Bela's Got a New #.

I have both reveled and struggled in being Bela's primary caretaker for the past 2.5 years. A real control freak, it has certainly provided me the means to control. What don't we control for our animals? We control their diet, their access to exercise, their environment...and even the strings of their hearts. Love them right; they will thrive and love right back. Love them wrong, or fail to love them at all -- and you will create a monster.


Not one for putting myself in the hands of others (we are far too malleable, I find) - I wondered if someone would eventually come along. Someone trustworthy. A father figure. A stepdad.


Someone did; and he is gentle and giving - to B and to me. He understands priorities, responsibilities, and indisposed to laziness...characteristics that line up with a Grade A Dog Owner, in my book.


And so, I changed our address to his. We headed to Petco. Bela freeloaded off the cookie bar while I tried to make sense of the tag engraving station.


I allowed him some input on the tag design (harder than you might imagine; trying like hell to co-pilot), but when the time came to brand our baby, I went back to the Commander I Am. As we stood at the machine, I contemplated back-to-back engraving...putting my number on both sides...you know...to cover all the bases.


I didn't for one minute consider him.


Him as home base. His number on her tag, along with mine.    


But he did.


The quiet boy who stood beside me spoke up. "Shouldn't my number be on there?"


Ah. Ah yes... Yes it should. It should be on her tag because it's all over my heart. It should be there because
you've proven to be both committed to her and to the very state of committment. It should be there; because you're here. Thank you for being here. For thinking it. For saying it.


When that machine engraved his number on the tag that hangs from her neck, it said so much more than for someone to call him if they find her. It said it all.

What's Not To Like?

I believe most dog owners would agree that it feels really nice when someone says they like their dog. But...why...? Why does it matter?

If you think she's attractive, do you think I am too?
When you like her spirit, do you liken it to mine?

When someone mentions they like her, my heart soars. I feel worthwhile.
This weekend, I thought someone was critiquing my ways with her, and I lost it. Cried like a baby and sought to make them understand. I then tried to look into my dramatic reaction and came up with the truth:
I have put my whole heart into caring for this animal. My whole heart. A giant chunk of my pie chart of time (and another giant chunk of the pie chart for money) - and I need the end result to be appraised at the value I put in -- no, no -- with the Added Value. I need you to walk around my dog like people walk through homes, commenting on the floors and the windows and the doors. Notice her fur, would you? -- I add fish oil to her food. Her teeth are pretty nice, right? Well, the toothpaste she uses has a pleasing poultry taste. Doesn't she walk well on the leash? I used a harness in the beginning of her training, and now she's a patient prancer.

She's my art piece, my project. She's my kid, my life's work, my love. She's the thing I decided to funnel my soul into -- and I'm just asking you to validate what I've done.

*But of course -- there lies the danger. The feelings or worth I have about ME can't be a result of how YOU feel about her. She and I are two different entities. (And as someone pointed out to me, we're actually even two different species. ;)

The Pack Life

Bela has always been more social with humans than with other dogs. She doesn't dislike dogs -- not at all -- but if she's selecting who to greet, she's going human. For a while, I thought maybe she had a checkered past with canines, that something bad had happened, forcing her to just put a little distance between her and her kind. But as time goes by, my theory and her choices are changing. She's begun acting as part of a pack. And I've been wondering if she just wasn't comfortable before...but as she ages, like good wine...she finds that she can get along just fine.


She had a pack back in Chicago - just her and the Two Z's. Zico and Zena were her first. They allowed her to warm up slowly, but eventually, they claimed her -- and she them. In Kentucky, she and Jack made up a 2-pac. (hah!) Here in Iowa, she played third wheel to Elvis and Veruka.


Elvis and Veruka went back to their primary provider yesterday, after having spent a good while in custody of my main squeeze. I have been torn up about their departure. He loves them, I love them, Bela loves them. Why and where should they go, then? Well...as things are, it's complicated; and there's no easy answer to that question. The simple fact remains that they are gone; and Bela has lost her participation in a pack once again.


Though seemingly solitary in nature, I'm here to tell you that the way her eyes popped out of her head at the mention of their names is enough to know --- she loves to be part of a crowd. She would tear out of the back door with V & E with a voracity never displayed when bounding out alone. She spent a lot of time with these guys, and overcame obstacles I didn't think she could. She ate alongside them! She shared treats, split time, and even conquered sharing bed space. A proud mother, I watched her grow in their company.


