While I discussed the negative aspects of Bast's separation anxiety last week, I didn't mean to come off all gloom and doom about him. Bast is a wonderful companion and I wouldn't trade his sweet nature for anything. In addition, his SA isn't always depressing - there are a lot of things about it that are unintentionally hilarious, mostly because they involve me looking like a total moron.
When I first got Bast, I didn't understand how bad SA could really get. My fat shepherd mix Grendel has very mild SA that usually involves her eating some of my things while I'm gone and whining a bit whenever I return home. Annoying, but no big deal.
Bast is on an entirely different plane of existence when it comes to separation anxiety. He has transcended mere worry and attained a sort of inverse anxiety nirvana where instead of being at peace, he's at panic. It's sadly one of the most defining aspects of his personality and has become the biggest issue we face together.
So the first time I left Bast alone, Cait and I were going to go perform the very feminine ritual of having our eyebrows waxed, an errand lasting around 40 minutes total. We tucked Bast away in his crate with his squashy doggy bed, several toys, and a chewy bone. Not wanting to disturb my next door neighbors, we situated his crate in my bedroom where he would be surrounded by my scent and wouldn't face the trauma of seeing us go out the door.
Less than an hour later, I stood on my porch, already smelling a tell-tale scent wafting out despite the closed door. It's that distinctive funk that lets you know what's up without any visual needed. You smell it faintly on your shoes when you arrive at your office for work and you just know what happened, and you don't need confirmation but you look for it anyway, like checking your tissues after you blow your nose.
You know what I mean.
We opened the door to hear panicked whining and panting and rushed in to survey the damage. A snow field of shredded bed cushions littered the crate and surrounding area. Underneath the dismembered remains of his doggy bed, the tray from the crate had slid forward to reveal the sight of diarrhea smeared all over the exposed carpets, ground in under the bars of the crate, mixed with dog urine in a nightmare mosaic of browns and yellows. Amidst this carnage stood Bast, ears and eyes downcast, the silky flag of his tail lowered and swaying in a clear sign of defeat and shame.
It was at this moment that I finally realized I rescued a special needs animal and my world had changed.
I adopted Bast at the start of May, and as a teacher, I had most of the summer to work on his SA with the help of my friend, Cait. I couldn't get started right away, though, as I had to leave the country for the month of June while Cait dogsat for me. Cait had work for a few hours each day, but that was apparently enough to cause major upset in the world of Bast. Cait told me that during this time, she just accepted that she would come home to find him smeared in dung and pee while we learned how to help him... Delightful.
I started working with Bast using a number of behavioral modifications for both of us. Bast's separation anxiety is no doubt caused by the severe lack of stability in his early life, hence why he values routine as much as he does. Routine is good - we know what to expect and we can count on things being the same.
Unfortunately, me leaving the house was not routine. I started just taking Bast with me wherever I went, which limited my destinations to either places with a drive-through or to PetSmart. Other than that, I didn't go anywhere all summer. It's weird to think now that I spent my entire summer only ever going to the dry-cleaner and to pet stores, but that's how it went.
To establish routines for Bastas, I researched separation anxiety tips online. One of the ways to acclimate your dog to you leaving, it said, is to try going through the front door for a small amount of time, say 10 seconds, and then return and act like normal. You gradually increase the amount of time spent outside until you remain out there for 30 minutes or more while your dog gets used to you coming and going and not treating it like a big deal.
Bast responded well to this, and it's actually something I still do for him. That means every weekday morning, I practice a bizarre ritual of opening and closing my door and standing on my porch for several seconds at a time while Bast lays on the couch and watches me come and go.
Bast also gets upset if he actually sees me leave outside the window. Since I have a large window right in front where I need to walk, after I do my neurotic door dance, I then have to wait several seconds to make sure he's not standing at the window, then crouch down like a frog and tiptoe underneath the eave of my window.
Now you know. Every day you see me or hear from me, I have spent that morning stepping in and out my door and then doing the walk of shame from my own home.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Broken Little Things
After I got in contact with the rescue where Bast initially came from, it was a lengthy and dramatic undertaking to find out how he'd managed to make his way from the rescue facilities in Alabama to a small town in Texas. A lot of it isn't really my story to tell, and I'll go into what I can later, but when we pieced everything together, I found out that at 8 months of age, Bast had already had at least 4 homes before me and possibly 5. He hadn't stayed at any one home longer than a few months before reaching me, and to put it mildly, being passed around like a hot potato gave him some baggage.
Bast is remarkably sweet and social - he's outgoing, friendly, and not afraid of new experiences like many wolfdogs can be if not properly socialized at a young age. Now, that's not to say he doesn't get spooked from time to time - he has the standard doggy fear of the vacuum as well as a few idiosyncratic phobias, such as an inexplicable terror of fitted bed sheets. I don't know how to explain that one, I really don't. I just make him leave the room now when I need to change the linens so I avoid the panting, whining fallout from busting out a fitted sheet.
