My alternative lifestyle

While on vacation the three days before Christmas, I decided to pretend I’m a different kind of writer. The kind the writes from home.

I volunteered to turn in 10 pages at my fiction writing class on the first day back after the break. On top of that, we have another writing assignment we’re supposed to read out loud.

Between the days off this week and two next week, I should be able to write 10 pages easily. But I’m having a hard time. I can’t visualize what it is that I’m writing about, is the problem, I think. Sentence construction like the previous is another. Problem.

I should just write write, not care if it’s good and go back and revise later.

If I were self-employed, this is what my day would be like:

  • Take Leo to the dog park from 9-10.
  • Play with Isis in the backyard.
  • Shower.
  • Sit at computer and check e-mail, Twitter and Facebook.
  • Eat.
  • Maybe write something.
  • Take Isis for a walk.
  • Play with Leo in the backyard.
  • Write?
  • Talk to Rob when he gets home from work between 4 and 5.

Given this, I did write 1,000 words yesterday. While walking Leo a short while ago (we skipped the dog park, it was raining), I decided I would have a solid 2,000 words by the end of the day and also make some headway on the other assignment, which is to write obituaries for some of my characters. Harder than I thought it would be.

I’m hungry.

Felt + Snow = Bad

The chronicles of inappropriate footwear continue.

A few years ago, when I was shopping for the waders and boots I need for my job taking pictures while waist deep in rivers, I was under the impression I wanted felt-soled boots, to keep my feet from slipping on wet rocks. I have since recognized that rubber soles would be better in sandy marine environments, but most of my work is done in rivers.

I was a little nervous about today’s excursion because it was supposed to be 32 degrees and perhaps snowing. Last night, I laid out my fleece long underwear, sweats and wool socks to wear under the waders. I set out my North Face winter jacket. Yep, it’s time.

I also packed some snacks for Leo, who would wait in the car during my river walk. And made sure my memory card was in my camera and that my camera battery was charged and inside the camera. (Because one time I discovered after getting on a boat that I left the camera battery in the charger.)

But I forgot to bring my North Face jacket.

I worried nearly the whole way upriver that I would freeze to death, but actually, that wasn’t the problem. I was perfectly comfortable with a raincoat over a fleece jacket. The problem was the snow speckled on the creekside grass.

We didn’t spend as much time walking in the river channel as on the snowy grass. Within 10 steps, I had a thick accumulation of snow on my felt sole. My companion said, “Felts are the worst.”

Really? I thought I was supposed to have felts!

It was rough going, walking on frozen “rocker soles.” Like, if Lady Gaga wore fishing boots and then attached a rounded sole made of ice. That’s what these felt like.

Wasted time

Last night, my novel-writing teacher described her creative process. “It’s not very efficient, but then, being creative is rarely efficient.”

I’m efficient in a great many ways. The journalistic writing that earns my paycheck, generally, is efficient. But other aspects of my life are not.

I walked around on a broken sesamoid bone for six months before I knew it was broken. How much further along in my healing I would be if I’d known from the outset that it was broken.

Isis has displayed serious anxiety for more than two years, and we only started her on Prozac a month ago. Could I have saved the expense of four root canals, and would she not have worn all her teeth down if I’d put her on Prozac sooner?

We’ve had Leo since late June and the dogs still can’t be loose in the same room together. How many months will it be before our dogs can cohabitate? Is there something I could have done differently from day one that would have made a difference? How much time have I wasted doing the wrong thing?

~~

Leo is still recovering from his surgery. The day after, he was leaping around so aggressively that I worried he would hurt himself, so we went back to the vet to get a cone and some sedatives. I’ve been very sparing with the sedatives, only giving them to him for his own safety, and not because, like, I’d like him to go to sleep and shut up for a few hours.

His incision looked fine to me, so I didn’t make him wear the cone. I didn’t realize that he would be more likely to lick the incision as it heals because it itches. The whole area looked inflamed to me on Tuesday so I took him back to the vet. They said it was fine. It looked inflamed and oozy to me on Wednesday, but I didn’t want to be a hysterical dog mom who brought him in every single day, so I waited until Friday. When they told me it was infected. Was it already infected on Tuesday? How much faster he would have healed if we started him on the antibiotics three days sooner!

