Nothing Inspiring, Just A Story About Poop

Reflecting on Bast's oddities, I remembered an amusing story that took place shortly after I got him. When I first got Bastas, his house-training left a lot to be desired. He marked in the house constantly, I'm sure driven by his insecurity and fear in yet another new home, and his illnesses gave him frequent and persistent diarrhea for the first few weeks he lived here. House-training came back to him relatively quickly, but the first few months were pretty... Well let's say I'm betting Bissell's stock inexplicably rose a few points last summer.

Part of the difficulty in potty-training Bast was that I was unable to read his body language. Now I know him well enough, and he knows me in turn, that we can have simple exchanges of ideas and communicate easily, but in the beginning, there wasn't a very clear difference between the "I want to go play outside" dance and the "I'm about to shit all up in this place" dance.

One morning after stepping out of the shower, I misread his nervous prancing. It turned out that, no, he did not want to just go outside and sniff every blade of grass between here and the Mississippi, he really *did* need to go out for business. Of course, I didn't realize my error until he'd hunkered down in that distinctively vulnerable dog squat and laid the first half of a big o' fudge dragon on my white carpets. I yelled, dismayed, and scrambled to get him collared and leashed to finish outside. In my haste, I flung open the door before I clipped his leash.

Poor Bastas, already nervous in a new home and now concerned that I was mad at him, understandably took off out the door like a rabbit. While Bast is one of the fastest creatures I've ever seen, his fearful escape was somewhat hampered by the fact that he wasn't done pooping, and so instead of his usual graceful lope, he scuttled off like a big, black crab with a broken-off turd hanging out of the back of him like some nutty-brown banner streaming in the wind.

Clad only on my bare feet and silken bath-robe, I took off down my balcony after him. It was early in the morning and in an effort to not shout and wake my neighbors, I kept calling after him in that bizarre whisper-shout, the kind you hear moms use to chastise their kids in church - "BASTAS. NO, BASTAS, COME BACK. BASTAS, I'M NOT MAD JUST C'MERE."

As Bast reached the stop of the stairs leading down to the courtyard, two things happened - first, he finished his dookie dash, stood up straight, and met my eyes with a shocked expression; second, I remembered that I had left the front door wide open and my conure was free-flying in the house. We both reached our decisions simultaneously.

Bast, fearful that I was after his brown gold, dashed forward, snatched his shit log, and tore off down the stairs. I whirled around and ran for the front door to assure that my parrot was still inside and secure her in her cage. I scooped her up, put her safely away in her cage, and turned to find Bast standing in the front door watching me, as if sad I hadn't continued to chase him across the neighborhood half-naked and whisper-shrieking at him to drop the turd.

He came back empty-mouthed. I never did find out what happened to that turd.

Ponderous Morning Thoughts

Semi-serious post here, so if you're looking for giggles, hold tight and I'll post something funny later.

When it comes to wolfdogs (or any dog, really), most people have their favorite look. My favorites of the woofer varieties are the black phases, like Bast, and the Arctics. I'd love to have another dark werewolf someday, or a lovely tan and cream Arctic-type like Bast's beautiful little sister.

With as nuts as Bast is, I'm really not interested in any higher level of wolf content than he is. Lower mid content is just about perfect for me, since I like house pets. I want my dog to be able to come in and chill out on the couch with me without constantly worrying what they're up to or if they've peed somewhere. With Bast, he has more dog than wolf and is thus more mellow and trainable, but still has the beautiful, exotic looks and capricious personality of a wolfdog.

I like my pets to have solid centers but be a little fay around the edges.

I recently found out hat a breeder I greatly admire has a litter of lower mids mothered by one of my very favorite Arctic-types. It's like everything conspired against me to create a creature that would most tempt me - lower mid, beautiful parents, lovingly raised and socialized by an attentive breeder. Be still my beating heart, etc.

My mind whirled trying to see how I could make it work. I'm moving soon to a place with a yard, Bast needs a friend his own size and age, I need this, go do it yes.

But as I was envisioning trying to finagle a puppy, into my head popped the image of a recent rescue that's been tugging at my heart. A little 9 month old boy, covered in mange and scabs, scared, abused, emaciated and malnourished; I couldn't help but see the similarities to Bast in the pound when we found him - the same dog, terrified, shutting down, in desperate need of love and a good meal, flinching at every sudden move and never smiling.