So aside from a few curious quirks, Bast's biggest problem in life is a very intense case of separation anxiety. I'm not surprised, of course, since he got tossed across the country from home to home for most of his life, but the level of his anxiety is a serious problem to deal with. I have never been exposed to this degree of doggy neurosis, and some days are harder than others.
As I mentioned before, Bast does not do well with deviations in routine. After several months of working with him on his SA using behavior modifications (which I'll detail another time, as some of them are hilarious enough to warrant their own post), I wasn't making any progress and the semester was starting. Although as a teacher, I work for only a few hours out of the house each week, Bast was absolutely not taking my absences well - there was howling, barking, fear pooping and peeing, and outright wanton destruction of everything within reach. I'm not even sure how many sets of window blinds he's shredded so far. I think we may be at 4 now...? I'm getting pretty good at replacing them.
I ended up consulting a behavior specialist for dogs, who told me that I had done everything she would suggest to do as if I were running down a checklist in a textbook. At this point, she said, Bast's fear of abandonment was so deeply rooted in his poor little brain that there was no way he could even process the positive behavioral training I was attempting, let alone be okay with me leaving. In his mind, there was no such thing as "She's leaving but coming back". There was only the certainty of, "She's leaving me, everyone leaves me and they never come back".
Now, I would be lying to say there's none of the frustration of coming home to find my things destroyed - no matter how well I hide things, he always seems to find some treasured possession of mine to shred in my absence. What kills me, though, is knowing that while I'm out focusing on stupid things like catching the bus, he's at home focused on nothing but his fear of losing me. I can't stand knowing he's alone and scared because I'm not there.
Today was a bad day. Although he's been doing MILES better after seeing the specialist and being prescribed some anti-anxiety medication, he still has a huge problem with me leaving for my graduate classes in the evening. Since I only have each of these classes once a week, it's not often enough to establish a routine for him like my daily classes where I teach in the morning. So while he accepts my leaving every morning, leaving in the evening is still very scary to him.
Because of a miscommunication today, Bastas was alone a little longer than usual this evening and unfortunately ascended to a level of insanity he hasn't seen since getting on his medications. When I opened the door, the curiously flat smell of his raw-diet turds hit me in a hot wave. He fear pooped in the living room, and I discovered pee on a couch pillow.The trash was, of course, shredded, but that's pretty par for Bast's course. I expect that every day, so no big deal.
The real fun waited for me in the bedroom where I discovered my favorite belt shredded, the blinds dismantled and strewn across my bed, the window screen torn all the way up and also scattered in my sheets, and the window frame itself bent out of shape...
I just sat on the floor, disheartened and frustrated, and when Bast came up to me panting and whining, I swatted him away and yelled at him to leave me alone. He immediately darted for the security of his crate, looking startled and sad. He stayed there until I cleaned everything up, eyes the color of warm honey tracking my every move until I sat back down on the floor and stared back at him.We stayed like that for several minutes until I held out my arms to him and he came across the room, not making eye contact, to come curl up in my lap. With a lot of mutual snuffly kisses and soothing noises on my part, Bast eventually unwound from my lap and we cuddled up on the couch together to pick at some dinner and do homework.
I struggled for a while trying to summarize how I feel about Bast and his SA here. I guess what I'm trying to address is that some people might get the impression that having a wolfdog is all sunshine, roses, and getting compliments at Petsmart. People want them because they want to look cool, to brag about their pet as if they had anything to do with its existence besides paying for it. But Bast has paid a heavy price for this kind of attitude - bred by someone looking to turn a quick buck, rehomed and returned to the pound at least once by people adopting him and then discovering they couldn't handle him, he's a nervous wreck because of people's inability to commit to the level of care he needs. God knows I struggle with him, too, but in the big picture, even when he freaks out and shreds the windows, nothing's broken that money can't fix.
I can buy new window screens, but there are things inside that pointy, neurotic little head that I can't replace.
Bast is remarkably sweet and social - he's outgoing, friendly, and not afraid of new experiences like many wolfdogs can be if not properly socialized at a young age. Now, that's not to say he doesn't get spooked from time to time - he has the standard doggy fear of the vacuum as well as a few idiosyncratic phobias, such as an inexplicable terror of fitted bed sheets. I don't know how to explain that one, I really don't. I just make him leave the room now when I need to change the linens so I avoid the panting, whining fallout from busting out a fitted sheet.
So aside from a few curious quirks, Bast's biggest problem in life is a very intense case of separation anxiety. I'm not surprised, of course, since he got tossed across the country from home to home for most of his life, but the level of his anxiety is a serious problem to deal with. I have never been exposed to this degree of doggy neurosis, and some days are harder than others.
As I mentioned before, Bast does not do well with deviations in routine. After several months of working with him on his SA using behavior modifications (which I'll detail another time, as some of them are hilarious enough to warrant their own post), I wasn't making any progress and the semester was starting. Although as a teacher, I work for only a few hours out of the house each week, Bast was absolutely not taking my absences well - there was howling, barking, fear pooping and peeing, and outright wanton destruction of everything within reach. I'm not even sure how many sets of window blinds he's shredded so far. I think we may be at 4 now...? I'm getting pretty good at replacing them.