So he’s pretty much wearing the cone all the time. I take it off for training exercises and walks. It looks better, but I’ll feel better when the scab falls off. He’s not going back to daycare until that happens.

Romance at the dog park

Leo is being neutered today. I waffled on it a bit, after reading some anti-neutering stuff on The Internet, chiefly that male dogs will look like females if testosterone production is cut off (so to speak). The decision was fairly well made when he seemed to be going through some puberty behaviors, but the clincher was the call from doggie daycare saying he wouldn’t be allowed back until he is neutered because he’s humping all the other dogs and starting fights. Not getting into fights himself, mind you, but causing other dogs to get upset.

I hadn’t actually seen a single instance of humping behavior until the other night. I’ve seen him play wonderfully with dogs of all sizes at the dog park, but Wednesday night, he became completely enamored of two pug brothers. He licked their smushed faces, sniffed their privates and several times mounted from behind and tried to hump. Mortifying.

The pugs were back last night and he ran and played with them a little, and a few times started to look amorous. I stepped between them and prevented the behavior. When the pug mom was ready to go, she picked one of her boys up and started toward the trail that leads to the parking lot. The other pug wasn’t ready to go. Leo mounted and got in a few thrusts before I pulled him away and held his collar until the pug reluctantly trailed after his mom. I waited until they were out of sight, and turned Leo toward the shepherd mixes and Australian shepherds that he had romped with happily before the entrance of the pugs. He made a half-hearted attempt at play, but then sniffed the trail of pheromones the pugs left behind. I said to another dog parent, “I will die if he goes running up the trail after them.”

Which is exactly what he did!

When I caught up to them, the pug mom was waiting for us, holding her pugs’ collars (she didn’t have their leashes), with Leo sticking his face where it didn’t belong. She was cool about it. I guess the brothers get humped a lot. And did their fair share of humping each other before they were neutered.

Oh, Leo. Wonder what will happen next time you see those boys, apres neuter.

As I walked out of the vet’s office this morning after dropping him off, a man with a pug came strutting across the parking lot. I hope they’re put in adjacent crates before surgery.

I don’t know what Leo’s future at dog parks will be. I have been frequenting two of them. The one that is most happening after work will be too dark once the time changes this weekend. The other has a regular crowd from 9-10 each morning. Don’t these people have jobs? It would be great if people started going between 8-9 after the time change, but we’ll see.

Leo has the bestest temperament in the whole world, but there have been a few dogs that seem to pick on him, getting in his face and barking. A couple of times, other dogs have gotten on either side of him and “herded,” and you can tell from the change in body language, especially the tucking of the tail, that it’s stopped being fun for Leo. I get him out of there when that happens.

At the morning park the other day, this happened with a boxer wearing an electronic collar of some sort. Red flag! There’s something wrong with that dog. Or that owner! Even if you choose to use an electronic collar for barking or biting or fleeing or whatever, under what circumstances would you use it at a dog park? To stop the dog from fighting? If you need an electronic collar for that, the dog shouldn’t be at a dog park!!

The other highly disturbing thing I saw this week, at the other park, was a mom, dad and boy sitting on a bench, watching the dogs, with a stroller parked BEHIND them, with a sleeping child in it. Leo went up to the stroller and licked the baby’s face. I called his name, and while yes, I should have enough control over my dog to keep him from licking a sleeping baby, at least I know my dog wouldn’t do more than lick it. They didn’t seem overly bothered – not enough to realize that they’d been negligent – but chose that moment to pick up and leave.

Living in the moment

I’ve been getting strange looks when I confess that I’ve had a puppy for four months and we’re still keeping him separated from the older dog. On Saturday, I got one from the trainer at Leo’s puppy prep school (she has not met Isis, but said she’d like to). My heart was heavy all through puppy class, even though Leo was doing extremely well. Something is wrong with my family.

I felt more judgment coming from extended family members who clearly think we should just put the dogs together and let them sort it out.