And then I realized why the idea of a puppy was bothering me. Not that getting a puppy from a responsible, ethical breeder is a bad thing - far from it. I wish more people would research and take the time to buy their animals from people who care what happens to them.

But if I'd had a puppy from a breeder, I couldn't have gotten Bast and made sure he never had to worry about going hungry or being afraid again. Bast does need a friend, yes, but I want the opportunity to give a home to some dog who needs a bit more kindness in their life, because I know that unarguably, I can provide a good home some day to another dog in need.

This may mean I have to wait a bit longer - rescues are notoriously exacting in their standards for homes, and many may not think me a good option for a variety of reasons, but when the day comes when I can be there for another Bastas, I don't want to be short on space because I just desperately needed to have a dog that looks a certain way.

Apex Predator

I haven't had a lot of time to write lately - I apologize about the dearth of posts. Rest assured, Bast has done a lot of stupid things to report, but I thought I'd give a mini-entry of one of my many failures instead and give him a break.

This afternoon I was preparing Bast's raw food for the week, which involves separating everything, setting aside enough for the week, and then packing up and freezing what I'm not going to use in the next few days. I usually like to do this with gloves on because of a bad experience with salmonella poisoning when I was young. For those who aren't aware of what all salmonella does to you, I'll give you a summation: you vomit and shit yourself until you become afraid you might die. After several days of this, your fear shifts, and you're terrified you won't die and will instead live out the rest of your miserable (and hopefully brief) days being wrung out by violent contractions that expel everything moist in your body.

So yeah, gloves.

I was in the process of trying to shake out an empty chicken bag and needed my bare hands. Since my other hand was, of course, coated in gore, the only logical option my tired mind came up with apparently was to grab the chickeny glove with my mouth and tug it off.

I stood there for a moment, meat-splattered, yellow glove dangling from my bare teeth, raw chicken fluids trailing down my chin, and briefly contemplated my supposed position as the most intelligent creature in the house.

Please, lord, I hope I die quickly.

Sweet and Sour Halfbreeds

My friends and family joke often that Bastas and I have an emotionally abusive relationship. To quote my best friend, "If you had a boyfriend that treats you the way Bast does, I would be staging an intervention." This morning was a good example of the sort of emotional blackmail of living with Bast.

Every morning, I like to wake up a few minutes early so I can fire up the Keurig, have a cup of overpriced coffee, and read the latest news. Bast accepts this part of my routine with impatience, since he wants a chance to go outside and frustrate me by not paying attention when I call him. This morning, he was unusually insistent that I take him out, but I foolishly ignored him and told him to let me enjoy my coffee.

I did enjoy my coffee. I did not enjoy the turd he dropped in the other room while I wasn't paying attention.

Okay, well, my bad. He told me he needed to go out, I ignored him, so this one was on me. I went to clean up his leavings and caught him staring at me from the corner of my eye. I turned, irritated, and asked, "What, Bast?" He scooted forward and placed something on the floor beside me. I picked it up, curious, and saw that it was a glove. Bastas loves gloves, so I wasn't too shocked to see him with one, but upon further inspection, I realized this was THE glove - his most coveted glove that he stole from me last autumn and has been hoarding ever since. I've been making do with one frozen hand shoved in my pocket to escape the cold since he bogarted the mate and stashed it somewhere so hidden, I had yet to find it.

I frowned at the glove, the looked at Bast. He swayed his tail in a slow arc with his ears down, as if to say, "Here's that thing you wanted. Sorry I shit in your bedroom." I smiled, ruffled his fur, and we suited up to go outside.

However, since the cosmic scale had apparently been balanced by his unusually kind gesture, all bets were off and he streaked around like a maniac, refusing to listen to me or come when I called in the park. I was able to distract and calm him for a while as we're relearning how to "stay". While in the course of opening the bag of rewards, however, I dropped THE glove. Bast darted in, a giant black mamba, snatched the glove and tore off like his ass was on fire.

Now, I am stupid in some areas, but I learned quickly with Bast not to chase him unless we're playing - he is much faster than I could ever be, and chase is one of his favorite games. Chasing him just results in me panting along behind him, furious and impotent while he darts around with wicked glee. So, I dropped back from him and watched him streak off with my glove, pacing with care with his eyes on the ground. I knew what was coming - it's what happens to every single glove he finds:

He was going to bury it.

And he did.

And I just watched as my newly discovered glove disappeared under a mound of fresh earth.