I ended up consulting a behavior specialist for dogs, who told me that I had done everything she would suggest to do as if I were running down a checklist in a textbook. At this point, she said, Bast's fear of abandonment was so deeply rooted in his poor little brain that there was no way he could even process the positive behavioral training I was attempting, let alone be okay with me leaving. In his mind, there was no such thing as "She's leaving but coming back". There was only the certainty of, "She's leaving me, everyone leaves me and they never come back".
Now, I would be lying to say there's none of the frustration of coming home to find my things destroyed - no matter how well I hide things, he always seems to find some treasured possession of mine to shred in my absence. What kills me, though, is knowing that while I'm out focusing on stupid things like catching the bus, he's at home focused on nothing but his fear of losing me. I can't stand knowing he's alone and scared because I'm not there.
Today was a bad day. Although he's been doing MILES better after seeing the specialist and being prescribed some anti-anxiety medication, he still has a huge problem with me leaving for my graduate classes in the evening. Since I only have each of these classes once a week, it's not often enough to establish a routine for him like my daily classes where I teach in the morning. So while he accepts my leaving every morning, leaving in the evening is still very scary to him.
Because of a miscommunication today, Bastas was alone a little longer than usual this evening and unfortunately ascended to a level of insanity he hasn't seen since getting on his medications. When I opened the door, the curiously flat smell of his raw-diet turds hit me in a hot wave. He fear pooped in the living room, and I discovered pee on a couch pillow.The trash was, of course, shredded, but that's pretty par for Bast's course. I expect that every day, so no big deal.
The real fun waited for me in the bedroom where I discovered my favorite belt shredded, the blinds dismantled and strewn across my bed, the window screen torn all the way up and also scattered in my sheets, and the window frame itself bent out of shape...
I just sat on the floor, disheartened and frustrated, and when Bast came up to me panting and whining, I swatted him away and yelled at him to leave me alone. He immediately darted for the security of his crate, looking startled and sad. He stayed there until I cleaned everything up, eyes the color of warm honey tracking my every move until I sat back down on the floor and stared back at him.We stayed like that for several minutes until I held out my arms to him and he came across the room, not making eye contact, to come curl up in my lap. With a lot of mutual snuffly kisses and soothing noises on my part, Bast eventually unwound from my lap and we cuddled up on the couch together to pick at some dinner and do homework.
I struggled for a while trying to summarize how I feel about Bast and his SA here. I guess what I'm trying to address is that some people might get the impression that having a wolfdog is all sunshine, roses, and getting compliments at Petsmart. People want them because they want to look cool, to brag about their pet as if they had anything to do with its existence besides paying for it. But Bast has paid a heavy price for this kind of attitude - bred by someone looking to turn a quick buck, rehomed and returned to the pound at least once by people adopting him and then discovering they couldn't handle him, he's a nervous wreck because of people's inability to commit to the level of care he needs. God knows I struggle with him, too, but in the big picture, even when he freaks out and shreds the windows, nothing's broken that money can't fix.
I can buy new window screens, but there are things inside that pointy, neurotic little head that I can't replace.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Morning Stompies
Like a child with severe ADD, Bastas needs a lot of structure in his life and he doesn't tolerate deviations in routine, no matter how small. This morning I didn't need to get up and make lesson plans, so I decided to hit the snooze on my alarm to catch another 10 minutes of warm, blanketed peace and quiet.
Now, Bast doesn't normally doesn't express interest in my well-being. That's not to say he doesn't show love, or that he's indifferent to me - when I was diagnosed with early stages of cervical cancer earlier this year, he found me crying on the kitchen floor and snuggled up to lick my tears away. He is extremely sweet and attentive to my moods, but if I stub my toe and go on a shrieking bender, the biggest reaction I normally get from him is a raised head and an indignant huff for disturbing his nap. Emotional pain, he's all support; physical pain, well, not so much...
This morning after I hit the snooze, Bast became extremely concerned that I didn't immediately get up. It started with a polite snuffling at the side of the bed - a subdued huff of air to check that I was indeed still laying in bed like a slug. He pushed his nose under the hand that lay draped over the bedside, as if to say, "Excuse me, miss, the alarm went off. I heard it. It's time for your shower."
When this elicited no response except a muffled, "mornin'bast,go'wayimstillsleepin", he joined me on the bed with a delicate leap, making sure to place all his feet anywhere but on me with his usual long-legged grace. I thought he would curl up beside me and join me in my snooze, but after a few seconds, I opened my eyes to see him standing over me, watching my face. I closed my eyes again, wanting to enjoy my lay-in...
