Dog personality - an evolution part 1

Humans have an extra responsibility toward our dog friends. They are not livestock. They cannot live independently. A dog left on its own will starve. We've bred them to be dependent on us. And they've developed behaviors to make us more likely to want to take care of them. I cry every day over stories of people who not only fail to live up to that responsibility but who actively torture and abuse these amazing animals.

There are more dogs than homes and in our throw-away culture dogs get pitched like trash. I just read about someone sending his 6 year old dog to a shelter because it was a hunting dog and he was giving up hunting. Imagine the shock of being part of a family, even peripherally, and then one day, for no reason you can understand, ending up in a shelter behind a fence with a cement floor, surrounded by dozens of sad, scared animals. 

There's nothing I hate more than going to an animal shelter. And I hate a lot of things. I've done it, but it's so hard to go home with just one. There are eyes I've looked into for only seconds who haunt me years later. I can only hope that they eventually found their forever home. I give huge props to the workers, volunteers and rescuers who see this every day.
What's worse is that these dogs are the luckier ones. At least, for the time that they are there, they are safe and have food and water. There's no such thing as a good death for a healthy animal, but at least it is quick and hopefully painless and they don't slowly starve to death or die wounded or mangled and alone.

My husband and I are the lucky humans of two rescues. Yes, I am one of those dog nuts who doesn't call myself an owner. Even though I have the control as far as human laws go, they own me every bit as much as I own them. 

Shimmy, the latest addition to our family is a pitbull. We were only going to foster her until she found her forever home. Technically, I suppose that's what happened. It's just that her forever home turned out to be with us. Because of this, by my husband's orders, I am no longer allowed to foster until I "retire" and "buy a house in the country". (we'll see)

Shimmy was rescued by a the wonderful Adore-a-Bull group in Cincinnati when she was pregnant and about to be put to sleep in a shelter, puppies and all. She had 10 pups and 8 survived and this wonderful network of people took care of her and them and got all but one adopted out so far. We took her sight unseen on their word that she was "mellow" and a "good dog".

She's what they call a "pocket pittie". Bred at way too young of an age, her growth was stunted. I find that to be an attractive feature, actually, because even at her small size, she's really strong. I am barely stronger and if she's really motivated it takes my full weight to hold her back. She is really motivated by things like squirrels, birds, and other dogs. 

Things went less than smoothly at first. I knew she'd been spayed, but I didn't realize she was spayed just days before I got her. My two males, a large boxer mix and tiny maltese, tried to greet her in typical doggie butt-sniffing fashion but she was feeling a bit sensitive and protective of those parts and didn't respond in a friendly, welcoming way. She snapped at my maltese and scared the beegeezus out of him. It was weeks before he'd go anywhere near her again.

Even worse, she arrived two days before I was set to dogsit my son's dogs for a weekend. Shimmy and his female, Josie, took an instant dislike to each other, resulting in Josie getting bitten in the eye and Shimmy being pinned and almost getting her throat torn out. Neither Josie nor my son have completely gotten over the insult. I had to keep the two females separated all weekend. 

On the other hand, Shimmy and his male, Bonzai, made instant friends and spent the weekend wrestling and playing like long lost soul mates. 

Her pregnancy took a lot out of her. She was scrawny and perpetually hungry. The first few days she was very food aggressive. Even after she'd eaten, if she heard the other dogs in the kitchen, she'd race in there to chase them away from the food. As she began to learn that there was always going to be food available, she mellowed out. First she'd run and check to make sure there was still food in the other bowls and then she'd let them eat. Within a week she'd even let them eat when she was in the room. They still play musical bowls because she's convinced that the very same food must taste better out of a bowl that someone else is slobbering in, but we haven't had a food fight in weeks.

As with most rescues, Shimmy started out as a suck-up. Rescued dogs come to a strange home where they don't know their place in the pack or the routines of the house. They are as clingy and needy as a human toddler. I had a crate in the basement with comfortable blankets and pillows for her. The first few nights she'd bark for an hour or so before settling down.  In the morning I'd have a crate full of diarrhea to clean up. I feel really bad about this now. Back then, she rarely barked at all. I cringe to think how stressed she must have felt to bark as long as she did. We ended up switching sleeping arrangements, so she could sleep in the crate next to Bear and the maltese could come back to the bedroom with us. It made all the difference.

