1. Three hours before Mom usually gets up, I start rearranging my crate “furniture”. I always roll upside down and kick a lot and make as many clunking noises as possible.
2. Two hours before Mom gets up, I start softly whining.
3. Mom gives up on sleeping and (oh horrors!) goes into the bathroom right away. Immediately I scream and howl like I am never, ever going to recover and the world is ending and I am going to DIE. I never stop until she comes back.
4. I’m quiet while she gets dressed. Except I rattle my crate just to remind her I am there. I try to sound like I am a DRAGON or something much bigger.
5. If she lets my sister the Norwegian Elkhound out the door first, I let her know my outrage with a blood-curdling SCREAM. Then I’m quiet.
6. Sister dog comes in, and OH JOY JOY JOY JOY JOY JOY MOM LETS ME OUT OF THE CRATE! BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING DASH DASH DASH DASH DASH Today I found a tissue to eat!Be FAST! I grab ANYTHING OF MOM’S I can and wreck it if I can! Especially glasses! Steal her slippers! JOY JOY JOY JOY JOY JOY!!
7. Then I have to tolerate Mom when she grabs me and squeezes me to calm me down. OOOOOOF
8. Now it’s time for ME to go into the backyard! First I look for ice to eat. But that’s almost gone. So guess what? I have found some ROCKS I can eat but I have to be sneaky, because Mom will grab me and shake them out of my mouth. Today she said, “Zuzu Bean! Do I have to get you a muzzle?” I don’t know what that is but it sounded serious.I always get a little cookie! If she says, “Zuzu come!”
9. After I do my poops and stuff, we go inside and then…it’s BREAKFAST!BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING. (If I can grab something off the kitchen counter while Mom’s back is turned, I DO!) Mom makes me sit. I do it when she has my food bowl because I want my food.
10. Food is gone! And now it’s time to KILL THE FOOD BOWL! It’s metal and sounds GREAT when I bark into it. And …and …and pretty soon I don’t know WHAT I am doing because I go crazy screaming and biting on that bowl and I even almost bite Mom. Now she takes the bowl away before I get crazy. Darn it.
11. It’s only 9am and Mom says she now gets to have Her Coffee. I don’t let her have it if I can. Because I WANT IT AND I DESERVE IT. But then she goes into her room at home by the computer and I can see her but I can’t get it. So I go lie quietly on the bed. My mom comes and pets me and says I’m a Good Dog and a Sweetie. Then she goes back into her room.
12. After Her Coffee, sometimes she has Another Cup and then we play! Mom throws my toys and then says DROP IT and sometimes I do, and sometimes I drop it and see if I can get it back before she does. Or Mom teaches me new things. Yesterday I got lots of clicks and cookies for giving her my paw! So easy! She says Shake! And I stick out my paw and I get a cookie! It’s a great deal!
That’s about it for our morning. Mom has to work and people are on the iPad, and she plays violin. Sometimes I help her a LOT by singing when she plays! Sometimes my sister and I play chase and wrestle and *sometimes* we knock down the music stand and the iPad falls down and suddenly I am back in my crate. I go because I love it and she gives me a cookie, too. Cookies are nice. I’ll do a lot of things for a cookie.
Long ago and far away, my phone rang. It was the woman renting my boyfriend's old house, just a few blocks away. "Remember I told you I couldn't figure out why my dog is getting so fat? Well, I figured it out, she's pregnant."
She had called me before to help her with her dog, Blue. Blue's owner was a little clueless, as you can tell. Blue, on the other hand was a purebred and wily red and white husky with blue eyes. And she was a typical husky: quite the handful of energy.
Blue's owner had moved back to Albuquerque after living in the Manzano Mountains just outside the city. She had told me about Blue "running away" for a few weeks before they made the move. A hyper husky in heat? Yep, it was a lucky thing Blue was smart enough to get back to the house before her owner moved on.
Fast forward a few weeks and now there were nine puppies. By the time they were eight weeks old, Blue's owner was at her wit's end. She called me for help, "Please, I can't take it any longer! They take all my time! They are so noisy and the poop and the pee! Do you know anyone who wants a puppy?" After extracting a promise from her to spay Blue, my son and I headed over to the house to check out the puppies.
Athena in the purple collar, Sofia in the red.
As soon as we walked through the sliding glass door to the back yard, two little brown, pointy-eared puppies ran up to us all eager to do something! play! go go go! and who are you? and are we going somewhere? what have you got? what's that? hello hello hello!
My son Ole turned to me and said, "We should take those two. They are the prettiest."
I looked around the yard. The rest of the puppies resembled yellow tribbles, and were not much bouncier than tribbles, either. Clearly Blue had bred with at least two males, one of which was almost certainly a laid-back golden retriever. Our puppies, however, were nothing like the tribble pups. They were into absolutely everything!
So we took them home. (And I helped find homes for most of the tribbles, too.)
The pups were twin girls, and I had mine, and my son had his. I named mine Sofia. He named his Athena. We had to put different colored collars on them to tell them apart. Eventually we saw that their tails curled one more to the right and one more to the left. Other than that, they were identical.
Once we got them home, and saw how feral they behaved, we thought, "Are these part wolf?" Which of course was ridiculous because the Mexican lobo is nearly extinct and only a few are left in the zoo. But there was certainly something very different about these crazy little puppies who were so smart.
I remember one time they both jumped up on the couch at the same time, and jammed their heads into the crack at the back of the cushions. It was at that moment I realized that they weren't just crazy, they were part coyote and hey, in their heads, there could have been mice in that little dark place, right?
