My Very Good, Very Bad Dog

by Amy Newmark

  The following weekend, Paul took Sadie deep into the wooded mountains that were our home. There he met with the rest of the dog team to do weekend drills. The smile on his face when he came home that night told me all I needed to know. “She’s a natural! She figured it out right away. This is going to be wonderful.”

  Sadie and Paul spent hundreds of hours training together. I even allowed my eight-year-old son to accompany them and be their pretend victim. Sadie found him every time. I know, not every mother would tell her child, “Go get lost in the woods.” But that’s exactly what we did. It’s how the dogs learn.

  I continued my role as the off-duty volunteer, conducting obedience training and socialization at home. Eventually, Sadie passed her test and joined the Wilderness Search and Rescue team and went on many missions. Sadie worked hard and played even harder, becoming a beloved member of our family and an asset to the community.

  ~Kathleen Birmingham

  The Natural

  Fun fact: Therapy dogs at hospices provide comfort not only to dying patients, but also to their families.

  After responding to an advertisement for volunteers at the hospice, I sat chatting with the volunteer coordinator. The hospice had been open for about a year, a very welcome addition in our community, and now was looking for special personnel to visit and comfort residents in their waning days. I reached down and unfastened Roxy’s leash as she kept her big brown eyes on the coordinator, as if she was taking it all in. “She’s not exactly what I was looking for,” the coordinator stated. “I was hoping for a lap-sized dog, but she certainly is gentle and talks to you with her eyes.”

  “No, she’s not a lap dog; she’s a Lab — a small one as she was the runt of the litter — but she thinks she should be a lap dog, too,” I stated. “She also understands grief. She curled up beside her mother when she was dying, and she grieved for several months. So when someone is feeling down or not well, she senses it and tries to offer her empathy and comfort. She works hard at trying to please.”

  We walked down the hall with the coordinator. Roxy started to enter one of the rooms, but I told her, “No,” and she continued to follow. The coordinator took her into the next room where she was fondly greeted. Immediately, Roxy cuddled up to the patient, who was sitting in his wheelchair. “Well, she’s winning me over. Let’s try her and see how she works out,” suggested the coordinator.

  As I was a full-time caregiver to my daughter, we arranged for us to drop off Roxy and pick her up again at the end of her shift. Another volunteer would oversee her. And thus Roxy became the first dog volunteer at the new Foothills Country Hospice.

  The first few visits, she arrived with her leash on, but after a couple of weeks it was no longer required. Upon entering the facility, she would stop at the door while her feet were wiped and, when given the okay, she would first say “hi” to the volunteer at the front desk and anyone else close by, and then be escorted to a resident’s room. Soon, she was also strolling unleashed alongside wheelchairs as residents enjoyed the fresh air and beauty of the pathways and gardens outside. Being on duty, she never took off chasing gophers like she did at home on the farm.

  Baths before visits became a regular chore, and Roxy obediently stepped in to the shower even though this was not one of her favourite activities. Rolling in stinky things was more to her liking, but she quickly associated baths with volunteer days.

  For weeks, one volunteer helped hoist Roxy up on the bed to lie beside a resident who was extremely weak. Roxy lay quietly beside the resident, soaking up and giving as much attention as she could. Eventually, the volunteer discovered that Roxy didn’t need help, just a small invite and she would climb, ever so gently, onto the bed by herself. Before long, she was up on the couch or bed whenever she felt someone wanted her love. She found her way into the fireside room and the chapel area when functions were going on and greeted everyone. One day, she lay unsupervised beside the tea cart during a memorial tea. She did not even try to take a morsel of the tempting goodies for herself. She never barked in the facility and always seemed to be looking for approval that she was doing the right thing. If she wasn’t needed, she snoozed by the front desk.

  Roxy always arrived for duty with a smile, and as her popularity grew, one shift a week became two. The residents, staff and volunteers looked forward to her company and sought her out. She did, however, seem to have a built-in clock and would often be watching the doorway if we were a little late in picking her up. People would go in and out, but she never tried to escape. She just waited for her family.