Unfortunately for my peaceful morning, after sniffing, prodding, and staring, Bast's next step to exorcise whatever demon was keeping me in bed was to stomp the hell out of my mid-section. He reared up and pounced, looking every bit a fox leaping on a field mouse, and came crashing down onto my stomach.
While being chased around dodging pillows was probably not how Bast foresaw the results of his actions, I did get out of bed like he wanted.
Bastas: 1
Internal Organs: 0
Now, Bast doesn't normally doesn't express interest in my well-being. That's not to say he doesn't show love, or that he's indifferent to me - when I was diagnosed with early stages of cervical cancer earlier this year, he found me crying on the kitchen floor and snuggled up to lick my tears away. He is extremely sweet and attentive to my moods, but if I stub my toe and go on a shrieking bender, the biggest reaction I normally get from him is a raised head and an indignant huff for disturbing his nap. Emotional pain, he's all support; physical pain, well, not so much...
This morning after I hit the snooze, Bast became extremely concerned that I didn't immediately get up. It started with a polite snuffling at the side of the bed - a subdued huff of air to check that I was indeed still laying in bed like a slug. He pushed his nose under the hand that lay draped over the bedside, as if to say, "Excuse me, miss, the alarm went off. I heard it. It's time for your shower."
When this elicited no response except a muffled, "mornin'bast,go'wayimstillsleepin", he joined me on the bed with a delicate leap, making sure to place all his feet anywhere but on me with his usual long-legged grace. I thought he would curl up beside me and join me in my snooze, but after a few seconds, I opened my eyes to see him standing over me, watching my face. I closed my eyes again, wanting to enjoy my lay-in...
Unfortunately for my peaceful morning, after sniffing, prodding, and staring, Bast's next step to exorcise whatever demon was keeping me in bed was to stomp the hell out of my mid-section. He reared up and pounced, looking every bit a fox leaping on a field mouse, and came crashing down onto my stomach.
While being chased around dodging pillows was probably not how Bast foresaw the results of his actions, I did get out of bed like he wanted.
Bastas: 1
Internal Organs: 0
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Foundling Found
After I had Bast for a few weeks, things started to settle down. His lung infection cleared up and he stopped leaving little puddles of mucus on every surface. I figured out his diet and dried out the Everlasting Fount of Bodily Fluids, except for his complete disdain for letting me know when he needed to go outside and pee. My trusty Bissell carpet cleaner saw a lot of action in those first few weeks, although I began to loathe the smell of carpet cleaner almost as much as the smell of concentrated wolfdog pee. I still can't stand it, I use vinegar to clean the house now...
I had had Bast for about two weeks when I was creeping on Craigslist (again). Although I normally cruise the postings looking at puppies, this time I looked for something specific - news of a little Belgian Shepherd mix. It was hard for me to believe that this sweet little dog was so unwanted that his owners would just dump him at the pound and not care any more. While I know that people are terrible and that much worse things go on in the world, it hurt my heart to think that someone would toss him out like trash because their other dogs didn't like him.
Although I was only casually looking at posts, I found what I expected - an ad asking about Bast. I don't have the ad saved, but I remember the contents of it well. There were several pictures, including the ones from the previous ad and the gut-wrenching shelter picture:
My heart dropped a little. That was my boy. Even though I'd only had him a few weeks, that was my boy. The ad asked for whomever had adopted a 9 month old Belgian Shepherd from the pound to please reply, as he had "special needs".
At this point, sitting in my living room, surveying the wreckage of Bast's toys, the still drying spots of scrubbed out barf and diarrhea in the carpet, and the elephant graveyard of raw bones laying everywhere, "special needs" was not really a strong enough phrase to describe Bast, but it's close enough.
I almost didn't reply to the ad. That sounds terrible, and it is, but I was still mad at these strangers for leaving him at the pound. Bast was only a few hours away from being destroyed when I got him. To me, these buttholes damned an innocent dog to death for the crime of being sweet, and I was pissed. Screw them and screw their concern, it was too late for that.
But looking more closely at the post, I realized it was from a different person. These were not the people who dumped him, but a wolfdog rescue a few states away. I started creeping again and found their website to have a look around, and finally replied. At this point, I was really unsure if keeping Bast was going to work out.
To explain, at the time of writing this, I live in an apartment. Pet-friendly, but still not the ideal place to have a wolfdog, or really any high-maintenance dog. I realize this, and I've gotten crap from strangers before for my decision to rescue him. I accept that criticism because it's true, and the people saying it are just concerned for Bast's well-being, but I stand by my decision - I felt, and still feel, that it was better to save him and have him temporarily live in a smaller space with me than for him to be gassed to death, alone and scared, and have his body tossed out to be burned like a bag of trash.
Grim, but that's the truth of the situation. Anyone who thinks he's better off dead than living in an apartment needs to reconsider their priorities. And also blow me.
So anyway, when the rescue replied with information about Bast, we discussed sending him back. They told me what he was exactly, and where he came from, and that he was kibble intolerant (no news to me, yeeccchhh), and said that if I wanted to send him back, they would arrange for him to be rehomed.