They used to play but not like regular dogs. They sounded like they were killing each other with all the horrendous growling. Plus they'd grab each other with those pointy baby teeth and bite TWIST even the most sensitive parts of their bodies! You had to just grab yourself and think OUCH when you watched them play.
They potty trained themselves with the help of a dog door and older house dogs who taught them the ropes. I think I cleaned up after them once or twice, but from an early age they used the dog door and were a breeze to house train. They were clean and hunted anything and everything, explored every nook and cranny, and were brilliant right from the very start.
I have so many stories to tell, so many pictures to show you, so many videos to post and it is all too much. Here I have told you of the beginning. I can't share Sofia's whole life because it was long, and that's a good thing. Let's skip to some highlights...
When she was about 1 year old I moved to Alaska with her and my other dog, her mentor, Stevie. Here is a picture of Stevie, one of the best dogs I have ever, or will ever own. Stevie was a person in a dog suit. I didn't say that, but strangers said that to me more than once.
Stevie moved to Alaska, too. Sadly, I did not know that when I moved, he already had cancer. He lost his hearing, got it back, lost it again...but he helped raise Sofia and they were very close.
The first place I lived was a waterless cabin out near Rosie Creek. In the morning I would get the dogs into the 4Runner, and drive into town. Stevie was a veteran at riding in vehicles and it was one of his most favorite things in the whole world. (He was fascinated and loved big trucks, but that's another story.)
Sofia would run around the back of the truck like a little nutcake, and I remember on a cold day while driving down a super steep and windy, icy road, some little certain someone running up behind me and stealing the hat off my head! Then she'd play Toss The Toy with it all the way into town. By the way, Toss The Toy was one of her favorite things. She once sneaked up onto the kitchen table and stole the salt shake that was, coincidentally, shaped like a cat, and played Toss The Toy with the salt shaker. Salt ALL over....
One of the joys of riding in the car with Sofie and Stevie was being able to howl along with Werewolves of London together. Stevie was a great singer and Sofia really enjoyed singing, too.
After Stevie passed, she would not sing with me. She never howled with me again after he was gone. Even when I got Ole, she would not sing.
Sofia went with me everywhere. For more than two years it was just the two of us.
She wasn't a cuddler. If she got in bed with me it was because she was afraid, like the time we were in Cordova and had to sleep in the same room with a VERY scary furnace. Just as both of us dropped off to sleep, the darn thing would make the most godawful BANG BOOM WHOOOSH zoom zoom zoom and Sofie leapt into my bed and shook. Then it would stop, we'd fall asleep and the whole cycle would repeat. Terrifying.
At home she slept under my futon, directly under my body. Mind you, this was a very tight space. Sometimes she would sneeze and shake her head, bonk bonk bonk bonk and I'd wake up thinking we'd just had an earthquake!
She wore her seat belt harness, or any harness or collar for that matter, as a courtesy to me. I realized this one day when I came back to the car after having left her buckled in, to find her sitting primly and calmly naked, next to her harness, which was still hanging by the seat belt. She was happy to see me and acted like nothing was different than usual.
More than once she honked the horn at other dogs (which was quite startling to the poor woman walking the little dog, she must have jumped two feet straight up), and at squirrels. While looking at a possible boarding kennel for the dogs, I was talking to the owner. I was sitting in the car with Sofie, and she was leaning in the car window and while chatting, a squirrel ran nearby and Sofie quickly leaned on the horn with her elbow, just like a person! The woman said, "She just honked at a squirrel! If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it!" Yes, Sofia honked at squirrels pretty regularly.
I once had the misfortune to buy an older Nissan pickup. (But that's another story, too.) I got a topper for it and bought locks and installed them on it so I could lock it closed. I thought Sofie would really enjoy riding in there, because she would have lots of room to play. Because I am really paranoid about a huskies running off in general, and Sofia in particular, I always left a leash on her when we went out, even when she was alone in the car.
To test it out, I put Sofie in the back, locked the topper, and off we went. It was lunchtime when we got to town so I stopped at a restaurant and went in. About twenty minutes into my lunch, a young man came in and said, to the room in general, "Does anyone have a husky in a blue pickup?" Of course I jumped up and said I did. He said, "Well, I was going by with my dog and your dog got out of the pickup and followed us. I think she wanted to play. I tied her to your bumper with the leash she had on her." I went out and there she was. It's still a mystery how Little Miss Wizard Dog managed to open a LOCKED pickup topper. It was then that I began calling her The Inconveniently Smart Dog.
She was personable and friendly, and loved and played with all dogs until about two years after Stevie died. Then she changed, and became very protective of me. She was still great with people, but she didn't want any strange dogs around at all.
Because of Sofia, I never had a problem with voles in the house. With her coydog hunting abilities, they didn't stand a chance. Even when she got older, there was something about her that warned them away. When she got a vole, it was tossed up in the air and snapped down in about two bites. Everywhere we went she was hunting. Walking and hiking to her was hunting. Riding in the car was hunting. She kept track of every little thing on our usual route, and scrutinized deeply anything that had changed from our last ride out.
She was the best communicator of any dog I have ever had. If I asked her what she wanted, she told me right away. She was almost comically clear about what she wanted or needed. And she planned things...
I bought a carved caribou antler at a fair, with an eagle head and the tines were the wings. Sofia wanted it very much. I told her she could not have it, and put it up on top of the highest place in my house, the top of my four drawer filing cabinet. Then I left her in the house for some reason. It was only about an hour or less. Maybe I just went to visit my next door neighbor. Anyway, when I came back the antler was on my office chair with the eagle chewed off. Just sitting there like it had been there all along.