I think it’s true that normal dog behavior would be for them to tussle, establish position and move on. But I don’t think that will happen with Isis. Her psychology is such that she would go into such a frenzy that she wouldn’t respond to Leo’s submission like she’s “supposed to.”

Instead of feeling heavy-hearted, suppose I take the Buddhist notion of living in the present moment. Not worrying about the past or the future. Not dwelling on what happened those few times we let the dogs interact or fretting about whether these dogs will ever play together.

Yesterday, we took Isis to Rob’s parents’ house. She got ice cream from Dairy Queen, played ball with Grandma and relaxed on the floor of the computer room while Rob posted a Craigslist ad for his mom. Happy dog. Huge smile. Warmed my heart.

I took Leo out in the backyard when we got home. He ran and played for an hour. Despite a weather forecast of “miserable,” there was some sun and a brisk fall wind. Leo romped and chased a tennis ball. He pounced on a fly. He sat down beside me and looked out into the trees with the wind blowing in his face. Brought me joy.

My dogs, my babies

It’s often said in a jokey way, “Oh, ha ha, your dogs are like your children,” and yes, that’s pretty much how I feel about them. People sometimes say that dogs are a gateway to having human children, but I have to say at this point that my dogs are enough.

I feel so much guilt and I’m depressed about my inability to meet their needs right now. How can I possibly go away and leave them for eight hours a day, when they need playtime and training? (And they can’t play with each other!) I’m a terrible mother, they’d be better off in more skilled hands, I should give them away…

Seriously, I had that thought the other day. It’s like postpartum psychosis, when women drown their children because they become so distraught over their inability to care for them.

Isis, for some reason, has not warmed up to Leo yet. I’m so ashamed of this that I don’t even status about it on Facebook. I started her on Prozac today – something else you won’t read about on Facebook. Clearly, she is very anxious, and I hope that the drugs help her at least relax enough that she can enjoy her little brother.

The clock is ticking, my trainer says. Leo is 6 months old. If they don’t acclimate by 10 months, it may never happen. She said this a day after saying Isis wasn’t ready for a baby brother and that she would have taken Leo back after that first meeting that didn’t go so well.

Excuse me, what the fuck?

I distinctly remember her saying at Isis’ graduation from level one of aggressive dog rehab that a puppy would be therapeutic for Isis, but I must be very careful about temperament. That was last December. Three days after we got Leo and that first unfortunate meeting with Isis, she said Leo had such a good temperament that eventually he will be very therapeutic for her.

So I felt a little blindsided when she said the above. She apologized for it later, kind of, and I believe that she’s just trying to reconcile with herself why it is that after three months of her method, we haven’t seemed to make progress. So that’s hindsight talking: Isis wasn’t ready.

I love these dogs. Leo started to frustrate me with biting and jumping on our walks, but I am going to make sure he gets more playtime with other dogs. (Hooray dog parks and day care!) Isis is being medicated. We have a plan of action. We’re going to see it through.

Everything is going to be fine.

Fashion inertia

It was drawn to my attention recently that journalists don’t know how to dress. Young women sometimes enter the field knowing how to dress, but within five years, they’ve lost their style.

I certainly was a lot more stylish when I was a newspaper reporter than I am now. In fact, I was overdressed for most of the first year I worked for a newspaper in Northwest Washington. Inevitably, I’d be wearing the wrong shoes, or a skirt, on the day I had to chase down a wayward whale. Or pick daffodils.

When I worked in the state capital, I rarely wore jeans, because you never knew when you might have to cover an event with the governor in attendance. I remember the exact outfit I wore when I first met the governor. Knee-length black skirt, sheer blue-green top over a tank top. You know what I was wearing when I saw the governor two months ago? Khakis, a T-shirt and hiking shoes.

In my defense, it was an outdoor event on a summer day, but many other people in attendance seemed to think it was a skirt/suit and tie affair. (The governor, as I recall, was wearing a button-down shirt and white pants, so not overly formal.)

Is my lack of style a result of being a journalist for 10 years…or is it the result of working as a journalist for an outdoorsy operation in the Pacific Northwest? I went to a work-related funeral last month and was one of maybe five women wearing a black skirt. I would have fit in fine in my khakis, T-shirt and hiking shoes.