I said yes. And then I cried for about 3 days straight.
I was inconsolable. I moped piteously around my apartment, shuffling bones into Bast's toybox, taking him for walks and only smiling when I saw him. I knew in my head that it would be best to send him back - easier, certainly. In just a couple weeks, my life had been completely rearranged to accommodate him and his "special needs". His vet bills were outrageously expensive, his food costly, he couldn't be left alone, so I was effectively housebound, and to top it off, I was planning to leave the country for a month in a few weeks.
But we had something good together. He was a broken little thing, and just starting to come out of his shell and be a puppy again. I had to weigh the options - leaving him for a month would be confusing for him, but I wasn't sure it would be any less stressful than a cross-country roadtrip, only to be rehomed at least one more time before settling down, IF the new home kept him.
I've never felt so absolutely shitty about trying to do the right thing in my life.
So I talked to the rescue, who talked among themselves. I got a lot of really great support from them, and we all came to the conclusion that with a lot of work, Bast would likely be okay living indoors with me. I promised them, though, that if I ever couldn't handle it any more, he would go straight back to them. That's a promise I'm glad to keep, as it's a serious load off my mind knowing that if something ever happened to me, he has an experienced and welcoming home to go to and be safe.
It hasn't been easy, but Bast adjusted to being an indoor dog with very few problems. He still gets up to mischief, but that will be pages and pages of blog entries for later.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Mini-Entry
At Bast's most recent veterinary weigh-in, he came in at a dainty 58 pounds. To put it in perspective, when I got him in May he was a 36 pound bag of bones, which means he steadily put on 22 pounds over the last 5 months. I wish I could come up with a more elegant description of his weight gain, but the only word that comes to mind is "beefcake".
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Homecoming continued
Yesterday was sort of strange - I hadn't expected such a warm response to a Bastas blog. While I find every last detail of his day enthralling, I honestly believed that probably no one else cared to hear about him, so it came as a happy surprise. I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do even though I've only had him 5 months. Every day is another adventure for us, and while they aren't all as outrageous as a spontaneous roadtrip across the state to adopt a strange wolfdog, our days are always filled.
I left off yesterday with a happy but exhausted puppy asleep on the couch. It seemed like a good place to stop after remembering how horrible he looked the first day - I got a little tight in the throat writing that out yesterday, if you want to know. It's only been 5 months, so I can still think back and remember the feel of his emaciated ribs under my hands. While bathing him that night, my best friend Cait and I discovered several scabs from old wounds on him, presumably where his previous owner's other dogs has been attacking him. It was kind of a miracle that I was even able to adopt him - the pound told me that he had been dropped off twice.
The first time, they told me, the owner surrendered him because of a landlord dispute. I found out later this wasn't true, but that's another story. Owner surrenders are usually only given 72 hours before they are put down, but he was adopted out to the people who would eventually post about him on Craigslist. As I understand, they had him for about a month before bringing him back.
So there he was on strike two of an owner surrender. Because of what he was, and that he was a repeat surrender, it was shocking that they gave him another chance to be adopted out instead of destroying him immediately. The shelter workers were sad to see him again, though, and wanted to give him another shot. I'm extremely grateful that they did - I still keep in sporadic touch with them about his welfare, as they were concerned I would bring him back, too, or dump him off if he was too much to handle. Joke's on them, though; I'm good and hooked.
The shelter workers weren't unjustified in doubting my abilities, though - I had next to no knowledge of how to care for his particular breed of dog. Some Google investigation indicated that he would need higher protein food, though, so I picked up a bag of Blue Buffalo Wilderness puppy chow and got all excited to start trying to put weight on my skinny little boy.
Even with a higher protein food, though, Bastas would not stop vomiting. I mean, like, pints of barf. The poor guy seemed to be made of upchuck. He would heave up every last bit of kibble he ate, continue retching until he had only bile left, and then when the bile was gone, he lay curled on the floor, dry heaving into the carpet.
Hour by hour, it became a guessing game of desperation: Okay well, how about another kind of food? No, all right... How about sensitive stomach food? Oh my God, no, now it's coming out both ends.
It only took a day of scrubbing bile and diarrhea stains from my carpet for me to realize that my Bissell Green Machine would never return to its cabinet again.
At this point, watching his skinny sides heave up everything I tried to feed him, I began to wonder if I'd rescued this dog to watch him die in front of me.
People have many different ways of dealing with desperate problems. Some turn to God, others to vices like alcohol or drugs. Me, I turn to Google, and it was to Google that I sent prayers in the form of searches.
Omniscient Google had answers for me. In the course of trying to prepare for Bast's arrival, I remembered reading that some wolfdogs require a raw diet. I hadn't the foggiest idea how to handle that, aside from buying some meat and tossing it out to him, but my little prince was fading and I needed to do something. I bookmarked some blogs on raw feeding, took some notes, and made a plan of action.