This means she had to push my chair to the desk, step up on the crowded desk, then step up over the computer to the counter and then up to the filing cabinet, and BACK DOWN again. Not one thing was out of place except the antler.
She was freaking magic, I tell you!
When she jumped into the car, it was more like she floated. She was the most athletic, agile, beautiful dog. Plus she was almost as flexible as a cat. She rubbed up against me like a cat.
The downside to a coydog is that if they get startled, they will spray. Sofia sprayed quite a bit when she was young. But by the time she got to Alaska, she calmed down and luckily rarely was startled enough to spray.
What was she? She was half Siberian husky, and according to many vets, for sure part "wild canid" which in New Mexico could only be a coyote. But I don't think she was half and half, I think she and Athena were part coyote, part elkhound. But who knows?
Sofia lived a long life with me, and we traveled, and played, and loved each other. I miss her more than I can say. She was a few months over 16 when renal failure took her from me, and from all of those who loved her: my students, friends, family, Ole dog. If I could have that nutty puppy back I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I hope she is honking the horn at squirrels and fat ladies walking little dogs. I hope she and Athena are biting the shit out of each other and loving it. I hope there is snow, at least some of the time. I don't know how to not miss you, Sof.
How to walk barefoot in the snow at -30...if you're a dog.
Ole the Norwegian Elkhound and I just got back from a walk. It's -20 now, but was -30 this morning. This morning we walked but it was very short. Ole's feet hurt too much, so I made him turn back for home. He wanted to continue but he was also trying to limp on at least three feet at a time. If he could have hovered, he would have. Tonight, at 10 degrees warmer, he had no problem at all and we could have kept going for another fifteen minutes or lots more.
Lest you think I'm being cruel, let me explain about northern breed dog feet and climate acclimation. Ole has lived here for a decade. He has built the sort of coat that stands up to Alaska weather. He is the breed of dog that is built for this weather, period. Normally, his feet would be slowly conditioned each year as the temperature dropped. But this year we had no truly cold weather until now. So he was only used to 25 above, not 25 below. Consequently, he wasn't ready for this sudden drop in temps to -30. When he went outside, his feet hurt.
It's been about a week now at around -20. Maybe two weeks. He is now happy to go for a walk at -20 and doesn't limp at all. He's normal, as if it were summer. But let it drop lower, and he has problems. If this weather keeps up, he'll adapt pretty soon. Until then I put bag balm on his feet before he goes out if it is -30, to help him. It insulates his pads. Plus, he thinks it tastes GREAT. It's non-toxic. Later on there are little greasy paw prints all over that he eagerly and thoroughly cleans up. It's a two-for-one: healthy for his feet and enterains him for hours later!
Why don't I use booties? They take forever to put on. Between me putting on gear, then having to put gear on him, we'd spend more time getting ready than being outside!
In my grief over the loss of my most beloved dog, Sofia, I almost committed to buying an English Shepherd puppy from a family down in Soldotna, Alaska. I really miss Sofie. It’s like someone cut a hole in me. It feels like only a puppy could assuage the pain, and I know my remaining dog is grieving her as well.
There are no reputable Norwegian Elkhound breeders in Alaska. In fact, I wonder how many responsible breeders there are in this state, period. From what I have seen in my area, from Fairbanks, to Fox, to North Pole and especially Delta, are lots of people just breeding any two dogs they like and making money on them. Sometimes without even being able to spell the breed name. Backyard breeding at the best, and puppymills at the worst.
Getting a puppy of any breed from out of state very soon was impossible, and I really wanted a puppy, so I reached out to this breeder of English Shepherds, hoping to find good people, good dog people. I’d been referred to them by some folks in town who had gotten pups from them. I was a bit leery, because the one dog we’d met had raised a lip and growled at Ole. But I really wanted a puppy...and I wanted a puppy without problems, from a good breeder. I've adopted dogs all my life. So don't hassle me about wanting a specific type of dog with specific traits.
It took a day or so for us to connect. The person I was texting via Facebook was terse, and didn’t seem to know what I meant when I asked if their dogs were tested for hips and eyes. He said they were both “OFI” tested. Which doesn’t make sense. It also turned out to be a lie. It was the husband with whom I was texting, I was told by his wife, S., later the next day. She clearly had a cell phone because we were texting. But she wouldn’t call me. I had to call her. So she sent me a number and I called, and got voicemail that wasn’t hers. Strange.
Oh, so she had sent me the wrong number, she said. Here’s the right one… What, don’t you know your own phone number? I filed that away with possibly mistyping, giving her the benefit of the doubt. It was perplexing...
Once she was on the phone with me the train shot out of the station with a vengeance. She could not wait to prove to me what a wonderful dog person she was, how wonderful they are, their farm is, and so on. I’m cutting out a lot of repetitive excited talking she did. It was like she hadn’t talked to anyone for years and finally someone was talking to her. She constantly interrupted me and talked a blue streak.
I asked her if they would take a deposit on a puppy. She said no, “We don’t take deposits because we’ve been burned before, you know…” No, I don’t know. How can a person be “burned” by a non-refundable deposit? Unless the person was very unhappy with the dog? That’s the only way I can understand that statement. This was the second perplexing thing.
“Driving all the way to Soldotna, over 500 miles and then finding out there is no puppy for me, that would be really expensive and traumatic,” I said. “Oh,” she replied, “We have nine puppies and what, six or seven peoples’ names on the list? I think you’re on the list, too.” Wait, we just started talking, I haven’t agreed to anything, and I’m already on the list? What? And you had ten puppies just day before yesterday. What happened? I had all these thoughts. The next thing she said made me realize what probably happened to the tenth puppy.
