Koalas, turtles and geological wonders

Planning a two-week visit to Australia is like trying to cover the United States in that period of time—there’s no way to cover everything.

I researched itineraries online to determine which places we wanted to see and booked flights between them. Sydney to Uluru/Ayers Rock to Melbourne to the Great Barrier Reef. We tacked on a few days in the Philippines at the end to help me reach my goal of traveling to 50 countries before I turn 50. (Only five to go before October 2025.)

We arrived in Sydney after an overnight flight to sunshine and blue skies—after the sun came up, anyway. The only photos I took that day were of the opera house, and the first one was so perfect I didn’t want to take another one the whole trip. I didn’t have to, because Rob travels with several cameras, so I let him be the trip photographer.

Our second day began with a visit to Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park where we met a koala! (I keep finding myself saying “koala bear” even though I know that’s as inaccurate as saying “orca whale.”) I felt like the trip had peaked. How could it get better than that?

The next stop was Uluru, a Land Back success story, with ownership having been restored to the Aṉangu people in 1985. Its name has been changed from Ayers Rock to Ayers Rock/Uluru, and then to Uluru/Ayers Rock. I’d rather just call it Uluru, but found that if you don’t add the Ayers Rock part, people don’t know what you’re talking about.

Uluru is a massive sandstone monolith in the Red Center of Australia’s Northern Territory. Western tourists used to travel there to climb on top of it, but now visitors are restricted to a base walk of a little over 6 miles. It’s pretty wild to see it in the distance from a plane or even a car, towering over mostly flat land.

A short distance away is another geological marvel called Kata Tjuta, which means “many heads,” because the sedimentary rock formation consists of 36 domes that visitors can trek through. 

Next we headed to Melbourne, where we traveled along the Great Ocean Road to see another pile of rocks: The Twelve Apostles. Along the way, we saw koalas and kangaroos in their natural habitat, and stopped in Apollo Bay to eat a scallop pie, which was the best thing I ate in Australia UNTIL I had chargrilled jerk tiger shrimp tacos in Cairns.

In Cairns we took a glass bottom boat and a semi-submersible to look at the Great Barrier Reef while staying dry. On Green Island, we also visited Marineland Melanesia—home of Cassius, the world’s largest and oldest captive crocodile. The sanctuary inexplicably bears a plaque with this quote from Chief Seattle: “What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.” 

It’s here I will mention that I try very hard to be an ethical tourist and not support the exploitation of land or animals in the places I visit. I didn’t like seeing crocodiles in enclosures, but felt slightly better when I learned that they were nuisance animals who otherwise would have been killed.

After the Great Barrier Reef we went to Cebu Island in the Philippines, where we were met by our guide Alfe from Snizzz Tours. In Moalboal, I realized my lifelong dream of swimming with a sea turtle. The snorkeling spot also featured a drop off where you could swim among a wall of thousands of shimmering sardines. When the itinerary said “swim with sardines,” I didn’t think it sounded very exciting, but it was otherworldly.

Also in the Philippines, I found myself way out of my depth on a “canyoneering” adventure that included ziplining and cliff-jumping into crystal blue pools. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not scared of heights or water. I was terrified of slipping and falling on the wet rocks and breaking my leg (again). Our two guides, Gerald and Gerwin, acted as human handrails, and it’s a good thing Rob didn’t need any assistance because I needed both of them to get me out of there alive.

One of these men held my hand through this whole experience. The other is my partner of more than 20 years.

My favorite part was floating on my back in the water, because that allowed me to look up at the scenery rather than down at my feet to make sure I didn’t trip over them.

That brings me to our final aquatic adventure, swimming with whale sharks. I have mixed feelings about this, because I generally oppose anything that interferes with the ecosystem. These whale sharks have been trained to stay near the shores of Oslob. Every morning, outrigger canoes full of hundreds of tourists are paddled out to them, where fishermen toss krill into the water to get them to swim past us.

Would I prefer for these whale sharks to migrate and find their own food as nature intended? Absolutely. But I can’t deny the value of this tourist industry in an extremely impoverished country. The outfit seemed to me to be as whale-friendly as it could be. They don’t use motorized boats. Visitors are instructed not to touch the whale sharks, and they don’t let you use flippers or even a snorkel, so you can’t travel very far from the bamboo outrigger. And they limit the number of visitors to ensure the whale sharks aren’t overfed.

On our last afternoon in the Philippines, we snorkeled off Sumilon Island, which in my opinion, was as good as the Great Barrier Reef. We saw more kinds of fish than I can name, including a couple of my favorites—parrot fish and clown fish.

It was a whirlwind of a trip and got us excited for our next adventure. 