Off I went to buy meat, and lots of it. I ended up going to Market Street and asking the butchers of they had any sort of scraps. They delivered in a big way - 10 pounds of awesome cuts of beef trimmed off their steaks and roasts. Normally, they said, they turn these cuts into the ground chuck, so they had plenty to sell me at a slightly discounted rate.
Meat accomplished.
Not sure how much to give him, I grabbed a slimy handful of beef cuts and offered them to Bast, who stumbled into the kitchen to see what was up. I half expected him to turn his nose up at it, but he tested out a piece and, finding it satisfactory, laid down on the tile to finish the bowl.
I'd never fed a dog nothing but raw meat. My older shepherd mix, Grendel, often has problems with too much protein in her diet and ends up with the green apple trots from it. That's just from food that's too rich; from a dog that was eating nothing but a handful of uncooked meat, I expected some serious brown fireworks. But, pragmatically, what was the point of worrying about it? I was already scrubbing so much barf and diarrhea out of the carpet, I figured if it didn't work, I wouldn't be in a worse position if it came to "bombs away".
You can imagine, then, how shocked I was when hours later, there was no sign of vomiting or diarrhea. Keep in mind, his ventures with dog kibble had produced significant amounts of both, sometimes within 15 minutes of him eating. I cautiously fed him a little more meat, which he bolted down, so I stopped in fear of feeding him too much too quickly.
Over the next few days, we worked out a feeding schedule as he continued to keep all of the meat down and his diarrhea stopped. His nose still ran like a faucet, and he coughed like he'd been chain smoking since the womb, but now he had energy and spunk to get up and play.
I've since learned that raw feeding is much, much more complicated than just schlepping out handfuls of meat every so often, but for the first time, my Bastas was acting like a puppy instead of a miserable, furry puddle of bodily functions. It got us past the fear of him dying from neglect and hunger so we could tackle his behavioral problems.
But that's going to be yet another long, long post.
I left off yesterday with a happy but exhausted puppy asleep on the couch. It seemed like a good place to stop after remembering how horrible he looked the first day - I got a little tight in the throat writing that out yesterday, if you want to know. It's only been 5 months, so I can still think back and remember the feel of his emaciated ribs under my hands. While bathing him that night, my best friend Cait and I discovered several scabs from old wounds on him, presumably where his previous owner's other dogs has been attacking him. It was kind of a miracle that I was even able to adopt him - the pound told me that he had been dropped off twice.
The first time, they told me, the owner surrendered him because of a landlord dispute. I found out later this wasn't true, but that's another story. Owner surrenders are usually only given 72 hours before they are put down, but he was adopted out to the people who would eventually post about him on Craigslist. As I understand, they had him for about a month before bringing him back.
So there he was on strike two of an owner surrender. Because of what he was, and that he was a repeat surrender, it was shocking that they gave him another chance to be adopted out instead of destroying him immediately. The shelter workers were sad to see him again, though, and wanted to give him another shot. I'm extremely grateful that they did - I still keep in sporadic touch with them about his welfare, as they were concerned I would bring him back, too, or dump him off if he was too much to handle. Joke's on them, though; I'm good and hooked.
The shelter workers weren't unjustified in doubting my abilities, though - I had next to no knowledge of how to care for his particular breed of dog. Some Google investigation indicated that he would need higher protein food, though, so I picked up a bag of Blue Buffalo Wilderness puppy chow and got all excited to start trying to put weight on my skinny little boy.
Even with a higher protein food, though, Bastas would not stop vomiting. I mean, like, pints of barf. The poor guy seemed to be made of upchuck. He would heave up every last bit of kibble he ate, continue retching until he had only bile left, and then when the bile was gone, he lay curled on the floor, dry heaving into the carpet.
Hour by hour, it became a guessing game of desperation: Okay well, how about another kind of food? No, all right... How about sensitive stomach food? Oh my God, no, now it's coming out both ends.
It only took a day of scrubbing bile and diarrhea stains from my carpet for me to realize that my Bissell Green Machine would never return to its cabinet again.
At this point, watching his skinny sides heave up everything I tried to feed him, I began to wonder if I'd rescued this dog to watch him die in front of me.
People have many different ways of dealing with desperate problems. Some turn to God, others to vices like alcohol or drugs. Me, I turn to Google, and it was to Google that I sent prayers in the form of searches.
Omniscient Google had answers for me. In the course of trying to prepare for Bast's arrival, I remembered reading that some wolfdogs require a raw diet. I hadn't the foggiest idea how to handle that, aside from buying some meat and tossing it out to him, but my little prince was fading and I needed to do something. I bookmarked some blogs on raw feeding, took some notes, and made a plan of action.
Off I went to buy meat, and lots of it. I ended up going to Market Street and asking the butchers of they had any sort of scraps. They delivered in a big way - 10 pounds of awesome cuts of beef trimmed off their steaks and roasts. Normally, they said, they turn these cuts into the ground chuck, so they had plenty to sell me at a slightly discounted rate.