It took my husband awhile to warm up to her. Admittedly, she was kind of homely. First off, she was scrawny, she'd lost half her hair, she had floppy bat ears, and her long toes made her look like she had chicken feet. She reminded me of the golem from Lord of the Rings. I was waiting her for her to lisp, "my precioussssss" any second. Her underbite makes her look like she is always frowning and the effect is exacerbated by her hanging jowls. The skin around her lips and nose is pink, making her look like she's wearing light pink clown make-up. And she was confused and nervous and looked worried all the time.

He also complained that she didn't have much personality. 

Have you ever noticed that some dogs have the personalities of young children while others are like mopey teenagers?   Some dogs are just dogs. Shimmy seemed to fall into the latter category.

to be continued...

Whose Fault is This?

So I know this guy who went on a long trip out of town to Thailand or somewhere.  He gave his mother a key to his house so she could check on things while he was gone.  He also gave her the garage door opener.  The key was for the front door, but since he gave her the opener she misunderstood and thought the key was for the door between the garage and basement.  She never actually went into the house while he was gone, just walked around it every few days to make sure the doors were still locked and no windows had been opened and she never used the key.  Eventually she forgot she had it.

Flash forward to recently.  The mother is fostering a dog.  Granted, she didn't think it through real well because she'd agreed to keep her son's dogs for the weekend, but with plenty of crates and a kennel, it would be fine.

The son brings the dogs over (late, so there's no time to take them for a walk together).  The son's female thinks she is the Grand High Imperial Poobah of Dogs and any dog who disagrees must die.  The foster dog, a little pitbull, says, "you're not the boss of me!"  In the course of the son's dog proving that she is, indeed, the boss of her, the son's dog gets a bite in her eye that requires a vet visit.  (she's fine).  Since the son had to leave on his appointed trip, the mom takes his dog to the vet.

She calls the son to let him know his dog is alright and suggests that they keep his dog at his house and she'll go there to take care of her.  He keeps telling her that she has his key and she vaguely remembers putting one on her keychain but doesn't remember which one it is.

The son is still up inside the house packing for his trip when she gets there, but the garage door and basement door are open.  She lets the dog inside and starts trying keys to see which one opens the door.  Since every key turns the lock when it isn't in locked position, she locks the door.   None of the keys work, so she goes back to the car to get her phone and call her husband to see if he has the key.  He isn't answering.  Just then, her son comes out to the garage, shutting the door behind him and locking them both out.

All of his stuff is inside the house.  He doesn't have time to wait for a locksmith.  The mom tries not to laugh but doesn't quite succeed.  She thinks about it and starts to suggest that he break the door knob and she'll replace it that night and that's when the husband calls back.   She gets as far as "maybe you can break..." when the phone rings and she wants to find out if there is a key somewhere before they do any breaking.  The son, who is royally pissed off by now, hears "break" and breaks in his own door and the frame with it, pissing him off even more.

Once inside, he asks her why she locked the door in the first place.  She explains that it was to figure out which key opened it.  He then tells her that there is no key to that door and the key he gave her was for the front door.  They look at each other a minute and she hands him her keychain, with the key to the front door on it.

He thinks the broken door is her fault.  She disagrees.  What do you think?

Bear and His Emerging Role

I could just be imagining things, but I think that Bear has been acting protective over Aki.  It's unexpected, since aside from their mutual barking hobby and the twisted mind games they play over treats and lap privileges, they don't really pay much attention to each other.

Aki, an 8 pound maltese, is fascinating to other dogs.  They can't seem to figure out what he is.  A puppy?  A toy?  a snack?  wtf?

Shimmie, our foster dog, is no exception.  Much to his discomfort, she stares at him constantly.  On top of his normal distaste for other dogs, he's afraid of her, so he goes out of his way to avoid her attention.  Yesterday as I was letting him back in from going outside, she started messing with him, trapping him between herself and the couch and moving in front of him every time he tried to get away, staring the whole time.  That's when Bear came over and barked and nudged her.  Twice.  I'm not positive whether he wanted her attention in order to give Aki a break or if he was jealous that it wasn't focused on him, but he was clearly trying to get her away from Aki.