Meet Bailey

Most people were pretty excited to kick 2020 to the curb and get on with 2021. Part of me wanted to go back and start 2020 over again. I was starting 2021 off with no dogs, a haircut I hated, a new identity as person with ovarian cancer, and a limp from breaking my ankle in three places.

I couldn’t stand not having a dog in the house, so I started looking at adoption listings. I found a couple of dogs that tugged at my heart, but I couldn’t talk Rob into meeting them.

In early January, I saw a post about an owner-surrendered six-year-old German shepherd who had completed a board and train, and was now staying at a kennel where she had shut down and was not eating. When I sent Rob her picture, he said, with a mix of acceptance and affection, “You want to go get Bailey.”

We’re working on sitting calmly at cafes.
Bailey tends to be on alert AT ALL TIMES, but in time, she may learn to relax.
Right now, I consider not barking at things a win.

Bailey needed a home with German shepherd experience, no dogs, and no kids. Sound like anyone you know? How many experienced homes don’t already have German shepherds in them?

We brought Bailey home as a foster, but you know how it goes. German shepherds don’t love everyone they meet, and she was extra fearful, so it seemed cruel to let her get comfortable with us and then make her go through it all over again with a new family. But let’s be honest, the deciding factor was that we fell in love with her.

She looks a lot like Isis. She’s not great with strangers and she does not want to play with other dogs. We don’t know if she’s ever played with another dog. I can accept this. With Isis, I wasted too much of our short time together obsessing over curing her reactivity. If I’d given her the choice, we would have used that time playing soccer in the backyard.

We’d like to have more than one dog in our home, but that’s not what Bailey wants. She can live a fulfilled, active, happy life without any doggie friends.

Her hypervigilance also makes it hard for her to hold still for a selfie.

With Leo’s leash-reactivity, I mastered the string cheese method, and he did improve. He would still bark at a fast-moving bicycle or skateboarder, but not every time. He was very well socialized off-leash with other dogs, thanks to doggie daycare.

Bailey is more reactive than both Leo and Isis in some ways, and less reactive in other ways. She doesn’t mind bikes or skateboarders, but she will lunge fiercely and silently, with no warning, at a squirrel.

We’re committed to doing everything we can to keep her under threshold, feeling safe and happy.

We didn’t plan to live with another reactive German shepherd, but I know in my heart that we were the right home for Bailey. We needed her as much as she needed us.

Do you want the bad news first or the really bad news?

My 45th birthday party in October.

How’s your pandemic going?

Ours has been bad, epically bad. The worst thing that happened is that we lost Mia in May, but it wasn’t unexpected. We were so so lucky to have her in our lives as long as we did. I actually went to a pet loss support group in February, thinking we were close to having to make the hard decision.

When the world locked down, having Mia in our home for those first couple of months meant everything. Caring for an elderly dog is much easier when you can be home with her all the time.

In April, seemingly out of nowhere, I found out I had ovarian cancer. I had three chemotherapy infusions and then surgery in June. The chemotherapy didn’t work on the cancer, but the surgery did. I have a rare type called low-grade serous ovarian cancer, which did not respond to chemo, but at this time, I have no evidence of disease.

In September, twelve weeks to the day from my ovarian cancer surgery, I stumbled over my own stupid feet and fractured my ankle in three places. The injury is called a trimalleolar fracture, and the surgery to fix it is called an open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF). That experience was worse than having cancer. I spent a miserable night in the emergency room in Seattle, and then I couldn’t put any weight on my right leg for six weeks. However, once the cast came off, I progressed very quickly from walking with two crutches, to one crutch to no crutches.

So I had two really terrible medical experiences within a six-month period. Neither hurt as much as losing Mia.

While all this was going on, Leo started having seizures more frequently. He’s been on anti-convulsants since his second seizure a little more than a year ago. In July, he had an MRI that confirmed what I suspected: he has a brain tumor. He also has intervertebral disk disease. In August, he had three treatments of stereotactic radiation, which we hoped would give him up to a year and a half to live. He’s 10 years old now, so that sounded like a good deal.

Leo poses with a lion the day we learned that his seizures were caused by a meningioma in his brain.

But he had increasing mobility problems with his hind end, and continued having breakthrough seizures. A follow-up MRI in November showed that not only had the radiation not shrunk his brain tumor and his IVDD was worse, but that he ALSO has two tumors in his abdomen.

Remember in E.T. when Elliott and E.T. were so linked that they seemed to be dying at the same time? That’s me and Leo. I had three tumors. He has three tumors. In October, neither of us could walk.

Then the psychic link was broken and Elliott got better and E.T. didn’t?

My tumors were removed and my ankle got better. Leo has three inoperable tumors and can’t walk.

But he’s still here. And for that, I’m thankful.