The unfortunate side effect of never wearing anything other than jeans, khakis, T-shirt, sweatshirt or fleece is that I am not current on cute outfits for going to a nice dinner or a concert (or a funeral). At this time, I do not have any “nice pants” that fit. I have a few dresses, but they don’t look quite right with the “special shoes” I have to wear for my broken foot.

Free meat

I think it was my dentist who told me a few years ago that I should get a second dog, because it’s really no different than having one dog. Except for the cost of food.

Never mind how untrue that first part has wound up being so far, but oh my gawd, the two dogs seem to be going though MORE than twice as much food. That’s what a growing boy will do for you.

Isis has been on a raw meat diet for more than a year, and she’s doing well on it. Leo took to it right away. Sure it would be cheaper to go back to kibble, but I just couldn’t do it.

To help stretch the ol’ food budget, I’m seeking cheap/free sources of meat. A while ago I considered joining a “discarded meat” group that took meat that grocery stores had to dump before their expiration dates. Still perfectly good meat…just not to be sold to humans. Unfortunately, the only stores that participated were Walmarts and they don’t sell ANY unenhanced meat that I’d want for my dogs.

It’s hard to be selective about things like free-range and antibiotic free when you’re essentially begging. I put an ad on Freecycle asking for people’s old, freezer-burned meat. I did this when I first started Isis on raw. I got some locker beef, but I didn’t have enough freezer space, thought she would eat it faster than she did, and wound up throwing most of it away.

I have two spare freezers now, so I’m good to go.

Interestingly, the same woman who gave me that locker meat responded again (without acknowledging, or perhaps even remembering, that we’ve met this way before), saying she had chicken, beef, pork, fish and maybe venison! That’s sort of my hope, by the way, that someone will have a whole elk or deer in their freezer from a hunting trip, and they just can’t eat it all. I’d much rather have that than pork from a factory farm. Which is what I buy most of the time, because it’s pretty reasonable at Cash and Carry.

Another woman said she has “some white fish.” She responded first, and I was quite excited until she told me that she lives 45 minutes away. I’m afraid I’m going to drive all that way (in the rain, most likely) for 4 ounces of fish. But we’ll see.

Speaking of wildlife, Leo has laid eyes on his first deer and rooster this week. The pair of deer were standing still in a garden and I didn’t even notice them at first. They didn’t spook as we unwittingly crossed the street in their direction. Leo watched them with interest, but not longing.

The rooster was in the street next to the house where it lives. I deliberately brought Leo close to familiarize him with the creature. The rooster didn’t run away, and Leo went into stalk mode. Lowered his head, stiffened his body. His feathers were ruffled too (ha, ha, by this I mean his hackles went up). It was adorable. He didn’t bark or lunge though.

Also yesterday, we ran into a friend on a bicycle who rode and walked his bike alongside us the rest of the way home. Such great socialization for Leo. In a million years, I couldn’t imagine walking Isis next to a bicycle.

This morning, Leo was afraid to cross a footbridge we had crossed yesterday from the opposite direction. He actually skidded to a halt and tried to turn and go the other way. Like a cartoon character. It’s the first time he’s been that afraid of anything. Except Isis.

Me and Isis, we are the same

I have observed that Isis is like me and Leo is like Rob.

I’m not talking about Isis’ amazing athletic ability and jumping/soccer ball catching skills. Or Leo’s diabolical tendency to prefer biting hands, sleeves, ankles and pants over toys designated for that purpose.

Isis is very high-strung. Leo is super mellow.

I didn’t used to think of myself as high-strung. A coworker once told me she was surprised I never got stressed out or pissed off about anything. I was pissed off about most things at that job. Apparently I covered it well. In the workplace, I want people to perceive me as having it all together. Usually, I do have it pretty well together.

But I have all these stress-related ailments, like TMJ and a terminally sore neck. So maybe I’m just really repressed. Guess I don’t give off clear visual stress signals, like panting, licking my lips, sniffing the ground or raising the hairs between my shoulders. The signals are there for me to feel, though. I hold my breath, sigh a lot, my head races, my shoulders tighten, I feel a weight on my chest. I also have a very subtle verbal cue that I think only my mother and Rob have heard. I say, “I’m feeling really stressed and overwhelmed.”