My son's dog, Bonzai, has been fascinated with Aki from the beginning.  The first time he was here, he was   the smaller of the two, and he spent the entire visit chasing him and trying to play.  Exasperated, Aki finally jumped on the back of the couch, and Bonzai kept bouncing up and down unsuccessfully trying to reach him.  A year later, Bonzai has stretched into a tall, lanky animal with greyhound-length legs.  He is able to jump over the back of the couch without touching it.  People ask what kind of dog he is and we have no idea.  He looks nothing like his mother, who appeared to be part boxer.   He's at that awkward dog age with the body of an adult and the mind of a puppy.  He's driving my son nuts.

Today he was following Aki around, pushing him with his nose and trying to engage him in play like he does the other dogs.  One nudge could send Aki flying so I told him to lay off, but he didn't listen.  Then Bear walked over and interrupted, quietly barking and pushing Bonzai in the other direction.  I'm pretty sure he was intentionally trying to distract him so Aki could get away.  It was fascinating.

Bear's helpful in other ways, too.  Any time I try to use a door knob or tie my shoes or do anything with my hands, he very gently puts his mouth on my hand.  When I get home from work, he leads me to Aki's crate and puts his face first by the top latch and then by the lower one and then, when I've unhooked them, uses his nose to open the door.   Yesterday I had Shimmie in a crate in the basement and he led me to the door and then ran down the stairs to help me let her out, too.

I can't figure out whether he thinks I need his help or if, like the other males in the family, thinks I am incapable of completing tasks like this without his supervision.

If he wasn't so hyper I'd train him to be one of those dogs that visits sick kids or lonely, elderly people.  But I'd hate so see a kid trampled by Bear's enthusiasm.

Shimmie Day 2

I feel like Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, except instead of studying animals in the wilds of Africa, I'm observing them in my house.

A full stomach and a good night's sleep made a world of difference.  Shimmie woke up as a different dog.

The first thing she did was engage Bear in play.  I watched closely for any signs that it was going to turn into a fight, but the tails were wagging and they kept stopping to re-set so it was all good.  That seemed to tire her out.

We went to the office, Aki got on my lap and Bear went to his customary spot by the doorway.  Shimmie tried to get on my lap as well and Aki growled at her.  I just looked him and asked, "really???"  She didn't react.  Just went over to Bear and sat next to him.

I had to take her to the vet.  She has some residual bleeding from being spayed.  It turns out she's heavier than I thought...over 30 pounds!  I've never seen a dog so happy to go to the vet.  She was really excited to see them there.  They obviously took good care of her.

Aki and Bear enjoy barking at certain things like squirrels, chipmunks, joggers, the fedex truck, and the ups truck.  They give each other a heads up when one is approaching and then race to the windows to bark wildly.  This startles Shimmie every time.  She jumps up in a doggie karate stance and then looks confused when they attack the window and not her.  The UPS truck actually had to make a delivery yesterday, which always sends Bear and Aki into a crazed bark fest.  Shimmie joined in, giving one hoarse bark and then just stood at the window to watch.  It's like she's trying to learn how to be a dog.  or maybe she's just too cool for these shenanigans.

She's much better about letting Bear eat.  I keep hearing we shouldn't do it like this, but we've always kept bowls filled with food so they can eat whenever they're hungry.  This way they eat several small meals throughout the day, like we're supposed to do and they learn that food is available to them when they need it.  Now when Bear eats, Shimmie runs to the kitchen to make sure there's still some left and then she leaves him alone.

They are pretty inseparable now.  I found them on the couch, her lying down and him sitting behind her, watching out the window.  The big test came when I took them out before I left for work.  Bear gets REALLY excited when he sees a leash.  He leaps up in the air, about my shoulder height, with his front and back legs about even.  He comes down hard.  Yesterday, he landed on Shimmie.  She didn't even growl.  And then he continued to trample her.  All she did was try to get out of his way.   Even Aki isn't that tolerant.

She was kind of stand-offish with me most of the day.  She seemed to really like my husband, but I had to call her to me and then she'd only let me pet her head a couple of times before she moved away.  That changed after the bath.

I gave her a bath and I have a feeling it was her first.  She didn't protest at all when I picked her up or put her in the tub.  She just looked around in that cooperative way she has, like, "hmmmm.  nice box you have here."  Then I turned the water on and she panicked.  She seemed to feel that getting wet was not part of the deal.  I gave her treats and encouragement, though, and we got through it quickly.  She was having none of the blow dryer, however.