“Let me tell you about how we raise our dogs! Our puppies are born outside and stay outside. We’re really proud that they are free!” (She went on and on, but I’ll paraphrase what she said to save you time.)
Wait. So the dogs don’t have whelping boxes, aren’t inside at all, so no socialization, no beginning housetraining, but most importantly, no protection from predators, or the weather, unless the bitch finds a safe place for them. Puppies born in the dirt? In the barn? Free...no, not in Alaska, where there are foxes, owls, lynx, wolves, eagles, hawks, coyotes and bears all ready to eat small, furry animals. Not to mention that not all dogs are safe to have around puppies, either.
I wonder how many of their dogs and pups have frozen to death in the Alaskan winter.
“What do you feed them?” I ask. “Old Roy, the high protein kind. You have to be sure to feed them high protein dog food,” she said, importantly. I interrupt her before she goes on another long talking streak to express utter amazement that they would feed their dogs Old Roy, the worst, cheapest dog food anywhere, full of fillers, carcinogens and probably rotten animals. I don't really say all that, I just express shock about the cheap dog food. “It’s the high protein kind, so it’s really better. And we have thirty dogs, we can’t afford to feed them the good stuff!” She went on to say that as part of buying a puppy from them, they’d sent home a small baggie of Old Roy (high protein dog food isn’t appropriate for puppies) and if I wanted to change brands to make it last for three feedings, mixing it in with the new food the last two feedings. “Oh, if people don’t do that I get so many calls that the puppy has diarrhea! People just don’t follow instructions…” and she went on and on about that. “We send the puppies out with their first shots at 8 or 9 weeks old, and their first worming.” I can think of a lot of other reasons besides dog food that their puppies might have diarrhea. I bet you can, too.
Dogs in Alaska don’t get worms unless they eat voles or squirrels or other wildlife. They also don’t get fleas unless they are in way less than ideal situations. There is no heartworm or salmon poisoning in Alaska, so I don’t have to worry about that no matter how bad the breeder is, but dogs having worms is a sign that dogs are not being taken care of properly. Of course so far, I guess you can tell these folks only consider these dogs to be money makers, and expendable tools. (Read on and you'll see what I mean about expendable tools) I guess that Old Roy (the high protein kind) isn’t working out so well, is it? The dogs feel compelled to hunt to fill their bellies.
As for having thirty dogs and not having enough money to feed “the good stuff,” that doesn’t track, either. For one thing, this family prides itself on being a farm. They have lots of chickens, cows, and a garden. S. goes into a rhapsody about how she boils eggs for the dogs every week because they have so many eggs, but what about the cows, pigs and other animals they slaughter? Do they not feed the dogs with some of that meat? Apparently not.
I know dog mushers who feed far better, and more scientifically than these so-called breeders. They fish, and they mix up huge batches of dog food that includes bone meal, salmon, vegetables, rice and probiotics, and more. They get moose meat and offal from hunters, or hunt as well. Many people offer freezer burned fish from last year to any and all mushers. Sled dogs get fed really well, for the most part and none of the mushers I know have nearly the money that these folks seem to have. Their Facebook page shows a huge spread, with a very large, neat and clean house. Not a tiny cabin in the woods with no running water, like so many mushers have! These folks have money, but they don’t spend it on their animals.
You might think I’m being hard on S. and her family. When I first talked to her on the phone, I gave her every benefit of the doubt I had because I really wanted a puppy. These things could all be explained away, sort of. Here’s the first horrible story. S. told me that there are quite a lot of bears, especially grizzly bears, down there in Soldotna. I know, I said, that’s why I live in Fairbanks where there aren’t a lot of bears, and where the ones we have keep to themselves!
She then told me that her English Shepherds are so smart that they tag-teamed a grizzly sow with three cubs that came onto their property. “We just saw the bear and sent the dogs out to see what they would do!” she said, gleefully. “Two got in front of the bear and another one went behind and pulled on its butt hairs!” (Let me interject that she and her family are from the South.) “ They bugged that bear and bugged that bear until she finally took off!”
Who does this? Who sends precious dogs that they supposedly love so much, out to a mama bear with cubs, to “see what they will do?” How many times have they done this? How many dogs torn up by bears? “Oh, English Shepherds used to be used for baiting bulls,” she said, very confidently. “They know how to do this.” Um. No.
“We figured out that bears don’t like the sound of beagles so whenever we’d see a bear nearby we’d send the beagles out there.” Great. More dead and injured dogs, most likely. They apparently consider dogs as livestock and/or expendable tools. “My husband used the beagles for huntin’,” she remarked. The more she talked, the more Southern she got. “The beagles” seemed to be a thing of the past. She never said any of them had names.
The second horrible story followed quickly. “You know, for years we rescued and bred pit bulls.” She followed this startling and extremely disturbing statement with all the stuff about how they are so sweet, and great with kids and used to be called the “nanny” dogs and so on and so on. Meanwhile, my mind is going crazy. You don’t take dogs that you get in rescue and then breed them! That’s just not done! You don’t start a breeding program with rescue dogs! They aren’t breeding quality! Besides that, rescue is where dogs are taken in and rehabilitated and rehomed so that there are fewer dogs out there needing homes. Most real rescues spay and neuter all of their animals so that there is no chance of more dogs being created. You don’t add to the problem by breeding!