When her friends headed to their new digs yesterday, I brought Bela along in the car. As they exited and she tried to do the same, I held her by the collar and gently, repeatedly, told her that 'Elvis and Veruka go bye bye'. She watched them until they were out of sight, then sniffed where they'd been sitting, and laid down her head. I don't know how much she feels or how much she understands, but I didn't want her find them missing one day. I couldn't bear the thought of her entering what she knew to be 'their house' and not finding them there. She would have looked for them behind doors, in the garage, the basement, the backyard...she would have exhausted possibility and then still sought answers. Even though she lost them as playmates, I made sure she didn't wonder where they'd gone.


Last night, she slept alone in the chair, then alone on the floor, and then alone in the bed. She didn't look around, but she didn't look very happy either.


So she's available, people [and by that, I mean people with dogs]. She's looking for another stamp in her passport. She's hoping to belong to another group. I'll keep my eyes open for potential matches and ask for playdates if I see them. Like any good mother, I will work to make my baby happy.

Into The Great Wide Open

Bela had fans and friends in Chicago - people who witnessed her jump work every day in the public parks. We walked both in the mornings and at night with the neighbors. It was an incredibly social time for two incredibly social gals.

Now she and I take walks, always alone, usually in Hickory Hill park, a giant wooded and trailed area just around the bend from our residence. Hickory Hill is bound by not a fence, but it's enormous enough to feel as if it's its own sector of the world. You feel somehow safe and protected by its vastness.

Bela and I have now logged a little bit of (life)time together. This summer, I was able to leash-lessly lead her both to and fro our playing spot in Kentucky. She didn't scat once. So I thought we were picking up where we left off. Old-new habits die hard. "Here you go, sugar," I've said, countless times, leaning down to allow her a leashless trot. And so...she's been returned to the house by a neighbor. Flushed out of the woods by a team of cross country runners. Carried back to me by a group of young boys sledding. Apprehended by Julia, the 11-year neighborhood sage.

The first time I took her to Nic's parents house, we put her in the giant fenced-in back yard. A short while later, Nic saw a deer running behind the house. I, too, saw a deer running behind the house! Then we both realized it was a wee bit small for a deer. She'd broken free of the fence. Nic also has a fenced in yard, yet she's taken to the streets of his little town twice. She had previously remained in the UN-fenced backyard where we live without problem. But around the same time that her speedings-off picked up speed, she also began sprinting from the yard. If I so much as glanced away, she was gone. If I released the leash 2 footsteps in front of the door instead of in the doorway -- outta there. She had claimed the world for herself.

Releasing her in Hickory Hill has proven a growth opportunity. Within seconds, she's off  -- out of sight and then back in, over and over again, darting through the trees. I used to run in the direction she'd gone, yelling her name in a blood-curdling fashion. My legs would shake, my heart would quake, as a I waited what seemed an eternity. Now, I breathe in. I wink at the landscape. I twirl. Time doesn't stand still...it naturally ebbs and flows, as I wait for my sweet dog to come back.


After all of the panic and all of the fear, she has proven herself trustworthy. I can trust her to take off nearly 100% of the time she's not on a leash, but I can also trust her to return. The return on this gamble is quite literally her return. I take sausage and liver with me because she is not Hachiko. I say silent prayers each time I am surrounded by silence -- that is, the absence of the sound of her paws. 'Dear Lord, please bring her safely back to me. At which time I will reward her, kiss her head and then release her once again.'

I know there is a chance one day she'll run outside of the park limits and too close to the street. But chance can't chain her to my side. The woods are her new home and they welcome her. She is contained only by their inability to contain her.

                                    (she is the tiny brown dot with shadow in the middle)

DOG THAT I AM: guest post by amy iddings

I’m okay with admitting I’ve been kinda hard on dogs and their people most of my life. Probably kinda like a lot of folks are kinda hard on cat people. Despite being (generally) genuinely filled with love for all living animals, including the human ones, more often than not, dogs-as-people’s-pets have gotten on my damn nerves. When I lived in Chile, I was a huge fan of the perros callejeros (street dogs)-- loved their camaraderie, their pack-ness, their rugged self-reliance, their dreadlocks, their cunning. They seemed content in their own right, focused on survival and brotherhood. These guys were cool! They were not annoying at all! I also loved frequently seeing some tired and dirty laborer come out of a butcher shop with a bag of bones, to leave them gingerly near a pack of streetworn perros, or an old lady gift a wet and shivering street dog with a multicolored handknit winter wool sweater vest.