I don't know whether the bath proved something to her or if she was just cold, but afterward she jumped on the couch to cuddle with me.  She prefers to be on my right.  Bear found his spot on the left.  Aki wanted in on the action but didn't want to be too close to her teeth so he ended up on the back of the couch, behind my head.

I really love dogs and Shimmie is easy to love.

New (temporary) addition to the family

She's somewhere between 12 and 18 months and she's already had at least two litters.  She just weaned the last one, which produced 9 puppies, 8 of which survived.  She was set to be euthanized even though she was pregnant and at the last minute a rescue group rescued her.  She spent some time in a temporary foster home and then went to the vet and had nowhere to go after that.  So she came to me to foster until they find her a permanent home.

Her name is Shimmie and she's a tiny thing.  She might be 20 pounds at full weight.  Right now she's skin and bones.  Taking care of her babies took everything she had.

She has a haunted look about her.  Do mother dogs get sad when their pups are taken away?  I know they grieve when their humans or other dogs in the house leave or pass away.  Do they bond with their babies?  Or are they relieved when they're gone?

Shimmie is the "P" word.  She's a breed that strikes fear into the hearts of many and is apparently scarier to the Ohio state legislatures then a yard full of tigers.  She's a pitbull, so small that they call her a pocket pittie.

Pitbulls came from English bulldogs, who were bred to fight bulls in a horrible "sport" called bull-baiting.  The bulldogs were bred with terriers to give them other qualities, including a respect for humans so deep that they wouldn't turn on their owners when being pulled away from the fight.  When bull-baiting was outlawed, their douchebag humans started fighting them with each other.  They were the most popular breed in the 1920's and 30's and were known as "nanny dogs" because they were so protective of children.  Did you know that Petey from "Our Gang" was a pitbull?

Her first day was interesting.

Danny from the rescue brought her over.  She got out of the car and greeted us enthusiastically as if we were old friends.  The plan was to have her meet Bear outside and then take them for a long walk together, but it started raining.  They met in the house and were less than enamored of each other.  Rain or not, we had to walk them and dissipate some of that energy.

Things were calmer when we got back, but Bear and Aki needed reassurance that they weren't being replaced in our hearts or laps.

Two things about pitbulls that make them a little scary - they have sharp teeth and a really nasty growl.  Bear plays rough with my son's Bonzai.   They sound like someone is being murdered and it doesn't alarm us at all.  But when a strange pitbull starts growling?  It makes me a little nervous.  I don't know whether they are playing or having a power struggle, but we stopped them right away each time.

She doesn't like being sniffed.  Today I wonder if she was in pain.  She was half on my lap and Aki tried to sniff her from behind and she snarled and lunged at him. I caught her but she scared the hell out of him.  He ran behind my chair and started yelping, making me think she bit him.  I put him on my lap and he was so upset that he started hyperventillating.  He was ok, just scared.  It was kind of funny once I knew he wasn't hurt.  And it's not unusual.  Every dog wants to eat Aki at first.  He either looks delicious or obnoxious.  or both.

She's protective of food.  Every time she heard Bear eating in the kitchen she'd run over and chase him out.  I had to keep her barricaded so he could eat.

One time after she chased him out of the kitchen, he came to sit by us.  She walked over as well and started giving him the stink eye.  He didn't move, but apparently he gave her that look I know all so well and she lunged at him.  He was chastened to say the least.  Later, he barked at her, inviting her to play (or so it looked to me).  She walked up to him, stuck her face right by his, and started growling until he walked away.  It was exactly like a street punk getting in someone's face, yelling "Yea?  You want a piece of this?  Let's see what you got!"

Later, we were all hanging out in our usual spots - my husband on his couch and me on mine with Bear on my lap and Aki on the armrest next to me.  Shimmie settled on the blanket my husband was using, in between his legs.  She looked comfortable and content and was snoring in no time.  I was struck by how this dog could be in a strange house with people and dogs she'd never met and a sad and terrible past but could take full pleasure in the moment.  There was a life lesson there.

dog sitting

My son went out of town for the weekend and I'm watching his dogs, Josie and Bonzai.  Observing their personalities and the dynamics between the 4 dogs is interesting.

