blog posts until Christmas; seems hard to believe. Where did this month go? I haven't decided on Monday's subject yet, but I have something a little wacky in mind for next Thursday -- a personal reminiscence of a certain Christmas-themed little incident. Meanwhile, if you're on Facebook, please come and join the crowd at the blog's official page. I look forward to meeting some of you there!

Special thanks to Debbie Tenzer and my friend Irma for their contributions to today's post.

Adventures in Dogsitting: Sheela

"Sheela," my mother informed me recently, "is mad at you."

"Why?"

"Because you did blog posts about Molly and Rikki and not about her."

"Oh."

Setting aside the indisputable fact that dogs can't read, I suppose that in all fairness, Sheela does deserve her own turn in the limelight. The problem is that I'm not entirely sure what to say about her. Unlike Molly and Rikki, who are stubborn or goofy enough to be entertaining, Sheela...doesn't do much.

She's eight years old and, like Rikki, is a toy fox terrier. Unlike Rikki, she prefers to go through life with an economy of movement. She rarely becomes truly animated, except under two very particular and very different sets of circumstances.

The first, which has always been the case, is if my husband happens to walk into the house. For some reason, and various theories have been presented but she will not confirm or deny any of them, Sheela's favorite person seems to be my husband. When he visits, he is required to devote at least the largest share of his attention and petting skills to her. To be fair, she does exhibit at least some semblance of excitement upon seeing other members of the family, but for my husband, she will actually move.

The second event which stirs Sheela to action is one which she shares with Rikki. It's possibly the only thing they have in common apart from their breed and coloring, and it's a relatively new development; this has only been going on since my parents moved earlier in the year. Now that they're semi living in the woods, Sheela and Rikki have become what my mother likes to call "the Squirrel Scouts." Sheela is the troop leader; Rikki is the Junior Squirrel Scout. Apparently there is a distinction and I was roundly abused for even questioning it.

Woe betide any squirrels who dare to trespass on the property. Those two will bark, growl, whine, and -- given half a chance -- run after the squirrels to make them leave. It's a little like being in the Disney/Pixar movie Up, but without the translating collars.

The fact that they don't have access to most of the yard doesn't seem to cross their minds; although the yard is fairly large, Rikki and Sheela can only go out into the fenced-off side area. The squirrels, however, seem to have picked up on this limitation, and if I didn't know better, I'd think they were entertained by it. They've figured out that the dogs can't hurt them. So they go about their business, collecting acorns and raiding the bird feeders, and shake their bushy tails at Sheela and Rikki in an almost taunting fashion. I could have sworn I saw one make a rude gesture the other day, but I may have been sleep deprived.

This situation is creating a few problems, though. In my post about Molly, I mentioned that she sometimes gets to go out into the front yard on the leash like a real dog. For a long time, Sheela honestly could not have cared less about this. But in recent weeks, the light bulb has switched on in her brain and she's realized that the front yard is, in fact, part of the squirrel-infested area. She's even managed to realize that the front yard, unlike the side yard, is not fenced. You can see the wheels turning in her little head.

No fence + oak trees = SQUIRRELS!

So she keeps trying to escape when Molly gets taken for a walk. The thing is, I don't think Sheela knows exactly what she would do with a squirrel even if she somehow managed to catch one. It would never happen, since she'd have to run more than five feet and she hates doing that, but I imagine her capturing the squirrel and then gazing at it in confusion. She wouldn't want to eat it, because her preference is for only eating things that are hand-fed to her, and unlike Rikki, she probably wouldn't want to play with it. I think her secret dream is to collect five or six of them and use them as a soft place to sleep. Those brushy tails probably look like small cushions from a distance.

I'm crocheting a blanket for her. Maybe she'll find that easier to conquer.

Adventures in Dogsitting: Molly

Once again, as referenced in my very first blog post, I am dogsitting. As usual, it’s like we’re following some kind of wacky sitcom script. I intended to save this story for another day, but I know how much my mother is looking forward to it.

Lest you think Rikki is my sole source of entertainment on these occasions, let it not be said that Molly is deficient in this regard. Molly is, as previously mentioned, the world’s largest golden retriever. She weighs in around 150 pounds. For those of you who don’t have experience with the breed, the average golden retriever weighs about 80. She’s not overweight -- she’s just huge. The vet will attest to this. She can rest her chin on the dining room table without difficulty. She’s big and powerful, but luckily for all of us, she has a sweet disposition.