After he was done, I approached the mound of dirt, scraped around with my boot a bit until I found it, and shook it out. It was, of course, filthy - caked in dog slobber with a good bit of dirt now ground into its fabric. Bast stood a few feet away, watching with a sullen sulk as I raided his horde. I shook the filthy glove at him and shrieked in triumph, "I GOT A GLOVE OF DIIIIIRRRTTTTT!"

Although I can't wear the glove still, I count this morning as a draw.

There is no Bast. There is only Zuul.

In the time of my life BB (Before Bastas), I had a much more cavalier attitude about leaving my things out unattended while I was away from the house. After all, it was not exactly if my chinchillas were going to spring out of their cage and eat my shoes, and my fat old shepherd mix could not care less about chewing on anything besides her own food.

Bast, however, is more than happy to get into just about anything and everything in my house and has ruined the carefree "Leave my shoes by the door because they're fine" environment. BB, I had no reason to count the potatoes in the pantry - if I left the house with 6 potatoes, odds were there would still be 6 potatoes sitting there when I returned, barring supernatural interference. Now I walk in the kitchen, notice there are 2 spuds missing, and start wondering at what point in my day am I going to find a surprise starch squirreled away somewhere in my things. Bast rarely destroys what he finds - he just takes it and puts it elsewhere for shits and giggles.

The exception to Bast's non-violent pilfering is leather products. Anything made of dead cows is on the menu, I have learned to my sorrow. Belts, shoes, jackets, boots, bound books - Bast is an Equal Opportunity Destroyer. Although it only takes a few beloved possessions shredded to learn your lesson about not leaving things out in the open, tricking Bast is a little more complicated than simply putting your things away (which as an adult, I should be doing anyway, but, you know...)

At first, putting my leather goods away in the closet sufficiently protected them, but the infuriatingly clever Bast was not stalled by the closet doors more than a couple days - his versatile, monkey-like front paws are more than dexterous enough to pry open the sliding doors to reach the forbidden fruits of my belongings. When my most beloved leather jacket fell prey to the Big Bad Wolf, I started lobbing everything onto the highest shelves of my closet. Putting things up higher than even I can reach them for the most part resolved the issue of shredding, but it doesn't stop Bast from sliding open the closet doors and making a huge god damn mess of everything in his quest for the leathery Holy Grail.

I needed something to keep him out of the closet period, but my options were limited. A lock wouldn't work (no place to put it), and neither would spraying a bitterant - Bast loves the bitter apple sprays sold at most pet stores as deterrents. Of course he does. The little freak.

As in most areas of dealing with Bast, outwitting him to protect my things became an issue of psychological warfare. If physical deterrents wouldn't keep him out, it was time to go deeper and tap into the the most basic fear of every dog, befriend the most hated of enemies, make a deal with the foulest of Devils.

I parked the vacuum cleaner in front of the closet door.

Like most dogs, Bast has an instinctive hatred of the vacuum, that deceptively passive appliance that spends most of its time silent and roars to life a few times a week. Because Bast is a naturally skittish creature who needs to be frightened only once by something to develop a life-time complex because of it, he has never really gotten okay with the vacuum. Occasionally, he will stand his ground against this buzzing nemesis by actually staying in the same room, but that bravado lasts until it swoops anywhere close to his direction - one hint it's coming toward him and he becomes a pitch black streak retreating to another room.

I have two closets, and fortunately, two gate keepers to stand sentinel over them - my beloved Dyson Pet Vacuum and the lumbering Hoover Carpet Shampooer, which makes up for its lack of speed and agility by being even noisier and more obnoxious than the vacuum. Each one guards a closet, and completely stymied my leather-raiding dog.

If having strategically placed vacuums isn't weird enough, you have to also remember that I am absolutely incapable of acting in a socially-acceptable manner about the smallest things. Pleased with my ingenuity at enlisting the help of my appliances to act as gargoyles against Bast, I greet each vacuum by shrieking, "I AM THE GATEKEEPER!," every time I pass by.

Hoover and Dyson have yet to tell me if they are the key masters, though, so the portal remains locked thus far.

Everyday Goblins

This morning I got that, "I'm being watched" feeling while leaned over the sink brushing my teeth. Having seen too many horror movies, I halfway expected to look up into the mirror and see a demon/serial killer/alien/predator/poltergeist hunched over my shoulder, but it was just Bast standing in the doorway, watching me with ears folded back and amber-orange eyes the size of full moons. I pushed my toothbrush to the side and asked, "What, Bast?" Despite tooth-brushing be a common occurrence around here, the sight of me frothing at the lips and my distorted voice was enough to trigger Bast's terrified flight response - he peeled out with such force that his claws dug furrows into the carpet in his haste to escape the minty fresh demon attacking my mouth.