  We were told stories about how much comfort Roxy was providing. One young woman was losing her husband. When the volunteer came to check on Roxy in that room, the resident was asleep, but Roxy and the young wife were curled up together on the floor as the woman poured her grief into Roxy’s fur. One family had the hospice call us when their loved one passed away. They needed Roxy’s companionship, so she made her rounds to console the various family members in the fireside room as they grieved and made funeral plans. Another family made special mention of Roxy’s care in the loved one’s obituary.

  People had their pictures taken with Roxy, and one woman had hers enlarged and hung over her bed. Visiting children loved playing with Roxy. Older ones took her for walks. Regardless of how rough some little ones were with her, sometimes pulling her tail or poking her eyes, she never showed any signs of aggression and gave them all the kisses they could want. It gave their parents time to spend with their failing loved ones.

  People who saw us downtown began recognizing us as Roxy’s family. Knowing that sometimes residents did not have many visitation days left, we were happy to provide this service for them. We felt bad when we had to be away, causing Roxy to miss her visits.

  Other dogs have since joined the program to visit different days accompanied by their owners. Having watched how Roxy worked, we decided that even if we were available to accompany her, she worked better without us. She was totally trustworthy and sensed what people needed. As things were, when a volunteer escorted Roxy to a room and left her with the family, they were free to seek her comfort privately, and she would respond unconditionally.

  For six years now, we have continued to bathe, groom and transport Roxy to and from the hospice twice weekly as well as to other occasional special events. Roxy, now ten years old, remains top dog — a hospice favourite — and she relishes her time there. Last year, she also began volunteering with the Literacy for Life Foundation, which uses dogs to help reluctant or struggling readers in elementary schools. The kids read to the dogs and feel more enthusiastic and less self-conscious that way. She gives cuddles and kisses there, too.

  Roxy is a busy girl, and she keeps us hopping with her volunteer schedule. We are happy to help Roxy, the little yellow Labrador Retriever, make a difference. She gives her heart to everyone who needs it.

  ~Irene R. Bastian

  Lead Me Not…

  Fun fact: The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, says that disabled people and their assistance dogs must have access to public places.

  I was not surprised to see a woman with an old Golden Retriever, her guide dog, asking a couple for directions to one of the smaller restaurants. The Scarborough Town Center in Toronto is such a large shopping plaza that it is easy, even for a sighted person, to become confused. When the couple didn’t know where the restaurant was, the blind woman left.

  Forty minutes later, after a totally unsuccessful bathing-suit shopping expedition, I passed the restaurant. The same woman was plodding along several stores ahead of me. I knew that she had walked right by her intended destination, probably not for the first time.

  I rushed to catch up to her. “Excuse me,” I called, “but are you still looking for Moxie’s Grill?”

  When she said “yes,” I put my arm out and suggested that she take it.

  “You walked by the front door a few minutes ago,” I said. “You are going to have to teach your dog to read,” I
added jokingly.

  “He knows exactly where it is. I meet my friends there every couple of days,” she said matter-of-factly. “He’s just pissed off because I won’t take him for a ride on the escalator.”

  ~Joei Carlton Hossack

  My Intuitive Dog

  Fun fact: When a tsunami in the Indian Ocean killed many people in 2004, few animals such as dogs died because their superior intuition told them that they needed to seek higher ground before the tsunami hit.

  The Strength of Two

  Fun fact: Malamutes were developed by an Inuit tribe called the Mahlemuts in western Alaska. They were trained and bred to pull sleds and endure harsh weather.

  As a professional dog-care provider, I am often delighted by the behavior of my furry clients. I feel pretty lucky to spend my days being greeted with wags, kisses and happy spirits as I go about my job.