Since my parents moved to their big new house in the woods, Molly has attained a distinction she was never given at their old home. At the old home, she had a large fenced-in yard in which she had the freedom to run around as she chose. Here at the new place, she has a new trick -- she gets taken for walks, on the leash, like a real dog. She's extremely proud of this, especially since it's a privilege the other two don't share. She gets to be special.

The first time I was introduced to this particular novelty, my mother had me hook on the leash and take Molly out to collect the mail. The mailbox sits at the end of their long driveway, so it really is a bit of a walk. This went well. Naturally, I expected it to go equally well in their absence. Of course it did not.

At first it was fine. We trotted around the front yard aimlessly, looking for just the right spot for her to do what she needed to do. The beautiful dog next door, Wolfie, was out so we went to say hello; he’s a sweetheart and he and Molly are good friends. Then, without ceremony, she flopped down on her belly in the middle of the lawn and beamed at me as a dog does.

“Molly,” said I, glancing around in case any of my parents’ neighbors were out, “you can’t stay here.”

She wagged her tail.

“No, really. Get up.” I pulled on the leash. Considering her size, this achieved exactly nothing. “We have to go inside now.”

Wag. Smile. I think she might even have winked.

This went on so long that I was convinced the neighbors were making popcorn and would be coming out any second to enjoy the spectacle. In desperation I pulled out my cell phone and called my husband, then put the phone next to Molly’s ear so he could attempt to reason with her. This also failed, but at least the neighbors must have gotten a good laugh. Finally, Wolfie came back out and said something that I, silly human, couldn’t understand, but it convinced her to go inside. I’m not even making that up -- she went in because the dog next door barked at her.

I can only imagine how the conversation must have gone.

Wolfie: Molly, what are you doing?
Molly:  Making Aunt Laura look stupid.
Wolfie: While I approve of your initiative, this particular effort will mostly just accomplish mucking up your beautiful coat with grass and mud. This is a trick best saved for the middle of winter, when you’ll accomplish a lot more -- you’ll cool your belly, make your Aunt Laura look like an idiot, and get her sick.
Molly: Wolfie, you’re a genius. I’m going to go in right now and confuse her.

Once inside, it seemed like the best thing to do was to try to get her to eat her supper. See, while Molly now goes for walks on a leash like a real dog, she doesn’t eat like a real dog. She seems to forget, in between meals, that she actually likes dog food and that she requires regular servings of it to keep her belly content. So we have to play this game. (This isn’t just me, incidentally. This is part of my parents’ daily lives.)

I prepared the meal by emptying two cans of dog food onto a paper plate. She will only eat one specific kind of dog food, although I’m avoiding naming the brand because I’m not sure about legalities. Two cans are needed because of her size; again, we’re not overfeeding her and she’s not fat. Just enormous. Think of her as being like Clifford the Big Red Dog’s little cousin. Once it was all prepped, I brought the plate over to her and put it on the floor.

“Molly, eat your food.”

As usual, she looked at me like she thinks I’m insane. I then had to prove her right by muttering baby talk -- or rather, Molly-speak -- while forcing her jaws apart and putting a piece of dog food far enough back in her mouth that she actually chewed and swallowed rather than spitting it back out. This little maneuver is one of the main reasons we’re lucky she has such a sweet temper, since otherwise I probably would have lost a few fingers by now. She ate it, then looked contemplative. I do like this, don’t I? Should I eat it? I don’t want to give the humans the idea that I’m easily satisfied. They have to be kept in line, and I‘ve been training them for so long I don‘t want to give up now.

“Molly, eat your food.”

To my astonishment, Sheela the living throw pillow exerted herself so far as to leave the sofa long enough to eat a little of the food. This was acceptable to Molly, who would allow Sheela to take the food right out of her mouth if Sheela were so inclined.

“Molly, eat your food.”

She shook her head.

“Eat your food! You gotta eat your food.” More Molly-speak. She ignored me.

One day she will eat her food like a real dog. I think.

Adventures in Dogsitting: Rikki

Since I do not, at present, have anything more urgent to occupy my time, I'm spending the evening at my parents' house.