One of the more unfortunate misconceptions about Bast's kind is that they make great guard dogs. Some people think that mixing dogs with wolves will give you this super-territorial animal that aggressively defends its turf from invaders - I think if you asked these people where they got this information, you'd find that the most interaction they've had with an animal with actual wolf content is when their Grandma read them Little Red Riding Hood as a child.

In reality, dogs like Bast have a tendency to be timid and shy. The joke is that they make great watch dogs - they will hide and watch as someone strange invades their home, and watch them leave with all of their owner's belongings. This is certainly true of Bast, who I think would rather chuck himself out the window than help me combat any would-be attacker.

To help with this innate shyness, good breeders socialize their puppies extensively. They introduce them to a variety of situations to help familiarize them with the sometimes overwhelming human world and prepare them for venturing off to their new homes. Although Bast was socialized very well by the rescue who scooped him up, he still occasionally wigs out when he encounters something new (or, as in the case this morning, with something not-new that is nevertheless not-okay no matter how routine it is).

I never know what's going to spook him. Sometimes, I can anticipate something being scary, prepare for it, and then get no reaction from him whatsoever. Other times, normal activities accidentally terrify him, and I have to go find him in his hiding spot to soothe and coax him out. He can also react either way to the same thing in different situations. For example, when we go walking in a nearby park, he usually likes to stop and watch people playing tennis. We can loaf for half an hour at time while he watches the tennis balls sail back and forth. Another time, we were walking close by and he saw a girl just carrying a tennis racket. Distracted by a conversation, I was totally unprepared for the intensity of his panic; his terrified bolt somehow bruised the back of my thigh from him crashing into me while also yanking my arm almost out of socket from the front.

Tennis racket slicing through the air? Ooo neat. Tennis racket being idly carried? FLY, YOU FOOLS.

Once, he freaked out while I was changing my bed linens. I wasn't shaking the sheets toward him, but as soon as the fitted sheet came off, his ears laid back and he bolted from the bedroom. He then stood in the doorway as far back as he could while still keeping one eye around the corner and watched me until the scary linens fit securely on the bed where they belong. Once everything looked normal again, he bounded back into the room, popped up on the bed, and went straight to sleep on the no-longer-horrifying sheets.

I don't know what goes on in that narrow little head of his. All I can do is keep a firm grip on the leash and hold tight.

The Odd Couple

For those that don't know, I actually have two dogs. Bastas, of course, and a shepherd/elkhound mix named Grendel. I've had Grendel for going on 8 years now - she was a birthday present from my friends when I was in high school and has been a constant feature in my life ever since. If you're wondering why I don't have a blog for her, it's because Grendel is, bless her heart, a colossal grouch and every single blog entry would be reiterations of "What is Grendel pissed off at today?"

Her grouchiness posed a serious problem when trying to introduce Bast into my family. Bast, although subdued and skittish, was still only a 9 month old puppy when I got him, full of playfulness and joie de vivre. Grendel, on the other hand, does not do "play". She does not like fetch or tug of war. She doesn't like chase or tag or any of that nonsense. Grendel is extremely territorial - one of those dogs that has to stop and pee on every other blade of grass when we're out walking. She carefully sniffs other dogs' leavings before adding her own on top of it: in doggy language, a clear "fuck you" to any other dogs in the neighborhood. When we're approaching the end of our walks and she's all out of pee, she just squats or hikes over whatever spot she's claiming and pretends to pee on it.

When you think of Grendel, think of those squadrons of elderly ladies who go power-walking at the mall. You know the ones I'm talking about. They move in platoons of 3 or 4, elbows swinging at precise angles, sensible, thick-soled sneakers that match their zip-up track suits striking the ground with deliberate vigor. They scoot about at a swift 5 miles-an-hour, weaving through the shopping crowd with a stiff-legged gait that could be most accurately labeled as "goose-stepping". Getting in their way earns you a disdainful huff at best, at worst a passive-aggressive smack on the hip from one of their 40 pound handbags.

You get the idea. That's Grendel on walks - tail curled over her back, straining into her harness with a barely contained eagerness to reinforce her dominion over the neighborhood via urine stains.