  I walk a big, beautiful fur ball named Harper three times a week. He is a pure white Malamute-Shepherd mix with piercing yellow eyes. His greatest loves are squirrels, peeing on the world, and impressing the rest of us with his girth. Harper’s personality is, thank God, relatively calm. When other dogs yap around him, he merely gazes at them from his height as if to say, “Of course, you’re impressed, Little One.” He seems to have little need to prove anything further. And he’s right. He is mighty, and he owns it.

  When I first started this walking job, Harper’s parents told me he might be distracted by small furry things running about the streets. They supplied me with little peanut-butter treats to carry in my pocket to distract him from the furry creatures. The snacks actually work well except when Harper hears the bag crumple in my pocket as we walk, and he begins to think about the glories of peanut-butter snacks. Sometimes, just the thought of them makes him crazy, and we have to stop our walk to partake in these tasty Bits of Wonderful, squirrels or no squirrels.

  Harper and I had been walking together and munching on peanut-butter snacks three times a week for some time when a relationship I was in ended in a shocking and hurtful way. Though I was very sad, and it was hard for me to find the energy to go to work, I found myself at Harper’s door, ready for a walk, the first day immediately after the breakup.

  Usually, when I arrive for a walk with one of my furry clients, I greet him or her happily and am greeted happily back. However, this day I was quiet. My energy level was low and sad, and when I let Harper out of his kennel, his intense eyes raised immediately to mine in concern. As I clipped the leash onto his collar, he continued to look into my face intently, but I could only look back wordlessly. And in this fashion, we set off into the snowy, gray day.

  Harper’s gait is a long trot, and even for me, a woman of five feet, eleven inches, it’s hard to keep up with him. It’s a half-hour cardiac workout with a dog that weighs very nearly what I do! Naturally, at that pace, when his nose gets to working on something and he decides to stop and take a prolonged sniff, he can yank very hard. I’ve come down on the ice more than once after he has made a quick U-turn to get a good sniff of something, so I try to walk very mindfully with him, watching his movements so I can preempt sudden jerks in the opposite direction.

  This day, however, he walked much more calmly by my side, glancing up at me as we went, as if to make sure I wasn’t crumbling before his eyes. Truly, we walked that half-hour together as if in solidarity, the cold Minnesota wind penetrating my winter gear while delighting Harper, who never blinked an eye, even in below-zero weather. We tromped along through snowdrifts and across ice, my boots crunching along and his nails clicking against the frozen streets. And as we walked, he stayed near me, his attention not on the squirrels or the bag of peanut butter treats crinkling in my pocket, but on me. His silent companionship seemed the most real thing in the world at the time, for his sense of animal spirit strength was solid, and I found comfort in his presence and purity.

  When we got home, I let Harper off his leash and encouraged him to drink some water while I wrote his parents’ daily note to let them know how the walk went. Harper lay down next to me and waited calmly, keeping an eye on me as I moved about. I grabbed a cookie for him and asked him to get in his kennel, as I always did. It was our habit each day, and Harper always went into his kennel without prodding or complaint, focused on his cookie. This day, though, as I stood by the kennel and waited for him, he leaned up against my leg and stood there with me, the pressure of his head against me like a giant, hairy, it’s-going-to-be-okay bear hug.

  We stood like that for a while, our souls connected. My hand rested in his long and fluffy fur, his warmth against me.

  “Thank you, Buddy,” I said. I put my arms around his big neck and hugged him. I swear he winked at me before he moved inside his kennel.

  The Big Guy got an extra cookie that day.

  ~Heidi FitzGerald

  My Advocate

  Fun fact: Pugs tend to snore and breathe loudly, so you might want to wear earplugs if your Pug sleeps in your bedroom.

  I was counting down the months. I’d been a stay-at-home mom for eleven years, and my youngest son was starting kindergarten that fall. I was going to have some uninterrupted time alone, and I was going to use it to become a writer. As soon as the bus drove away, I would pack up my laptop and head to the coffee shop to pound out a few pages of my novel, maybe do lunch with the girls, and then stop at the farmers’ market to pick up something to make for dinner. I’d be home just in time to waltz through the back door, sashay through the house, and be standing out front waiting for the bus when it returned the children.