But indoor pet dogs in the U.S.A?  I’ve seen them as needy, insecure, often obnoxious to my ears and nose, and generally a tedious aberration of a ‘natural animal.’ Their owners I have judged as being needy, insecure, often obnoxious, (and, ha!, possibly even tedious aberrations of natural animals). I’ve looked scathingly at city-dog-people with their perfect pooches, the modern-day bourgeois standard. How undignified!-- to stick one’s hand, inside-out into a plastic bag to pick up dog poo from other people’s yards, and not just for the owner!; for the dog, for the onlooker, for society as a whole! Like seriously, my thinking has gone, How have we done this, created these totally fragile, dependent, frequently adorable, though occasionally vicious little beasts who can’t be left alone, who we can’t accidentally forget to let be around one of the incredibly common 60-or-so Fatally Freaking Poisonous Foods to Dogs, whose feet and fur and teeth we have to protect from nature, who apparently need every manner of expensive purchased item in order for us to feel proud of ourselves for taking good care of a creature who we just want around to help us feel special?? What have we done?*

Sometimes when I’ve identified myself as “not a dog person” to a dog person, they counter by asking if I am a cat person. I resent that line of questioning because it seems way too simple and, to my judgmental mind, lets the Dog Person off the hook: Oh, she’s a neurotic cat lady so of course she can’t possibly understand the obvious superiority of dogs. I try not to go there, but sometimes I do say that I prefer cats but that I don’t, you know, like have a cat. Or I’ll quote my all-animal-loving friend Justine and say as aloofly and felinely as possible “Cats just know who they are.” Now if we’ve gotten this far in the tiresome Dog vs. Cat Debate, there is around an 85% chance I will get served my most/least favorite Dogs Over Cats argument: “They love you no matter what and every time I walk through the door, it’s like the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to {dog’s name here}!!” Which, to me, has always been like, yeah, dude--exactly, case-in-point. Because apparently I’ve seen that as a weakness, the need for this blind unconditional love creature that treats one’s arrival home as the most exciting thing to have ever happened ever. It’s felt hollow to me, like seriously what the hell happened to you that you need this element in  your life? Can’t you just come in and make yourself some tea? (Uhh, like I said, I’ve been kind of hard on dog people).

So living this summer not just with A Dog Person, but quite possibly The Most Dog Person anyone might ever run into, and her dog, really challenged me in some core ways. The fact that Kelly is also my oldest (as in longevity of friendship) best friend, who I love incredibly dearly, and that her dog is a Very Cool Dog (almost cat-like, could I say?) made the situation: a) at all possible; b) motivating for a new perspective and c) still pretty challenging.

They arrived in the middle of the night on June 1. I had worked a long catering event (involving a power outage in the middle of a 300-guest college basketball coach wedding, and a coworker getting trapped in an elevator for around an hour) and simply could not keep my eyes open any longer. I fell asleep in soft anticipation of The Summer Experiment (living with my BFF for the first time, her living in Kentucky and not working, me living with a dog). Not too worried about Bela’s arrival. I had shared a bed with Bela for a night in Chicago in January and determined she does not a) bark or b) smell bad. And Kelly assured me she would not be all up in my personal space all the time, “cause she just doesn’t care.” So around 1 a.m., I awoke and found a text on my phone, from Kel: Ames, you got a garden hose? Bela rolled in some shiiit today.

Oh. They arrived soon thereafter and so there we were at 2 a.m. using my neighbor’s garden hose and some Dr. Bronner’s to get the shiiit off Bela before she moved into my rather smallish apartment for 3 months. We settled down around 3:00, tired but happy to be together. A little after 4, we were awakened violently by Bela’s barking sharply out the window facing downtown Murray. Must have seen some country wildlife she was interested in. (Yep, living a block from downtown, I have seen possums, raccoon families, and even a red fox strolling down my street). After being awakened by the barking, and the subsequent fear my neighbors/landlords would have been awakened and resent me, and also that the barking would be a constant companion all summer and I would resent everything, I had to pee. The bathroom smelled strongly of wet dog. There were a lot of wet-dog-smelling hairs around, sticking to the floor, the wall, the sink. So I’m sitting there kind of doing a mental review… Barking: Check. Bad dog smells: Check. And then: the third Dreaded Dog Factor: Bela nuzzles open the bathroom door and bounds right in to spend some time with me while I urinate. Did I mention I’ve lived alone for the last 5 years? During which time all the sounds, smells and company in my home has been completely and thoroughly related to my own biology, habits, desires and sense of control? Yikes.