Meat accomplished.
Not sure how much to give him, I grabbed a slimy handful of beef cuts and offered them to Bast, who stumbled into the kitchen to see what was up. I half expected him to turn his nose up at it, but he tested out a piece and, finding it satisfactory, laid down on the tile to finish the bowl.
I'd never fed a dog nothing but raw meat. My older shepherd mix, Grendel, often has problems with too much protein in her diet and ends up with the green apple trots from it. That's just from food that's too rich; from a dog that was eating nothing but a handful of uncooked meat, I expected some serious brown fireworks. But, pragmatically, what was the point of worrying about it? I was already scrubbing so much barf and diarrhea out of the carpet, I figured if it didn't work, I wouldn't be in a worse position if it came to "bombs away".
You can imagine, then, how shocked I was when hours later, there was no sign of vomiting or diarrhea. Keep in mind, his ventures with dog kibble had produced significant amounts of both, sometimes within 15 minutes of him eating. I cautiously fed him a little more meat, which he bolted down, so I stopped in fear of feeding him too much too quickly.
Over the next few days, we worked out a feeding schedule as he continued to keep all of the meat down and his diarrhea stopped. His nose still ran like a faucet, and he coughed like he'd been chain smoking since the womb, but now he had energy and spunk to get up and play.
I've since learned that raw feeding is much, much more complicated than just schlepping out handfuls of meat every so often, but for the first time, my Bastas was acting like a puppy instead of a miserable, furry puddle of bodily functions. It got us past the fear of him dying from neglect and hunger so we could tackle his behavioral problems.
But that's going to be yet another long, long post.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Let's Do This
After a lot of poking and prodding from my friends, I'm starting a blog about my adventures with my wolfdog, Bastas. The suggestions to start a blog may have been partially fueled by a desire for me to stop spamming Facebook with pictures and short stories, but I think a blog is better suited to story-telling anyway. ;)
My other entries probably won't be such a wall of text, but introductions take a while.
I suppose a background of the story of Bastas is in order, since he's the star of this show. So, I'll tell you first how he came to me, a broken little thing in need of rescue.
About 5 months ago, in May of 2013, I was being a creep. This is not unusual for me, but this particular bout of creepery involved trawling Craigslist to look at critters. To be honest, I'm not sure why I look at animals on Craigslist. It inevitably makes me angry and sad to see all the animals being bred, sold, or rehomed for reasons like "Just don't have time anymore!" or "Moving to an apartment!" I'll save that particular diatribe for another entry, though.
You can imagine that looking at puppies and hearing their sad stories is all manner of tempting, but I looked at animals on Craigslist for years and had never been impulsive enough to get one. There were some close calls, but good sense prevailed over good intentions.
The first week of May, I saw a post for a 9 month old Belgian Shepherd mix in a nearby town. The post mentioned that he was part wolf, but didn't say anything else about him except that he was being beat up by the owner's other dogs. I remember sending the post to my best friend, Cait, and that the email contained only the phrase "JESUS CHRIST." I can be so eloquent at times.
I wanted him, sure, but I knew I wasn't in a position to take care of a puppy, much less one with possible wolf in him. I closed the ad, and while I didn't really forget about it, I moved on. The dog wasn't in immediate danger, and I thought that being a very good-looking wolfdog, someone would snatch him right up and he'd have a home.
Several days later, surprise surprise, I was creeping on Craigslist again, where I found another ad there for the same dog. I opened it, wanting to see the picture again, and noticed different contents this time - they no longer had the dog. The post said, "Posting for a friend! They took him to the shelter, so if you want a good dog, you'll have to go get him there! He's really sweet but it's too much trouble to keep all the dogs separated!"
I cried.
I guess maybe I'm too soft, or too vulnerable, but I cried. I have a soft spot for animals and I knew the shelter the dog was taken to was not a happy place. Are they ever? I'd been there in the past and seen how miserable and sad the dogs inside were, all of them waiting to die, none of them knowing why they were there or what they had done wrong and why their people weren't there to save them and I cried.
Buckle up, because I'm going to get wishy-washy for a minute.
Sometimes you reach those watershed moments in life where you have to make a decision that reaches down to the soul of who you are, and this was one of those moments for me. I knew that impulsively getting a wolfdog puppy because of some internet sob story wasn't one of my more responsible adventures... But I also knew in my heart that if I let this happen, if I let this dog die because it was easier or more convenient for me, I would not be the sort of person I want to be in this world.
So this time, good intentions won over good sense and I started plotting.
I wasn't 100% sure I knew which shelter held him, so I emailed the poster of the second ad, but of course got no response. What did they care, the dog wasn't their problem any more, so why bother, I guess.
Everything seemed to line up at that moment. I have family in that city, and as luck would have it, one member who I knew would be irresponsible and crazy enough to help me spring a wolfdog out of the pound. After an amused phone call, my cousin agreed to help me search for the dog, and we got work.