Seriously.

For Grendel, life is about one thing and one thing only: defending her empire of peed-upon territories. Her manifesto would sound a lot like the text from "Green Eggs and Ham":

Would you like to chase this ball?
Would you like to play at all?

I would not like to chase that ball.

I do not want to play at all.

I do not want to meet new friends;

I've an empire to defend.

I do not like to joke and sing.

I only like to piss on things.

So, introducing an exuberant puppy did not go over well. Bastas harassed Grendel tirelessly, and at 8 years old and used to being an only-dog, Grendel was not inclined to be gracious to our new manically happy pack member. So ungracious, in fact, that I couldn't keep them in the room together without fear of one or the other being injured.

My best friend Cait provided an elegant solution; moving into a new neighborhood, Cait needed an alert but sedate companion to keep an eye on her place but not destroy things when left unattended. Since Grendel spends most of her time lazing, in between bouts of snarling viciously at UPS guys, this seemed like a great temporary arrangement while we got Bast healthy and he settled down a bit.

Grendel moved in with Cait and got a new territory to defend, and we bring Bast over for carefully supervised socialization visits to teach him some manners. Everyone is much happier with this arrangement, and it seems to be working so far: Bast is learning to play more gently with Grendel, and Grendel tolerates him to an extent that I don't have to worry as much about her ripping him a new bunghole.

For this week, though, Cait is out of town, giving me both dogs in my place. In theory, this is not a huge problem - I already walk Bast 3 or 4 times a day, and Grendel's part slug and spends most of her day sleeping anyway. Should be fine for a week, right?

The devil's in the details, of course. Bast and Grendel are diametrically opposed in almost every aspect. A few examples include:

• A noise outside the door brings Grendel instantly to her feet, barking and ready to face any challenger. Bast usually slinks into the kitchen and peers mistrustfully around the fridge until the scary sound goes away.
• Despite never having gone hungry in 8 years, Grendel gobbles down every bit of kibble like it could her last. Bast, who came to me emaciated and malnourished, sometimes decides he's not that hungry for a couple days at a time and would rather just not eat, kthx.
• Grendel knows some basic English and in proper, loyal dog-fashion is slavishly obedient. Even being lightly scolded for something crushes her soul until she is quite literally debilitated and rolling on the ground in shame. When Bast gets shouted at, however, he calmly looks over at you, assesses how mad you are, and then decides whether to continue what he's doing or take off running. He knows when he's doing wrong - he just doesn't care.
• Grendel pees on everything outside of our den to mark it as her own. It took me forever to break Bast of peeing inside to mark it as ours, and then to quit eating his own turds outside to prevent predators from swooping out of the sky to kill us and take our home.

If I'd just let the leashes go, my life would be much simpler. 

Their differences are at their worst when going for walks. Taking them both for walks at the same time is a lesson in patience. Grendel charges forward every step of the way, tugging and straining to reach the next pissing check-point. She always has and I've never been able to correct her leash manners despite working on it for years. The best we can come to is a sullen truce where she just propels me forward at a pace slightly faster than I'm comfortable walking. Her business cannot wait for my puny two-legged walking speed.

Walking Bast is like walking a well-trained kitten. For the most part, he pads calmly at my side until something distracts him - a leaf to chase, a smell to roll in, a grasshopper to pounce on, the voices in his head say "go this way!" He dances around me, occasionally remembering that he's supposed to stay at my side and go at my pace before his mind is completely captivated by something new. Our walks together usually involve him rolling on something horrid that he's found, such as this episode where he found the remains of a decapitated duck and had to grind its putrescent funk into his fur:

I will never know such bliss.

Alone, I can deal with each of their walking quirks. Together, their combined craziness is almost too much. Grendel spearheads our dysfunctional little pack while Bast stays by my side for the start. We look like this until we reach our usual walking area:

Behold the power of MS Paint

Grendel's tugging is obnoxious at this point, but our little solar system is more-or-less functional until we cross the street and get to the museum where we walk. At this point, Bast's psychotic little mind enters the first stages of sensory overload and he starts to peel off to investigate things:

They both have 6 foot leads, so they can orbit up to 12 feet around me. Bast will get distracted by things and then remember he's out on a walk with his SUPER BESTEST FRIEND GRENDEL and go join her for a few minutes:

As Bast becomes more and more distracted by the wondrous world around him, order begins to break down.