The most horrible story came next. I have a hard time even writing this down. It really broke my heart. S. was especially proud of how she “rehabilitated” a 6 year old basset bitch. When they got her (she never gave me the dog’s name, in fact, she never named any of the dogs, a fact I find damning) she was frightened, shy, wanted to stay in her crate. The dog had a teddy bear that she cuddled, and a blanket that was in the crate that she was quite attached to. I’ll let S. tell the story, because I can’t bear to.
“She had a security blanket and a teddy bear that she carried everywhere. She cuddled and love on that teddy bear all the time. I swear she even tried to nurse it! So what we did, when we got this gal, well, I took that crate right apart, right in front of her eyes! And I took away the blanket and that teddy bear and threw them away! No more of that"
Just imagine for a moment that someone did this to a child. Let that sink in.
"And you know what we did, we bred her! Because she wanted to be a mommy so much! And she got so much better after that and she was a good mommy, too. We bred her to one of the beagles because her old legs were so crooked and all those puppies had nice, straight legs!” S. was positively triumphant and sure that I would love this story.
I wish I had never heard her say this stuff. It’s a nightmare. I condensed it for you, the reader.
I changed the subject just to get her off her crowing about how she “fixed” the poor basset hound. (I wish I could have gone back in time and saved that poor dog.)
“Do you test for MDR1 mutation?” (Note: MDR1 is a mutation fairly common to collie-type dogs, and it makes certain common medications fatal to the affected dog. It’s important to know about.)
“Oh, I’ll have to ask my husband, hang on…No, we just don’t give them iverwhatsit. No, we don’t do any testing on the dogs. They’re fine,” she assured me. “You can test your dog after you get it,” she said, as if I needed her permission.
There were more horror stories and I will spare you the rest. It was more inappropriate breeding (mules, donkeys, horses, pigs, cows), killing animals for dumb reasons and so on.
But let’s list why I will not get a puppy from these people, besides the fact that they are horrible people.
1. No breeding program at all, just breeding the same dogs over and over. 2. Puppies get zero socialization. 3. Puppies have parasites. 4. Temperament was never mentioned. 5. Anyone with $300 can buy a puppy. They didn’t ask one question about my situation or set-up. Not even if I had a fenced yard. 6. No testing at all. I had no idea if the dogs had hip dysplasia, bad eyes, elbows, MDR1 or any other defects. 7. Dogs being fed extremely low-grade food. 8. No reason to believe the dogs are even purebred English Shepherds, since they obviously know next to nothing about dog breeding to begin with. 9. I can’t give money to people who mistreat animals. 10. I was told I could give the dog back if I couldn’t keep it, but that I would not be offered another puppy nor would I get money back. I can only hope that somehow, some way, someone down there stops them from their activities. Alaska has zero oversight for animal welfare. All I can do is just hope these people move back to Georgia or wherever they are from and stop owning animals, and especially stop breeding animals. Fat chance of that.
Meanwhile I’ll be waiting, and saving money up to get a fully vetted, tested, socialized, guaranteed Norwegian Elkhound puppy. I’ll just hug my dog a lot and think about that. I can wait.
Dogs with CRF and other metabolic issue can come up with some arbitrary ways of eating. When she is feeling bad, Sofia will try to eat lots of paper. Anything paper. I've heard the sound of tearing paper only to see she has gotten to a cardboard box and is carefully stripping the correlated layers apart, as if it were some kind of wild animal hide. I also caught her eating my property tax bill (she got half down), paper towels, and nose tissues. OMG the nose tissues! I've had her sit at my feet just waiting to see if she can grab that tissue before I throw it away. But it's not just dirty ones she wants. If I don't keep the boxes up high, she'll help herself to mouthfuls of Puffs!
She has not discovered the toilet paper. I am praying she never does.
Before the deep snow, taking her outside was even more hazardous because gravel and rocks were apparently delicious. Hearing your dog crunch down on a rock is not pleasant. People can't help but track gravel from outside into the studio, and Sofia will search the floor for delicious pebbles, at which time I swoop in and take it away!
When she is feeling better she will eat food, and doesn't go after paper, rocks and gravel so much. But what actual food she'll eat depends on the moon? The stars? Day of the week? Which side of the room she's on? Whether a butterfly flaps its wings in Zanzibar? Or?
One day yam chips are delicious. They are never delicious again.
She used to go nuts for fatty hamburger meat, and I was able to rub her pills in it and hold the pill in my hand along with a little hamburger and she'd snork it right up. Now she won't even look at hamburger.
Salmon is another yummy thing she won't eat at all. I used to mix salmon and rice, or hamburger and rice, and some nice orange squash (the kind that comes in a frozen square) and it was really yummy to her.
Nope. Fuggedaboutit.
White bread was fine for two days. Then it had to be stale, crunchy white bread. I tried fresh bread with peanut butter on it. Ole's mouth was gummed up for an hour, but Sofia wouldn't touch it.
She likes spring greens salad with Cardini's Asian dressing on it, but only if I take one leaf, put it in my mouth and dredge off most of the dressing first. And NO OTHER DRESSING IS ACCEPTABLE! In fact lots of food will not be deemed edible unless I "prove" to her that it is "safe" to eat by eating some first. This often works with food she'd eat greedily the the day before, such as grocery store roasted chicken. Just as I think I've found something foolproof, I have to be the Taste Tester, just in case I'm trying to poison her, I guess.
As much as she likes anything, she will only eat THREE pieces of it. Day before yesterday a parent of a student showed up with sweet and sour chicken from a local buffet, but plain, no sauce. She ate a few pieces that this kind person shared with her. I just got her some today. She ate one. But very suspiciously. Then took one, crunched it, and spit it out. I pretended to eat it. I did eat some of it. She would eat the deep fried flour she'll, but not the chicken. Three pieces, kind of.