  But my son had started talking about needing a dog in early spring, and he hadn’t let up. And it wasn’t just a five-year-old chanting, “I want, I want, I want.” It was an obsession.

  “Mom, I’m going to die if I don’t get a dog.”

  “We’re not getting a dog.”

  “But I need one.”

  Every Tuesday our local paper featured photos of pets available for adoption, and one day they ran a picture of a dog that looked exactly like the one I had as a kid. So I did the unthinkable. I took the kids to the shelter to meet her.

  She was part Miniature Pinscher and part Pug — a Muggin. And she was a troublemaker. Miss Molly was two years old and had already been adopted out and returned three times. She’d also killed a groundhog that had wandered into the yard, and for some reason they didn’t share with us, her present keepers felt she would do better with a family that had a stay-at-home parent like me.

  My carefully laid out plans evaporated and we adopted her.

  Ever see Gremlins? There were three rules for keeping one of those as a pet: no water, no food after midnight, and no bright light. When you broke one of those rules, disaster ensued. Well, our Muggin was cute and fuzzy like Gizmo, but we soon learned she had her own set of rules: no crates, no chicken, and no leaving her alone. Ever.

  And boy could she bark. She could also jump a four-foot fence, dig a hole the size of a storm sewer, eat her weight in garbage, and Houdini her way out of a harness. This dog had an attitude. And she was my problem now.

  People asked me when I was going back to work. Instead of saying I’d decided to give writing a go, I told them I couldn’t leave the dog alone. Which was true. It was silly to think I could be a writer anyway. A pipe dream. I came from a long line of clock-punchers with exceptional work ethics. Sitting and making up stories all day? It would have been conceited to call that my job.

  Separation anxiety aside, there were good things about Miss Molly. She got me out for a walk every day. She was very loving and affectionate. And she was a great watchdog. But she remained, despite our best efforts, untrainable.

  If we said no dogs were allowed on the sofa, she’d jump up on the loveseat. If the vet said to withhold a certain food, she’d just eat it out of the garbage. If we tried to get her in the house so we could leave, she’d wedge herself under the deck. “Sit” meant bark. “Stay” meant run in circles. “Lie down” drew a blank stare. Through it all, she wasn�
��t a bad dog, not in the malicious sense of the word. She just didn’t want to be told what to do.

  We developed a routine. As soon as the bus left, we headed out for a walk. Then Molly got a treat. Then I was allowed to write. My computer was in a spare bedroom, and she lay on the carpet at my feet while I worked, but only until school was over. Then she’d nudge my leg and make sure I got downstairs in time for the bus.

  When summer came, a strange thing started happening. I’d gotten a few rejections, so my confidence was flagging, and the kids were home from school, so my schedule was altered. But Molly’s wasn’t. After our walk, she’d lead me to the stairs even if I didn’t have plans to write. She’d use all eighteen pounds of herself to block my path if I tried to detour around her. Tripping me wasn’t out of the question. She insisted I go upstairs and write for a few hours each day, the same way she insisted she be allowed on the furniture. So I did it.

  When the kids came upstairs to tell on each other, she stood in the doorway. No admittance. When the doorbell rang, she scared away whoever it was with her ferocious barking. When 2:30 came, she got up, nudged me in the leg, and left the room. Work time was over. My husband and the kids started calling her my secretary. But she was more than that. She was my advocate.

  I started looking at her defiance as a positive. I felt a kinship. Wasn’t I bucking the “rules,” just like her? Most able-bodied people got jobs and worked for others, but I didn’t want to; most dogs stayed in crates while their owners were away, but she didn’t want to. Was that so different?

  We started to compromise. The thing she hated the most was the crate her former keepers insisted we have before they would allow the adoption. They said crates made dogs feel more secure, but that just wasn’t the case with Molly. So we got rid of it.

  Now, when we want to leave the house, we put up a gate separating the kitchen from the rest of the house. Molly could jump it easily, but she doesn’t. She stays in her area while we are gone.