Attempts to reinstate order at this point involve me tugging sharply on Grendel's leash to signal a halt, pirouetting through the stranglehold of leashes around me, and then threatening to drop both dogs off at the night deposit box at the pound. The dogs, blithely unaware of how close they're getting to being dropped off in a field somewhere, resume their prior activities as if I hadn't interfered at all. 

I stumble along behind them, wondering why I even like these animals and what choices in my life lead me to this point before announcing that I'm tired and we're turning back. Grendel will do an immediate about-face and continue chugging back the way we came, but Bast instantly begins pouting at having to go home and starts to lag behind me, all 6 feet of his leash extended, so that my arms look like crazy pinwheels as I hold onto Grendel surging ahead and drag the ornery sulkbeast along behind us.

I need to invest in obedience classes.

Translation Barriers

You often run across people who will say that animals, particularly dogs, can't speak. I disagree; they just don't speak our language. It's the same as going to a foreign country, noting that you can't understand someone, and coming to the conclusion that the must not be able to speak. Pretty silly when you think of it that way.

Bast is a very effective communicator, although it took me a while to understand his language. There's a very subtle difference in Bast-speak between, "I'm hyper and want to play with you," and, "I'm hyper and I'm about to pee on something you cherish." I ran through an astonishing amount of carpet cleaner and white vinegar before getting that one down.

Bast, in turn, is learning some English and a smattering of French, since I shift between the two when talking to him. The combination of me learning his body language and him beginning to understand short phrases improved our relationship immeasurably. Now when he comes to the end of the couch and stands stone-still, staring at me like the little girls in The Shining, I can ask, "Are you wanting a snack?" and be rewarded with a lot of prancing and wiggling that I guessed the correct nuance of his stare.

I speak to him as if he were a person - no baby talk, here - and he keeps pace with my side of the conversation without much difficulty. I occasionally have to repeat things for him, if he tilts his head and indicates he didn't understand me, but we're like old friends now, conveying entire ideas with just a raised eyebrow or an ear laid back.

It's amazing how without being able to speak English, Bastas manages to win the majority of our arguments. I chalk his persuasive prowess up to my weak will where he's concerned, and the fact that reasoning with him is like trying to reason with a toddler pitching a fit. After all, smart as he is, he's still a dog and subtle shades of arguments escape him. This evening, we had an extended exchange of ideas where, as usual, he got his way.

I was typing away at my laptop when I noticed a pair of orange eyes staring at me:

Bast: nose-poke-hey-I-need-something-from-you
Me: What's a matter, pookie? Are you hungry?
Bast: head-tilt-ears-back-no-that-is-not-what-I-meant
Me: What, then? What's your problem, bebop?
Bast: I-need-to-go-potty-tap-dance
Me: Christ, are you serious? I just got out of the bath, my hair's still wet.
Bast: head-tilt-I-don't-understand-you
Me: A bath. You know, with the soap. You watched me do it, you sit in the bathroom and watch me every time I bathe because you're a creeper like that.
Bast: indignant-foot-stomp
Me: We went out like, 4 hours ago. You didn't take care of it, then?
Bast: taptaptapwhinewhinetaptap-I-didn't-need-to-go-then-but-I-REALLY-do-now
Me: Ugh, all right, all right. Don't shit in the house until I get my clothes on.
Bast: taptaptappantpantpantwhine-commence-frantic-circling
Me: Gah, I mean, don't shit in the house AFTER I get my clothes on, either. You know what? Just don't shit in the house, period. I'm getting my coat, I'm getting a poop bag, and we're going out. YOU WIN, DOG.
Bast: twirling-in-sheer-pleasure-aww-yisssssss-walkies

And thus I found myself wandering the streets at 10:00 at night in 30 weather, being tugged along by a creature radiating smugness with his every step.

The Prince of Pout

When I got Bast, I honestly expected him to be like any other dog, but maybe just more high strung. I had read before that having a wolfdog can be a very different experience from a normal dog, but I learned over the past few months that it's one thing to read, "These animals are weird," and another issue entirely to experience the weirdness in person.

To be fair, Bast is remarkably chill for his kind. He is, a bit atypically, a fantastic housewoof and does very well indoors. Although he has a lot of total energy, he's a crepuscular little critter and prefers to do his frantic zooming at dawn and dusk. The afternoons are most definitely for naps, and if these naps are disturbed, I can expect an all-out fit. Trying to rouse Bast to go run errands in the afternoon is like trying to wrangle a cranky toddler - he'll refuse to get up from his nap, have to be physically manhandled into his harness, and then be dragged down to the car with his legs locked stiff, his ears plastered to the back of his head, and his eyes narrowed down to venomous orange slits while he glares at me for this upset in his day.