I brought some high end smoked sausages that are kind of like hot dogs but better. She has eaten these on and off, a little at a time. She wouldn't eat them at all today...UNTIL I decided to see if she'd catch a piece. Then they were yum yum! For three pieces.
Only if you have another dog with CRF can you understand the amount of time and brainpower I spend on finding and making and buying Food That Sofia Wlll Eat. I made a run to the grocery store just the other day to spend $45 on that very thing. If only her rules made sense!
By now you can see that there are no rules. I am at the mercy of a poor little doggie who doesn't feel good but who is also a smarty pants husky who just might be trying to game me, too!
My beautiful Sofia is 16 and has chronic renal failure (CRF). Dogs can live years with this, just like people can. They don't have dialysis for dogs, but you can manage it through diet changes and various therapies. It's an old age issue in her case. She has had this for over a year, maybe two, and you wouldn't have known it, unless I told you.
Sofia, January 2017
She had a downturn this week and it has been hard. I've given her sub-cu (under the skin) fluids twice and it's not difficult, and it helps her a lot. But it takes a while for the fluid to drip in, and I'm just sitting on the floor with her, one hand lightly on her to make sure she doesn't start moving and pull out the needle. I watch the level of the Ringer's solution go down in the plastic bag hanging from the basket full of dog stuff on top of the pantry. It makes a handy, sturdy hanger for the IV bag.
Ole walked up this last time and wanted something. He's worried. He wants to be next to both of us. I told him to lie down and he did, the good boy.
If only kidneys could heal! If only! If only dogs didn't get old, if only we didn't get old either.
I had to force feed her meds today. I hate to force anything, but she has to take her meds or she will be miserable. And she will get sicker and sicker if she doesn't take them.
Phosphorus is the enemy, a byproduct of protein metabolism. It builds up in dogs with CRF and makes them feel awful, and damages other organs. I have done my best to feed her a low phosphorus diet since the day I found out she had CRF. I do think this has helped a bunch.
The vet sold me some phosphorus binder powder to put on every meal she ate. She hates it. She can smell it and she won't eat food with the powder on it. So I emptied six of my iron caplets and refilled them with the binder powder and tried to get her to eat them wrapped up in chicken. You know those baked chickens at the grocery store? Very aromatic and delectable to most dogs! So I figured this would be the best disguise for a pill she hates the smell of.
But she could still smell it. And I had to sit her down and stuff it in the side of her mouth and get her to swallow. Apparently this stuff is pretty vile! The directions say to sprinkle it in her food at every meal. But she won't touch chicken, beef or chicken liver with this stuff on it...
The vet also said that Sofie is anemic and to buy her some stuff called "Red Cell" at the feed store. I did. I looks like the fake blood they use in movies and smells extremely nasty. Sofia won't touch it. I put some in a spoon and offered it to Ole. He took one lick and made the scrunchy face and desperately tried to get rid of the taste! I took pity on him and gave him a piece of white bread to help. Guess what the directions are on the bottle? "Mix three teaspoons with each meal." Oh yeah, like THAT'S going to happen! NOT!
Anyway, it's not like pilling her was super traumatic, but I spend hours every day right now, trying to find something safe that she can eat that won't make her sicker. I know I'm doing something right because a) she's still here and b) she isn't trying to eat paper, and gravel and rocks and little twist ties anymore. Thank goodness! Every night I haven't been able to do much of anything because of her pica (that's what the compulsion to eat weird things is called, it's not just a type term)! I had to be on her every minute because she would seek out and try to eat really bad things. One day I was trying to read Wired magazine and couldn't because there was a bite taken out of each article.
I'm so glad she stopped doing that. It's hard to think about anything else. I haven't talked to very many about this thing going on in my life for the past year, especially getting worse in the last six months. Because it's part of taking care of my best friend. It is what I have to do. She was only six weeks old when I got her. I will not let her down.
I'm exhausted right now from four days of intensely caring for Sofia. But she's worth it. Every little bit of her is worth it. She is still herself, she still loves and trusts me and I still love and trust her.
You know you are a dog person when you have hamburger grease between your fingers, and stinky KD kibble smell on hands and fingers, all because of trying to get silly husky/coydog with chronic kidney failure to eat.
She kept spitting out actual hamburger. (It was mixed in rice.) No, she wanted the sweet potatoes from my stew. She got sweet potatoes. Still wont eat rice and hamburger even with soup broth on it and sweet potatoes. I fed her from a spoon. She ate a little. I put the more stew juice on it. Nope. I put the food up and went back to my computer.
However I'm not in my chair long when a certain silly dog is prancing up and down the hallway, pouncing on everything, whuffing at me and giving me goofy stares through the doorway as she gallops by and knocks down something else. She points at the refrigerator. Whuffs! I guess I have to give it another try because Sofia is still hungry hungry hungry!
I tried every permutation of the home cooked food I could. I tried heating it up, I tried adding more stew broth and sweet potatoes. I added more hamburger. She ate the potatoes and walked away. The phone rang. While talking about everything but dogs, (trucks, work, the weather), I realized I hadn't tried the KD kibble in a while. She liked it at first, but then hated it. I think she's eaten about a quarter of the bag.
After hanging up the phone, I got out the KD bag and took one kibble and told Sofie to "catch it!" We used to play this Dog Food Game a lot in former times, and the dogs loved it. Plus Sofia is a crack catcher! A flash of those sharp canines and the kibble is snatched out of the air like magic! (Ole, on the other hand, sort of snaps at the air hoping the kibble with fall in, while it bounces off his nose.)