Four weeks after my cast came off, I could walk around the block with one crutch, but Leo couldn’t. Rob got him an XXL wagon to take him on adventures.

Looking at the stars

Waxing Gibbous Moon from Helsinki, Photo by Kahvilokki, Wikimedia Commons

My dogs won’t sleep in my bed. How I wish they would. Leo will jump up on the bed on his own time, especially if the heatie blanket is turned on, but if I lie down next to him and bug him too much, he gets up and leaves.

A few nights recently, he has hopped up on the bed, and stayed there as I fell asleep. The trick is, I don’t touch him at all. He is not the snuggle puppy I ordered.

The other night, I slept fitfully. Mia wakes us up every night. It’s hard to tell what she wants. Sometimes she quiets after we give her water, or move her from the couch to one of her other beds. Sometimes she just seems to need to know we’re close by. Sometimes she doesn’t stop and she squeaks and squawks for what seems like all night.

It had taken me a long time to fall asleep the first time, but when Mia woke me, it was only two, so I should have been able to get plenty more sleep. But I lay awake worrying about my dogs, and then made the mistake of looking at Twitter (breaking a very sensible rule I set for myself), so then I was lying awake worrying about America, and feeling angry at people who don’t get angry at the same things I get angry about.

I heard Leo on the other side of the closed bedroom door. He does this thing where he scratches the door just once to get me to either let him in the room or out into the backyard. I had just started listening to a guided meditation and felt my body relaxing. It was working. I waited for his scratch. Instead I heard him sit down and felt him settle against the door. It was enormously comforting. If I couldn’t snuggle against his big wolfy body, at least I knew his big wolfy body was out there bracing between me and the world.

My guided meditation was asking me to imagine a white light. I was just about to drift off now. It was happening. I heard movement outside my door. Still no scratch, but I knew if I opened the door I would find him standing there looking at me. I did, and indeed he was.

I walked to the sliding glass door and let him out to do his middle-of-the-night business. But then he didn’t want to come in. Sometimes if you reach to grab him, he’ll do a crazy play bow, then race up the hill into the yard. He didn’t do that this time. He just calmly turned and walked back up the hill.

I stepped barefoot onto the cold concrete outside and looked up. The stars were brilliant in a clear black sky.

I stood there, appreciating the moment, thanking Leo for showing me the stars. Nothing is guaranteed and there’s so much to be anxious about. But right now Leo, and Mia, and Rob are safe in our home, and for that I am very very lucky. Little else matters.

I stepped back inside and shook a bag of treats quietly, because I didn’t want to wake Mia.

Leo walked almost to the door, but wouldn’t come in. I reached for him, and again he calmly turned and walked up the hill.

“Fine.” I slipped my feet into my Salmon Sisters rubber deck boots and followed him up the hill. When I turned, I saw a glowing moon above our house. The white light from my guided meditation was real.

Leo stood beside me. “Thank you for showing me the moon.” He let me hug him, pressing my forehead against his to kiss his nose. He walked back inside with me, followed me into the bedroom and lay down on his bed on the floor beside mine.

When your difficult dog becomes your easy dog*

*Alternate headline: When your geriatric dog has fewer health problems than your younger dog.**

**Then again, Leo is 9, so technically he is a senior dog too.

Last week, I marveled to myself that because of Mia’s mobility limitations, my “difficult dog” Leo has become the easier dog to take out into the world.

This happened with Isis, too, after years of struggling to fix her leash reactivity. Leo was not an easy puppy. He jumped up and bit our arms during walks. Tore several jacket sleeves.

I remember walking Isis one Saturday morning back in 2010, thinking how much easier she was to manage at that point than Leo.***

***Our life with Isis is the subject of this book.

Then Leo became super leash-reactive. While Mia was basically bombproof, constant vigilance was required to keep Leo from barking and lunging at everything that moved.

After coming to the conclusion that I could not cure him, I committed myself to a lifetime of management. And string cheese.

But it was the darnedest thing. All that careful management led to behavioral change!

We’re still Midnight Dog Walkers, metaphorically, anyway. I will never walk Leo peacefully midday through a crowded park full of children, scooters, bikes and joggers. (Who would want to go to such a place?) I can’t even imagine walking him down our own street midday on a Saturday like I did that time with Isis.

Most evenings will find us on a 20-30 passeggiata at dusk. We loop around a ball field where we have lots of opportunities to not bark at his triggers. It’s often the highlight of my day. Sometimes we sing whatever tune is running through my head. Sometimes Leo helps me work through the arguments in my head.

All of this is splendid progress and is what I was thinking when I composed the heading of this post: Leo has become easier to manage physically than Mia.

Then I was reminded that even though Mia is a million years old, and needs to be carried outside to do her business, she has fewer medical issues than spry Leo.