Josie is a 3 year-old beagle mix that my son got at a rescue shelter.  She has to be the most well-mannered dog I've ever seen.  My Bear loves fruit and any time I make a smoothie, he's at my side, waiting for his share of strawberries and bananas.  Josie was near us on the floor, just looking at us.  She didn't beg, just watched us with interest.  I offered her a banana, which she sniffed, took delicately in her teeth, and dropped on the floor next to her as if to say, "thanks.  I don't really like these but it was nice of you to offer."

Josie is a mopey animal.  They should call her Eyeore.   She likes to sit close to you on the floor or couch and press hard against you.  She also has a tendency to sigh, with a long, indrawn breath through her nose and then a loud exhale through her mouth.  She sounds like my mother just before she'd raise her eyes to the sky and say, "God give me patience!"  Josie pretty much uses it in the same context.  My son tells me that if he and his girlfriend are talking too long at night when Josie wants to sleep, she'll sigh at them.

She likes to sleep with her legs rigid, sticking stiffly straight out, eyes half closed.  The first time she spent the night I thought she died.  I was freaking out wondering how I was going to break it to my son that his dog passed away in my care.  Luckily, she moved.

Bonzai isn't a year old yet but he's the tallest of the group.  His mother was part boxer but we don't see any boxer in him.  He's brindle and white and built like a greyhound but with a bigger head.  He likes to wrap himself around your back and lick the back of your neck.  When he plays he makes sounds like a woman yelling.  Yesterday I ran out of the shower thinking there was someone in my house.  In retrospect, wet and naked probably isn't the best way to confront an intruder.

He's very submissive, which is just as hard to deal with as a dominant dog.  Yesterday he slipped past me out the door.  I called his name and he dropped to the ground and showed me his stomach.  He got up, I grabbed for his collar, and he dropped again.  I let go, he took a step towards me, I reached for him and down he went again.  It took us four tries to go the 3 feet back into the house.  Meanwhile, the other dogs were watching through the window.  I think they were laughing.

The three big dogs really like each other.  Aki, the maltese, hates them all.  He spends most of his time in my lap, trying not to get trampled or knocked off of the couch by wagging tails.  Bonzai chases him around like he's a toy.

The coolest thing about dogs is how they want to be with us all the time.  (It's also the most annoying thing about them).  I love watching tv with a dog on my lap, another by my side and still another next to us.  Night time when everyone is relaxed and sleepy is the best.  What other creature loves us that much?

My Dogs Are My Kids part 1, Ode to Lucky

I'm reading a book called, "30 Days to a Well Mannered Dog" by Tamar Geller.  It's an interesting book about canine and human behavior, although I think 30 days is kind of ambitious unless you are an expert dog-trainer or have nothing else to do for a month or have smarter dogs than mine.  Anyway, she says that research shows dogs have the emotional maturity and reasoning skills of a human toddler.  That's so funny, because my husband and I have always said that Bear acts a lot like our youngest grandson.

When you live with a dog you really get to see its personality.  We had a rescued greyhound that was just like a teenager; sulky, demanding, and moody.

My husband and I had been talking about getting a watchdog and then I read an article in Reader's Digest about the dog racing industry that turned my stomach.  Yes, I'm a sucker for dogs.  We decided to kill two birds with one stone and rescue a retired racer.

When I told the foster about our reasons for wanting a dog, she gave me a look and told me not to expect too much watching from a greyhound.  As it turns out, they almost never bark, something I appreciate much more now that I have a small, yappy dog and a big dog with a loud, booming bark.

As a breed, greyhounds are extremely intelligent and retired racers are amazingly forgiving to humans for the misery they've had to endure.  They are also highly anxious and sensitive, both emotionally and physically.  Some day, when I don't travel as much, I'd like another one.

We named ours Lucky because we were conceited enough to believe he was lucky to find a home with us.

When you get a retired racer, they are like a clean slate.  They know nothing about living in a human home and can't even do basic dog things.  Keep in mind most rescues are at least 2 years old and more successful racers can be as old as 3 or 4 before they are no longer considered useful, so these are not young dogs.  It's really dismaying to take one home and realize they don't know even how to eat solid food.  The dogs are kept muzzled most of the time and are fed a kind of gruel that they can slurp up without opening their mouths enough to bite.  We had to soak his food in water for weeks before he learned how to chew.

When we first got him, I took him to my parents' house so they could meet him.  My dad was eating a sandwhich when we arrived.  He draped a slice of lunch meat over the dog's muzzle and Lucky just stood there, drooling, not realizing he could eat it.