If you were a smallish girl during the 1980s, like I was, you very possibly either had the Barbie Dream House yourself or you knew someone who did. My parents basically live there now, except that unlike the Barbie Dream House, their home does not easily split into three sections and it does, in fact, have a staircase.

(Sidebar: The lack of stairs always bothered me about the Barbie Dream House. How were the Barbies supposed to get upstairs to the lavish bedrooms? It made no sense. My sister and I, after spending some time being perplexed by the lack of upper level access, finally hit upon the solution: Malibu Barbie was capable of flight, and whenever one of the other dolls wanted to go upstairs or downstairs, she was responsible for ferrying them. Why could Malibu Barbie fly? For that you would need to ask my sister, because that was her favorite doll, and the logic employed by her five-year-old mind was beyond even my seven-year-old comprehension. In any case, this was a much easier dilemma to solve than the others, namely the lack of a bathroom and the fact that we had ten dolls of mixed gender and the house had only one bed. As I recall, we decided that the bedroom closet was really a bathroom filled with invisible plumbing, to fool Barbie's enemies, and the dolls slept in shifts so nobody had to share the bed. End sidebar.)

Anyway, I often go to my parents' house, but not always to visit.  It's just as likely that I'm going there on a particular day because they aren't home as because they are.  I'm the designated dogsitter, you see.

My parents have three dogs. The youngest one is just a year old, and the only boy. His name is Rikki, although he answers just as readily to "Rikki, no!" or "Metronome Butt," which I named him because when he wags his little stubby tail he looks like he's keeping time to someone's erratic piano playing.

Rikki and Sheela, the oldest dog, are both toy fox terriers. Sheela's main personality trait is a preference for moving as little as possible. The majority of her existence is spent repining on the sofa, like a Southern woman with a permanent case of the vapors. Between them in age is Molly, the world's largest golden retriever.

There's also a cat. She's older than all of them, but they seem to think she's the interloper.

To the dogs, for reasons that have never been adequately explained, I am "Aunt Laura." When my parents are going to be gone for more than a few hours at a time, I hang out with the canines and then they're happy because they think someone's home. I love them dearly, don't misunderstand me, and they are wonderful dogs; but dogsitting is, almost without exception, a recurring adventure.

Rikki, being a puppy, is hyperactive, wicked fast and almost impossible to catch. Don't blink because he'll disappear. The best way to keep him amused is to give him a plush animal, which creates an immediate and highly important project. In case you weren't aware, the most effective way to kill a stuffed animal is to rip out one or both of its eyes, then lobotomize it by removing all of the stuffing inside the head. Not only does this assure everyone that the animal is dead, but you can redecorate the living room at the same time by strewing the cotton innards all over the carpet.

Another great way to entertain Rikki is his favorite game, tug-of-war. Sometimes he will bring me the plush animal, and push it into my hand until I attempt to take it away from him. We then engage in an epic struggle, human versus beast, and I have to say that for a small dog weighing less than ten pounds, Rikki is strong. It's like playing tug-of-war with Bamm-Bamm Rubble. There's no logical reason why you can't pull the toy away from him; you just can't. After a minute or so, if brute strength isn't enough to rip the toy from my hand, he starts shaking his head violently, causing my elbow to rotate in its socket in directions that I'm almost positive it was never intended to go. Letting go doesn't necessarily work, since about half the time he promptly comes over and pushes it into my hand again.

Eventually, he deems me boring and wanders away to eat the dry cat food.

He comes back after a while and tries to jump on my lap.  This would be fine if he actually wanted to be held, but he doesn't.  What he wants is to play keep-away.  I'm going to make you want to hold me, and then when you try, I'll run away!  Oh, this is a great game.

Sometimes I'll catch him and we sit down together.  This is when I spontaneously develop large quantities of...something...on my face.  I don't know what it is, but it must taste fantastic, because Rikki can wash my face for an hour at a time.  Unless, that is, the cat dares to enter the room.  Then all bets are off because that cat has no business being anywhere near Rikki, and he will tear my arms off in the effort to get to her and send her packing.  The poor cat takes off running, grateful for the baby gates which barricade Rikki into the living room, and he comes back looking excessively proud of himself.  And then he wants to play tug-of-war again.

And Sheela watches the entire thing from the sofa, not moving an inch, wearing as derisive an expression as a dog's face is capable of making.  I just can't figure out if her disdain is directed at Rikki, for giving their breed a bad name, or at me, for humoring him.