In addition to his two knee surgeries, Leo has an eye condition called pannus that requires daily eye drops for the rest of his life.

As I started dictating this post into my phone on our walk last week, I was under the impression that our biggest dog challenges always have been behavioral, rather than medical. Even when Leo had two knee surgeries, he was a model patient. The hardest part was during his first recovery when he started lashing out at Mia (I blame Trazodone), which I consider behavioral. Also, he refuses to swallow pills no matter what I hide them in, but again, that’s behavioral.

Then Leo went and had a seizure over the weekend.

You guys, it was so scary. We were watching TV and heard this sound like paws skidding on the floor, like maybe he was chasing a fly. Rob went to help him, thinking he had a leg cramp, but it was all four legs, twitching like he was trying to scratch himself with all of them. His eyes were bloodshot and rolling back into his head, and his mouth was open but not appearing to take in any breath. There was, of course, drool.

Later I read that you’re supposed to leave the dog alone until they come out of it (maybe because they’re in an unpredictable state and might bite?), but of course I held his head in my lap and patted his back, because what if he was choking on something?

After about a minute, he started to come out of it and we carried all 100 pounds of him to the car and headed to the emergency vet. I did not even take the time to change out of my Wonder Woman pajamas. (It was 3 pm on a Sunday.)

Within another minute or two, he was back to himself.

His bloodwork looked great, so now we just have to wait and see if it happens again. The vet gave us some liquid valium I can administer into his keister if he has another that lasts longer than a minute.

And… here’s Leo discovering I mentioned his keister on the internet.

I’m not super concerned about what this means going forward. Seems like seizures are a thing that happens sometimes, and maybe it’s a signal of worse things to come and maybe he’ll never have another one. Either way, there’s nothing I can do about it except never take my eyes off him for the rest of our lives.

During our visit to the emergency vet, I asked if there was anything we should do or not do to best take care of Leo’s knees and hips as he continues to get older.

She gave the best medical advice I have ever heard: “Well, you want him to have fun.”

Planning now for her Sweet 16

Mia in 2011, the summer we got her, and in 2019.

I spent a lot of time in the summer of 2018 with my dogs in the backyard, reading during the day and looking at the stars at night. I even blogged about it, so I would remember it a year from then.

It won’t always be like this, I thought. This might be the last summer. The last Christmas. Her last birthday.

Her birthday was in June. We had a quinceañera.

I need to stop thinking like that, because Mia is still here!

It’s now been more than a year since she’s put any weight on her back legs. For several months, she continued to scoot her way around the house. We’d come home and find her under Rob’s desk, or sprawled in the kitchen waiting for us. Her front legs were so strong. She really motored in her little wheelchair.

Gradually, she slowed down more. It got harder for her to hold herself up on her front legs in her Best Friend Mobility wheels. We’re still moving her around the house by lifting up her hind legs while she steers with her front. Sometimes Rob gets the hind end and I take the front and we fly her like an eagle to the car, where we drive her to the park, where Rob wheels her in the wagon to a spot where she barks at other dogs and watches Leo play.

I get tired of people asking how old she is, and people actually say horrible things to us like “It’s so sad when dogs get old.” Lately, people have been saying it’s nice of us to take such good care of her. As if we wouldn’t. I always say, “She’s been very good to us, so we’re returning the favor.”

Aside from not being able to walk, her worst medical issue was an open pressure sore in December that I really thought wouldn’t heal, but I put MediHoney on it, and gave her two rounds of antibiotics, and sat beside her and watched Hallmark Christmas movies, and then all three seasons of The Leftovers, and it healed.

And she’s still here.

It’s stress-inducing for me to take her to the vet, because I have an irrational fear they’re going to say, “Oh no, this dog is too old.” But they never do. As it happens, one of the doctors is partial to old dogs. She gets it. A lot of her own dogs have had “mobility issues.” So clearly, this is the only vet we should be making appointments with from now on.

For our last appointment, Rob wheeled Mia in, lifted her out of the wagon and set her down on the floor. When the vet came in, I pointed out, like, 57 different things that were wrong. The stinky ear, this bald patch here, this sticky belly here. A few minutes later, I remembered to point out a goopy eye.

Our vet’s response: “She looks great. You’re doing a fantastic job.”

Really, it hasn’t been that hard. You hear things about knowing it’s time when the bad days outnumber the good days. Mia doesn’t have bad days. She’s alert, she’s happy, she’s still extremely interested in food. She pees and poops. Unfortunately, she does both of these things in the house, but most of the time, the poop is easy to pick up, and I’d say 75 percent of the time, we successfully get her outside and hold her up while she pees.

Except today. I got peed on three times today. That’s the only hard part. Managing her “business.”

It’s a very small price.