Everything scared him at first: the t.v., the blow-dryer, the doorbell.  He was very tall; I could pet his head without bending over.  Most of his height was legs and he looked like he was on stilts.  When someone would come to the door, including when my husband came home from work, he'd run and hide behind the dining room table.  You could see his back over the table and his legs under it, but since he had his head hanging underneath and couldn't see us, he thought he was invisible to us as well.  Some watch dog.

He didn't know how to navigate steps.  I pulled my back out in the first few days because I was trying to take him to the basement with me and he fell through the railing.  I had to hold 80 pounds of dangling, squirming weight with one arm while I held on to the railing and eased us down far enough that it was safe to let him drop.  He never really did get the hang of stairs.  He'd walk his front legs down as far as he could and then jump the rest of the way.  In the basement that meant running into the wall each time but he seemed satisfied enough with the results.

The rescue warned us that greyhounds have blood vessels close to their very thin skin so they are very sensitive to hot and cold.  I found out just how sensitive the first time I gave him a bath.  I used warm, not hot, water.  As I was rinsing the soap off of him, he started getting a glazed look in his eyes.  Then his head started wobbling a bit and the next thing I knew, he'd fainted.  I had to spray him with cold water to revive him.  From then on I'd use water just warm enough to prevent my fingers from going numb and sometimes he'd get that look and I'd have to switch to cold water to bring him out of it.

Watching him after he took a bath was hilarious.  Like many dogs, he'd get super excited when he got out of the tub and would run around the house shaking off the water.  He wasn't very good at shaking, though. He'd start his shake in the front and by the time the shake got to his butt, his back legs would leave the floor and flail along with the rest of him.  He looked brain damaged.

I never had to train this dog.  He just picked up words from listening to me talk to him.  "Sit" wasn't something we worked on because with their long legs and heavy fronts compared to their behinds,  greyhounds aren't built to sit very well.  It was interesting to  learn about some of our own habits just by watching him respond to them.  At night when we'd turn off the t.v., he'd run to the back door, knowing it was time to go out before bed.

Everyone who has ever lived with me knows that I do not get woken up well.  Before I'm fully awake I'm kind of mean.  Lucky learned this about me quickly.  If he had to go outside at night, he'd whisper/whine in my husband's ear and then walk quietly out of the bedroom.  Once he got to the hallway, though, he'd usually wake me up anyway from the sound of his toenails clicking on the hard wood while he did his happy dance. But he really did try to be considerate and let me sleep.

Once he felt comfortable, he was a very affectionate dog.  He'd stand over my husband's legs while he sat in a chair, leaning the top of his head on my husband's chest.  He seemed to think he was sitting on daddy's lap.  He understood who "mommy", "daddy", and "Jason" were.  He also knew what stuff belonged to whom.

Once time my husband decided to tease the dog by sitting Jason on his lap and patting him and saying "good, Jason, good Jason."  While at the time it was cute and funny to watch the dog whine in distress and try to nudge Jason off of his dad's lap, Lucky got his revenge later on.  That night, he found Jason's favorite book and tore out individual pages and scattered them around the living room.  It took about 25 or so pages before he'd spent his anger.

He did the same to me.  If I did something to upset him, like leave the house without him, I'd come home to find (unused) tampons scattered all over the living room.  Each would have just a couple of puncture marks, so I knew he'd spent his evening walking from the master bath to the living room with just one at a time, biting down on it just for added benefit.

He had some major anxiety issues.  Any time he was confronted with a new situation or change to his routine, he'd shed.  And I don't mean a few hairs would fall off of his body.  Years ago there was a commercial for a vacuum cleaner that showed a cat standing on a carpet and then you'd see a kind of explosion of hair and then a naked cat standing in the middle of a hair pile.  With Lucky, it was kind of like that.

He'd also chew at his back until he had a huge, oozing sore, which was gross and scary at the same time.  He'd lick off any ointment we'd put on it and we couldn't bandage it.  I forget now how we solved the problem.  He probably just found another way to work off his neurosis.