I don't mess with naptime unless I absolutely must. It's not worth the fight and the subsequent sulk, and nobody puts the pout on like Bast. For example, here was an afternoon outing where I took Bast out to run errands. To try to make it up to him, I stopped by McDonald's and got him a kiddie cone. Unfortunately, although he kept trying to nose into the front seat to get his rightful dues, I wouldn't let him eat in the car because he makes an almighty goddamn mess.

He turned his back to me and sat like that for the rest of the ride home, only forgiving me when he finally got his ice cream cone.

Another time, he needed a bath because was stinking up the place after rolling in something - I forget now what it was exactly, but his favorite perfumes are fox turds, dead carcasses, and pond scum, so it was likely one of those three. He glared pure hate the entire bath:

So you see, Bast is more than capable of expressing complex emotions such as lingering resentment; he is a being that practically oozes sulking and moodiness.

Meaties

Hi all! Sorry it's been a while since my last post. If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you know I've been working through the unexpected surgery of my fat old shepherd mix, Grendel, who was diagnosed with cancer, then un-diagnosed, then rushed to surgery for one of the most impressive piles of bladder stones the vet had seen. She's recuperating fine and is back to normal, aside from her stubbly, shaved belly.

Bastas, in his typical egocentric fashion, was disappointed at Grendel's period of convalescence - his playmate was confined to the leash and not allowed to run around until her stitches healed, and Bast had to be kept separated from her because he's enormous, energetic, and completely oblivious to the social cues of other dogs.

With his forced estrangement from his buddy, and the cooler weather coming in, Bast has been brattier than usual the past few weeks. He's never been the most... placid... of creatures, but he's really kicked it into high gear with the coming of autumn. As he matures, he occasionally tests his boundaries with me to see if any of the rules have changed, small things like, "Okay, it wasn't all right to play rough before, but how about now?" As someone used to having an obedient shepherd to work with, training Bast is a challenge. He absolutely thrives on attention, whether positive or negative. For example, when he wants to go out and play, he will search until he finds a shoe and then throw it proudly into the living room. Either he knows I don't go outside without shoes, or he can count on getting in trouble immediately and getting my attention for assaulting my footwear.

Think of all the determination of German Shepherd and the cleverness of a Border Collie. Now gives those intense qualities to an animal that has absolutely no desire to use its intelligence for good and you get Bast. He's a furry super-villain.

To fuel this evil mastermind and keep him in tip-top dastardly shape, Bastas eats an entirely raw diet. As I've mentioned previously, when we first adopted Bast from the pound, he was emaciated and sick. Bast weighed in at 36 pounds when he was 9 months old - as a comparison, his more well-cared-for younger siblings weighed in the 60-70 pound range at 9 months. Yikes.

We could not find a kibble that he would tolerate when we first brought him home. Every one that we tried made him vomit and diarrhea - in most cases, he would throw the kibble up almost whole within half an hour of eating it. I worried that because he was so skinny, he was scarfing his food and thus the barfing, but even when he slowed down his eating, he kept chucking up every dog food we tried.

In desperation, I looked online and started researching raw diets. It made sense to me - he's part wolf, right? So meat, yeah? Yeah. Bast took to a raw immediately. Within a day of eating some chicken breasts, his vomiting stopped completely.

Well, hell. As in a lot of areas of with Bast, I was sort of in over my head with this one: So, he can just eat raw meat? How do you feed raw, just buy some meat and toss it out there? What kind of meat? How expensive is this going to be? Aren't bones bad for dogs? How much do I feed him? Is he going to get sick? Is he going to turn into a blood thirsty monster with an insatiable need for raw flesh?

So I Googled. I mentioned in a general sense in a previous post that I learned what I could about raw feeding, but I've had a lot of curiosity and questions addressed to me about raw feeding, so I thought I'd go into a little more detail about feeding my beast of evil.

So, everyone take a huge grain of salt - I am not pretending to be a raw feeding expert. I've been doing this for only 6 months and I'm always researching it and refining my methods to make sure Bast gets everything he needs in his diet. I'm just telling my friends what I do since everyone is curious.