An hour later, I hit gold when the city pound posted this image to their website:
My other entries probably won't be such a wall of text, but introductions take a while.
I suppose a background of the story of Bastas is in order, since he's the star of this show. So, I'll tell you first how he came to me, a broken little thing in need of rescue.
About 5 months ago, in May of 2013, I was being a creep. This is not unusual for me, but this particular bout of creepery involved trawling Craigslist to look at critters. To be honest, I'm not sure why I look at animals on Craigslist. It inevitably makes me angry and sad to see all the animals being bred, sold, or rehomed for reasons like "Just don't have time anymore!" or "Moving to an apartment!" I'll save that particular diatribe for another entry, though.
You can imagine that looking at puppies and hearing their sad stories is all manner of tempting, but I looked at animals on Craigslist for years and had never been impulsive enough to get one. There were some close calls, but good sense prevailed over good intentions.
The first week of May, I saw a post for a 9 month old Belgian Shepherd mix in a nearby town. The post mentioned that he was part wolf, but didn't say anything else about him except that he was being beat up by the owner's other dogs. I remember sending the post to my best friend, Cait, and that the email contained only the phrase "JESUS CHRIST." I can be so eloquent at times.
I wanted him, sure, but I knew I wasn't in a position to take care of a puppy, much less one with possible wolf in him. I closed the ad, and while I didn't really forget about it, I moved on. The dog wasn't in immediate danger, and I thought that being a very good-looking wolfdog, someone would snatch him right up and he'd have a home.
Several days later, surprise surprise, I was creeping on Craigslist again, where I found another ad there for the same dog. I opened it, wanting to see the picture again, and noticed different contents this time - they no longer had the dog. The post said, "Posting for a friend! They took him to the shelter, so if you want a good dog, you'll have to go get him there! He's really sweet but it's too much trouble to keep all the dogs separated!"
I cried.
I guess maybe I'm too soft, or too vulnerable, but I cried. I have a soft spot for animals and I knew the shelter the dog was taken to was not a happy place. Are they ever? I'd been there in the past and seen how miserable and sad the dogs inside were, all of them waiting to die, none of them knowing why they were there or what they had done wrong and why their people weren't there to save them and I cried.
Buckle up, because I'm going to get wishy-washy for a minute.
Sometimes you reach those watershed moments in life where you have to make a decision that reaches down to the soul of who you are, and this was one of those moments for me. I knew that impulsively getting a wolfdog puppy because of some internet sob story wasn't one of my more responsible adventures... But I also knew in my heart that if I let this happen, if I let this dog die because it was easier or more convenient for me, I would not be the sort of person I want to be in this world.
So this time, good intentions won over good sense and I started plotting.
I wasn't 100% sure I knew which shelter held him, so I emailed the poster of the second ad, but of course got no response. What did they care, the dog wasn't their problem any more, so why bother, I guess.
Everything seemed to line up at that moment. I have family in that city, and as luck would have it, one member who I knew would be irresponsible and crazy enough to help me spring a wolfdog out of the pound. After an amused phone call, my cousin agreed to help me search for the dog, and we got work.
An hour later, I hit gold when the city pound posted this image to their website:
There was my foundling. There he was, plainly miserable and alone. I still had a problem, though - he was being held in a city several hours away and I had no way to get him before he was due to be destroyed. My cousin came to the rescue again, going out to the pound to negotiate an extension for the dog and visiting him to check him out.
My cousin's reports came back enthralled - the dog was even more gorgeous in person, very calm and very friendly. The shelter agreed to give him an extension, and listed him as a Belgian Shepherd mix on all of his paperwork to avoid the "w" word. I spent the next days stockpiling dog supplies and mulling over names, and when the day came, I loaded up my best friend in the car and we drove to meet my cousin.
Our first meeting was overwhelming in a lot of ways. Superficially, he was breath-taking to see in person - all long limbs and grace even as a puppy (I found out later he was only 8 months old, not 9). He lacked any signs of puppy clumsiness, and had the stateliness and calm of a much older dog. My cousin raved about his agility and athleticism, and his relaxed, pleasant temperament. All of my family that had met him was charmed by him, and my cousin asked, only half-jokingly, if I was sure I wanted him - if not, he would gladly load the dog back in the car and take him home with him.
Under the looks, though, was a level of neglect that was hard to look at or think about for long. His greasy coat stank of urine. Clumps of feces and vomit stuck to his sunken sides, where you could see each individual rib outlined in pale skin. His spine stuck up out of the fur on his back, and his hips sunk in so far, you could fit your entire balled up fist into the empty socket where flesh should. His armpits bled from the wads of ticks balled underneath them, and he had the tell-tale, booming hack and snort of a raging case of kennel cough. Anywhere he stood for more than a few minutes became a tiny lake of the mucus that dripped continually from his nose.
After a lot of bathing and brushing, he turned into this:
And then fell straight asleep on the couch.
I didn't know it at the time, but I had just adopted a whole heap of trouble for myself. But more on that later :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)