She was totally into catching KD kibbles and I figure she ate at least half a cup. She'd catch a bunch, and chase down any she missed. Then she'd go down the hall, turn around and come back. Apparently this "resets" her desire for kibble! She'd get a little bored, go down the hall, come back and be right back into the game.
Now it's 10:30pm, and I have a quiet set of dogs whose tummies are happy. We got home from work at 8:30, so this thing with Sofia was driving me crazy! It was all I could do to get myself a burrito to eat in between all her demanding silliness. But hey, she's 16 and it's way better that her not wanting to move or being in pain. For an old lady, she's quite the nut. I hope I can be like her when I'm ancient, too.
When I walk the dogs down the path to their yard, I routinely scan the landscape for moose. That's a no-brainer in Alaska. It's more than rare that a bear would be in my yard. Our Interior bears stay nicely on their own trails and as far away from people as they can. The last time a bear came through my neighborhood was more than a decade ago. So it's moose we beware of, and moose we look for as we trot down to the dog yard.
Inside the dog yard of course there aren't any moose, because there is a fence and a gate. The yard is the Safe Zone. Right?
The other day the dogs and I entered the yard, I latched the gate, let the dogs off their leashes and suddenly there were nothing but zooming furry bodies zig zagging across the yard! If there was any doubt that Sofia's age was affecting her ability to move, that doubt is now gone! The dogs were like fur lightning as was the teenaged arctic hare that was desperately trying to get away from my Teeth Monsters!
Round and round, with the poor bun buns trying to squeeze her little self between the chain link and not finding anywhere big enough to squeeze through before having to run from dogs again. I'm thinking: I don't want my dogs to get tularemia, I don't want to hear bunny screams and I don't want my dogs to get ticks and worms and fleas!
I caught the dogs, and yes, Ole came when called the little good guy, and grabbed their harnesses just as the rabbit hid behind the dog poop garbage can. This was fortunate because the dogs knew she was there, but they couldn't see her.
So now I'm standing with both hands holding dogs who are still pretty crazy, and I have to open the gate, get the bunny through, and not let the dogs run after the bunny! I need two more hands!
I managed to elbow the gate latch and the gate fell open. Then I used the dogs, still in both hands, to scare the bunny out the gate. Zoom zoom little bun buns! I'm sure you won't be back! I heard the snap of the air closing in behind him as he went lightspeed out the gate.
Then I had to somehow close the gate so the dogs wouldn't go chase the long-gone rabbit. I held my breath and tried to grab both dogs in one hand while I stuck one leg out and pulled the gate toward me with my toe. Then I grabbed the gate and latched it with my one hand.
Whew!
So the dogs had a good run, the bunny had a lesson, I had a yoga workout and we all got cardio. And I know now that my dog yard is dog proof, except for under the gate. Because if a bunny can't squeeze out, a dog sure can't! All in all, job well done!
It's not unusual for me to bring both dogs to the vet at the same time. For instance, when they both need kennel cough vaccine, or check ups. Last Friday Ole was due for his half-yearly check-up for Companions, Inc., the therapy dog organization we're part of. He also needed his toenails clipped.
Sofia is very difficult to vet, and so far the only way the vet has been able to clip her toenails has been to sedate her. At her advanced years, (17 in a couple months), neither one of us finds this ideal. I brought her there mainly, though, to have her blood checked to see how her Chronic Renal Failure is doing. Of course I also wanted the vet to get a good look at her, too. It's been a year since she was diagnosed with CRF, and as of now, she hasn't lost any weight at all, which is wonderful! She's had stinky pee breath, which the vet confirmed is due to the failing kidneys. However, I may be feeding her too much protein and causing it, so I'll see what I can do to add more vegetables and good carbs to her homecooked diet.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I brought both the dogs into the vet hospital and we went into a small examination room to wait for the vet. From the minute we entered that room, Ole plastered himself to me, all needy and somewhat frightened. Meanwhile, Sofia sniffed and explored, unconcerned. Then the vet came in and Ole greeted her while Sofia jumped up on the bench and tried to hide behind my back, in essence, switching places with Ole.
We talked a little bit, and the vet took Ole out to get his toenails clipped. He didn't want to go with her, which was strange! I've known her for years and she's really great! Normally, he's super happy about seeing the vet and getting all the attention and loves, (and cookies!) and doesn't mind his toenails being clipped at all. But this time Sofia and I sat there and heard Ole yelping and freaking out! Like, what's up with that, dude?
The vet brought Ole back, and then took Sofia back to try to get a blood draw and give her the bordatella vaccine. We talked about it, and figured that if Sofia let her draw the blood that would be great, but if not, we'd sedate her (and do toenails while she was out). Meanwhile Ole was super clingy, so I took him out to the car to calm down.
When the vet brought Sofia back in, not only was she totally calm and awake, but she had let the vet cut her toenails! Including a dewclaw nail that was painfully grown around the pad! And she'd gotten TWO vials of blood from her jugular vein! Sofia walked over to me, totally calm and happy. I had to wonder, had aliens taken over my dogs and gotten the personalities wrong? Did they switch brains or something?
Sofia and I waited for the test results. The vet left the door partly open so it wouldn't get too stuffy in there. Little Miss Curiosity Hound couldn't stop from monitoring all the action in the back room.
When we got home both dogs were just fine, no worries, ready for dinner. You would have never known they'd been personality switched just an hour before.