Okay, disclaimers done. When it comes to feeding dogs, kibble is a relatively new invention. Think about it - you think people two hundred years ago were going to PetSmart and picking up a bag of Purina? Seems kind of silly when you actually sit and think about it. So yes, dogs can eat raw meat. In fact, they can eat more raw meat than we can. Bast isn't limited to sushi and steak tartar; he can eat raw chicken and pork, as well. His stomach is way better equipped to handle raw meat, although I am still cautious and make sure that everything is still handled in a sanitary manner.

Raw feeding isn't just buying steaks and throwing them on the floor, though. Muscle meat like that doesn't have all of the nutrients that a dog needs to be healthy. Processed foods like kibbles are regulated to have certain vitamins and minerals that dogs need, whereas meat is, well... meat.

Bast needs more than just muscle meat. He needs organ meat as well, things like liver, kidneys, hearts, and other offal. He also needs raw bones. There are a lot of raw feeding models out there that help you gauge how much of what component you need. We follow the BARF model for Bastas - Biologically Approved Raw Food, or Bones and Raw Food. This model suggests a balance of approximately 70% muscle meat, 15% organ meat, and 10% bone for meals. Some models suggest 80/10/10 or variations thereof. We follow this as best we can, although it isn't always exact for a variety of reasons.

To find out how much I was supposed to feed him, the raw diet models suggest anywhere from 2%-3% of a dog's ideal body weight. Since I wasn't sure what Bast's ideal weight was supposed to be at first, we just sort of winged it until I figured things out. Now, he hovers around 65 pounds, so he gets around a pound and a half of meat a day. Some of these calculations can get very in depth. I occasionally refer to this chart, which I did not make but I don't know who did so I can give them credit: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AodxoS5aN6MtdEJrNXlXU2toOVl6ZFZCNXRKTVU1T2c&usp=sharing

You can see, it gets sort of complicated. As if this weren't difficult enough, Bast refuses to eat organ meat, which is the most nutritionally dense part. Liver contains a number of the vitamins he needs, but he won't touch it. Not raw, not cooked, not frozen, nada. Not happening. To make sure he gets what he needs, I supplement his diet with a multi-vitamin.

Bast's absolute favorite part of his raw diet is the bones. Normal people's homes have comforting sounds - the pitter-patter of little feet, grandfather clocks ticking in homey parlors... You know, soothing crap like that. My place is filled with the sharp cracking of bones as Bast pries them open to eat the marrow inside.

But dogs aren't supposed to have bones, right? Ah. Dogs aren't supposed to have cooked bones. The process of cooking softens the bones and causes them to splinter - this is why cooked bones can break apart and seriously harm or even kill a dog if ingested. Those splinters go into the stomach and start tearing things up. A raw bone, however, is very soft. It folds and grinds and is easy to digest. Bast's very favorite meal is chicken drumsticks, although he doesn't get them as often as he'd like because he winds up getting too much bone matter in his diet and gets chalky little turds.

All this sounds pretty gruesome! A lot of people ask me - won't feeding your dog raw turn them wild? No. No, it does not. The idea that giving dogs raw food turns them into savage beasts is a myth, but like many myths, rooted in a small, misunderstood truth. We all have known a dog in our life that has food or toy guarding issues - fighting with other dogs, growling at people approaching. This is a kind of resource guarding where dogs are trying to protect their food or high value toy from others. Any dog is capable of it.

People say things like, "Well, I know for a fact raw meat turns dogs crazy. My dogs always eat dog food, and I threw them out some meat once, and they went crazy fighting over it." Well no shit, captain. Here you have a group of dogs used to eating plain ol' dog chow, and all of a sudden you toss one piece of meat in for them to fight over? That doesn't have anything to do with meat turning dogs into savage killers; it has to do with you tossing a high value treat into a volatile situation.

So, no, feeding Bast raw is not going to make him "turn wild" or any other weird superstition like that. I can hand feed Bast his raw meat, and I can reach right into his mouth and take it from him.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with a raw diet. Although it began as a necessity for Bast's barfing, it's easy to see that it's done wonders for him. Bast radiates good health and temperament - glossy coat, clean teeth, fresh breath, and endless energy for mischief. I take his health very seriously and am always checking on new resources to find out if I could be doing this better. Because the risk of screwing up could result in malnutrition, I want to stay on top of his diet and make sure he gets the best. He's worth it.

The Funky OCD Dance

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.

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.

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

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.

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".

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.

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:

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 :)