 

Psychology Today has pointed out recently that in an online survey of over 4,500 people, those who self-identified as dog people were more “extroverted, agreeable, and conscientious” compared with cat people who were “more open to experience and more neurotic” than dog people. Damn. Again with the neurotic.

My quick-and-dirty dabble into dog ownership this summer has brought a lot out of my subconscious. For example, I now remember saying to my mom when I was around 13, and really discovering for the first time the ways humans could mess with each other’s minds, that I “wished we all just had tails like dogs and get it over with”, that way I could actually know if someone genuinely liked me or just liked messing with my mind. I recognized then, I guess, that with dogs, it’s all right there. Really freaking happy to see you? Ok, you’re definitely gonna know about that. Dog-tired? Not gonna pretend he’s anything but. Just attacked an entire loaf of bread you were planning on making the perfect French toast out of? It’s written all over her face. It reminds me of one of the themes from the book Mutant Message Down Under, about the Australian aborigines, who have no problem hearing other’s thoughts (communicating telepathically) because they have no intention to deceive. So what the hell is up with my idolatry of the cat’s mysterious ways? Is it because I’ve always wanted to be more reserved than I have ever been able to muster? I’ve had enough training to realize that usually what we feel strongly compelled to hate in another is just an outward representation of some part of ourselves we haven’t yet brought to light and accepted. Yikes again. Life this summer with Bela certainly showed me some parts of myself I hadn’t cared to look at. Like really, truly, what was it about the simple love of dogs that got under my skin, that seemed false or weak or unworthy? Why did their devotion make me squirm? What was it about the open-book-ness of dogs that I couldn’t stand? Have I recognized myself in the spirit of the dog, and therefore felt critical, almost (ugh) neurotically so?

Looking at my own way of interacting with those I care about (particularly through the lens of the mutual therapy Kelly and I did on ourselves practically every summer night over some combination of wine, beer, popcorn, pizza and this killer salad we made up), I have been shocked to realize I have quite a bit of the dog spirit in me—like cannot, try as I might, keep hidden from people my love/appreciation/admiration of them. My tail wags wildly. Sometimes it gets me into sticky situations. But I just keep doing it. Putting it all out there.

Living with my best friend and her best dog this summer was a lot like a functional, happy family. We teamed it. Make no mistake: Kelly is the very best dogmom I can ever imagine. (Sometimes even neurotically so! J) But Bela won me over, no doubt about it. The three of us worked out a color coded tab system on her collar so Kelly would know each morning if I’d had time to take her out before leaving for work. We all made decisions together. Balanced each other out a bit. Kelly won’t cuddle with me (though she is warming up to hugs), but she and Bela do this freely. Bela and I

developed a special ball technique with my feet and her nose that is ours alone. I loved throwing sticks and balls with Kelly and Bela in an empty lot near my house, and I loved throwing sticks and balls with just Bela when Kelly went out of town a few weekends. I didn’t let Bela sleep in my bed but I did give her licks of ice cream off my spoon. I even let her lick my face! I nuzzled my face in her sweet, dog-smelling fur! And they both (after Bela’s first night) were incredibly graceful with respecting my personal space. I was able to give and receive love from an exemplar of a species I have judged. I observed Kelly (who is possibly more cat-like in her interactions with people) get good practice at open-book-ness in the safe, loving arms of her dog.

And I’ve noticed that I look at dogs way differently now. Like, I literally look at them differently; my eyes move differently across the landscape when a dog enters it. I notice a dog’s carriage (and know to call it that, cause Kelly taught me), its tail movement, whether it likes eye contact or no, the relationship it seems to have with its person. I don’t think I’ll ever be “into dogs” the way Kelly is into dogs. I don’t think she’ll ever wait on the phone for me as I greet each and every canine I come into contact with, in the most personal, energetic, and loving way. I don’t think I’ll ever adopt a dog into my home permanently. But if Kelly moved to Italy for a season, I’d consider Bela as a roommate. And my level of judgment towards dogs and dog people has gotten a serious beat-down. It isn’t gone completely, but I’m onto it. I know it’s a lot more about me than it is them.

 

*Thank you, Dog People, for helping take care of the millions of dogs we have created to be dependent upon our care.    Thank God I’m enough of a cat person and “open to new experiences” to take all this in. I am grateful for things learned. Thank you, Kel. Thank you, Bela.