Many racers are trained on live "bait", aka other small animals.  A rabbit could run right under Lucky's nose without him reacting in any way, but if he saw a cat or small, fluffy dog watch out.  One year we took a trip to Okinawa and left Lucky and our other two dogs with some customers who operated an unofficial kennel.  They would have 20 or more dogs staying loose at their house (which was amazingly clean with no dog odor.  I wish I knew how they did it).  I brought a crate to keep him away from any small, fluffy dogs that might be there, but when I arrived, I saw a cat walking around.  As it turned out, they had five.

"Ummm, I didn't know you had cats," I said.

"The cats will be fine.  They know how to stay away from the dogs," they answered.

Unfortunately, this was not the case.  One day while they were taking Lucky out, one of the cats decided to come out and watch.  Lucky snatched it and reportedly shook it in an incredibly vicious manner, killing it.  We had two other dogs there at the time as well, a pair of rott-shepherd mixes who were big but still not even a year old yet.  The female saw the murder and apparently thought, "so that's what those things are for!" and killed another one.  A third ran away, traumatized by the death of the other two.

I found all of this out when I called home to see how things were going.  Luckily, the sitters had my parents' number because they were going to take them all to the pound if no one picked them up.  While I understood that they were upset by the loss of their pets, I was a bit affronted by this because it wasn't like I could just leave Japan to fix the problem.

I still find it unfair that they blamed me for this situation.  In my eyes, they accepted responsibility for the care of their own and other people's animals for compensation and should have taken into account that dogs and cats are natural enemies.

Of course, when I point this out to them, I was told that it is a learned behavior for dogs to want to kill cats.

I disagree.

Every dog I have ever had, including those I've raised from puppyhood, have wanted to kick some serious cat ass.  And I have never once grabbed a cat by the throat, throttled it in front of my dog, and said, "Watch this!  Kill!  Maim!  Destroy!"

When you adopt a racer, the rescue checks to make sure you have a fenced yard.  Greyhounds don't spend a lot of time running; mostly they spend their day sleeping.  The problem is that if they do get loose and run, say to chase a squirrel or something, they go so fast and so far that by the time they stop, they are lost.  Lucky got loose a couple of times.  We'd find him when he finally got hungry and tried to go into someone's house.  When we'd get him home, he'd act pissed at us for a couple of days, presumably for not finding him faster.

At one point he started messing in the house while we were gone so we put him in a crate.  Unfortunately, racing dogs aren't let out of their sleeping areas when they have to eliminate so it didn't bother him to lay in his own excrement.

All these behaviors came to a head when we moved.  The private school my son was attending was less than nurturing and the public school in the area was out of the question, so I started house-shopping.  I spent months looking at houses in the school district we wanted and probably looked at 30 or more.  Compromises needed to be made.  My husband didn't get his garage and Lucky didn't get his fenced yard.  And since we'd just poured all of our disposable income into buying the house, we didn't have extra money to put a fence around over an acre of property.

Lucky did not take well to his new home.  He started having diarrhea every time we left the house.  It got to the point where he'd hear the car and just get in the bathtub.  We couldn't tie him outside because he knew how to slip out of his halter, plus he couldn't take the heat or the cold and Cincinnati has only about two weeks of that perfect spring and autumn weather.

The only back door to the house went through the white-carpeted living room, so I'd take the dogs out through the front.  Lucky ran past me more than once and nearly into the traffic on the busy road in front.  I was frustrated and worried for his safety and made a decision I regret to this day.  We decided to find him a new home.

I found someone who worked for the vet who had a small farm and had rescued several greyhounds.  It seemed like the perfect solution, until a week later when we got a call to pick him up at the vet where he was being sewn up after a fight with the other dogs.

I called the rescue where we got him and explained the problems and that we couldn't keep him any longer.  They were less than sympathetic.  Basically they told us we shouldn't have moved, which was pretty unreasonable of them but now I wish we'd tried longer.  Where was the Dog Whisperer when we needed him?

I'll never forget the day we gave him up.  We agreed to meet the volunteer in a parking lot.  Lucky was so excited to be going bye-bye.  He did his happy dance all over the place.  He got out of the van and happily sniffed around the parking lot.  Then he saw the man come up to us and his tail immediately went between his legs and his head drooped.  He knew.

I cried all the way home and I'm crying as I write this.  He was around 2 when we got him, he lived at our old house for at least 3 or 4 years and it's been 13 years since we moved.  Greyhounds live a long time, but I'm pretty sure he's passed on by now.

I hope some day I see him at that rainbow bridge so I can tell him I'm sorry.