You're going to think, "Oh, another article about how walking the dog makes you more healthy," and you would be kind of right. But not really.
At least eight months ago, Sofia was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF). At fifteen, this wasn't a surprise. Organ failure goes with old age. However it's a long, slow process that inevitably leads to, well, honestly I can't bring myself to say it.
It's doubly hard to understand because even at age 15, she behaves and looks like a dog of 7, or maybe 10 at the most. You see the picture at the top of the blog? That's what she looks like right now. The kicker is I realized I'd counted wrong on her birthdays, and that she is actually, as of this writing, 16 1/2.
She's getting stiff in the joints, and she sometimes has a day-dreamy senior moment. Only in the last month has she been walking more slowly on our walks. But at the end of the workday at my music studio, she's bouncing and dashing all over, leaping up and down on the couch, arfing and playing Bitey Face with Ole just as exuberantly as ever.
Most dogs with CRF get thin, and have trouble having any appetite. They can't eat high protein diets and they have to avoid foods that leave lots of phosphorus in their systems. That's what gunks up the works and damages organs. I've had Sofia on a modified version of this diet since her diagnosis. Unless you looked at her urine, which is pretty dilute, you would never know she had failing kidneys.
Before the diet she was having to go out to pee almost every hour. I was getting up three times in the night to potty her, not a task for the faint of heart when you live in Alaska. Luckily, this winter wasn't typical for Alaska. It was almost a non-winter because it was so warm. Still, in pyjamas, hat, gloves and boots it tended to wake me up more than I liked. But Sofia comes first, of course and we weathered a couple UTIs and I finally got her on the CRF diet.
Lately I've been feeding her canned wild Alaskan salmon instead of the hamburger the diet calls for. And wow! She began moving better and really feeling good. So I alternate weeks/days with salmon and hamburger. Plus eating the salmon while I'm feeding her is really yummy and good for me. It actually costs less than a pound of hamburger and she gets added calcium (and so do I) because of the cooked bones in it. Those bones are my favorite part and have been since I was a kid. But Sofie gets most of them. The thing is, salmon can be way higher in phosphorus than lean hamburger, but it comes with lots of those soft bones (calcium) and calcium binds phosphorous. It would not be good for her if I wasn't letting her eat those nice, soft fish bones. And, as an older woman, those fish bones are good for me, too, since I need to rebuild bone.
Because of feeding salmon and rice to Sofia, I'm now super motivated to make a brown rice, salmon, broccoli and cheese casserole.
Every night Sofie gets five different supplements. She was already on Sam-e for hips, joints and cognitive function. My vet didn't want to give her Rimadyl because, she said, "It's all downhill from there, it's very hard on the organs." And the Sam-e worked wonders on Sofia's senior moments! Which are rare now, to my joy!
I'm getting older, too. And my joints hurt and I need the anti-depressant effect to battle my own demons so I asked my doctor if I should take Sam-e, too. And she said, "Go for it! It would be good for you!" Okay, then!
Each night I break a super-B complex vitamin in half and each dog gets one half. I eat one myself, to help combat anemia. (I have to take iron, too, of course.) They are actually taking my B supplements.
The vet said to give both dogs a cranberry tablet every day, so they get theirs and I get mine.
Glucosamine chondroitin/MSM tabs go right in the food bowls too, and I take my OsteoBiflex right along with them!
Both dogs get a Pepcid, Ole for his sensitive tummy (he throws up if he gets too empty, vet recommended Pepcid), and Sofia because CRF can make dogs nauseous, especially in the morning. Lack of appetite is something that contributes to CRF decline in dogs. I don't take Pepcid, but it reminds me to take my ginger at night to stop GERD. (Sometimes I have to resort to ranitidine, too.)
The CRF diet calls for a low-dose COQ-10 for heart health, (more organ support) and because of the anemia, I figure I can use all the help I can get. And that reminds me to take my fish oil tablet for heart health, as well.
I have to say that I am feeling better than ever! And Sofia is doing so well you would never know she has CRF!
After all the supplements are in the bowls, I plop a nice glob of pumpkin on top of the pills and the dogs gobble it all down. If someone leaves a pill, I pick it up, put it and a little salmon in my hand and hold it out and they schloop it right up! The pumpkin adds fiber and other nutrients, and it always reminds me to make sure I eat a salad or something with good fiber value.
As an old doggie, Sofia was losing some coordination in her hindquarters. She even had a little knuckling over on the right rear leg. So I'm playing push-pull with her legs when she's relaxed, and we are walking several times a day. The knuckling over has almost vanished, and bonus, her toenails are wearing down just a little, even from walking on dirt and gravel roads.
I spoke with a vet at Pet Awareness Day (the fundraiser for Companions, Inc., Fairbanks' pet therapy organization of which Ole and I are a part) and she told me that I could make some parallel bars for Sofie walk through, thus increasing her awareness of her legs and exercising them. Obviously they would be low to the ground, but she'd have to step over them. I already have her doing small jumps, (used to be higher jumps) so this would be easy to set up. Another exercise is to have her step up onto a low block or table, and leave her hind legs on the ground. This will strengthen her hindquarters without putting too much stress on them.
This reminds me that I need to make sure I keep exercising for my own dexterity! Walking a beam, standing on one foot (I always stand up to put on shoes and socks to beef up my balance). It probably wouldn't hurt me to step through Sofia's exercise bars, too.
I don't know how long I have with Sofia, but right now it doesn't look like she's going anywhere. Personally, I think she'll be here for at least another year, maybe more? One day at a time.
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Jean McDermott is a freelance writer and professional muscian.