The two things go together. I probably could drop the “stressed and” part. “Overwhelmed” covers it. I think I’ll keep using both,  in case the listener isn’t familiar with what “overwhelmed” feels like to me (there are only two of them; they ought to know by now).

Isis spins and chases her tail when she’s “excited and overstimulated.” She’s also worn down her front teeth (in addition to the canines that have required root canals) from chewing on herself. And she’s scratched sore spots on her chest with her hind legs. She’s obviously very stressed (and possibly overwhelmed). These aren’t new phenomena, but the introduction of the baby brother hasn’t helped.

We’ve put her in detox. She’s not supposed to see Leo except during a couple of brief feeding exercises each day for three days. Already we’ve screwed this up and she’s seen Leo a few times. And barked. And she’s heard noises outside. And barked. Not part of the stress detox.

I have her confined to the library where she likes to sleep when we’re out. No toys. No balls. The idea is that she will have no stimulation and be forced to just sleep for hours. And relax. When I first put the gate up and draped a sleeping bag over it, I sat on the couch with her to help her relax. Even though this is the room where she relaxes 85 percent of her day, and even though I was with her, she spun around, tucked her head under her hind leg, made the gagging “Raa raa” sound that accompanies that move, and redirected by mouthing the couch cushions.

That night, Rob asked her how the detox was going: “Are you having withdrawals from all that barking?”

I stroked her and told her that she needed to just relax harder. That’s when I realized how alike we are. We feed off of each other’s high-strung energy. I’ve seen it with the behavior modification we’ve been working on. I seize up when I see something like a bicycle or a dog that I know is going to set Isis off. It sets me off before it sets her off, which certainly does not advance our goal of being calm in the face of such stimuli.

Then there’s Rob, with his calming energy counterbalancing my mania. I understand what my trainer meant when she said that Leo can be therapeutic for Isis. Eventually. It would be so wonderful if he becomes as soothing to her as Rob is to me.

Like Rob, he’s easy-going. At puppy kindergarten, two Malinois-Husky pups who may be litter mates got in a spat over the water dish. One of them snapped at the other, which provoked a reaction. There was some minor snarling, which bothered Leo not the slightest. He  just walked away. “I have no idea what those two are talking about.”

On our walk this morning, another dog barked at him, and he did bark back, but not in that incessant, aggressive way Isis would have. Isis would have started it.

Leo is still just a baby, so it will be a while before his healing powers are fully developed. I have high hopes.

Autumn approaches

It was determined that the xpen training method was not working for Isis, so we’re now concentrating on the parallel on-leash walk. We had a tough, but ultimately successful session with our trainer Monday, ending with us both thinking, “It will be fun to work with the dogs this way, walking them together.”

Then we had three nights in a row when it rained and got dark before Rob was done teaching. In theory, we could fit 60 seconds to 5 minutes into our morning routines to practice, but it can be really stressful, making sure we have no reactions from Isis, so we’ve only practiced once since our session.

Last night, after dark, we walked them up the hill in the yard and back down. The plan was to do that once, and if it went well, do it again. Then end. Isis was obviously stressed after the first lap though, so I said brightly, “OK, we’re going in!” At which point she growled, barked and lunged mightily. Sigh.

I put her in the house for a time out. I think the instruction was to leave her for 10 minutes, then try again. But we just ended.

We can do it again tonight after dark, and then during daylight hours tomorrow through Monday. After dark Tues-Thur. In daylight Friday and Saturday, and then we meet with the trainer again.

My dream, my dream, is to have these dogs tolerating each other enough that we can take a family portrait by Christmas.

Leo has lost both his top canine teeth. This after drawing blood on Rob a few times. He bled quite a bit when losing the second one. During our walk yesterday, I noticed blood on his tongue, having dripped from around the baby tooth, which had a new tooth peeking out next to it. A little while later the baby tooth was gone, leaving behind a bloody hole. Poor Leo! That makes me forgive him for being so mouthy. It must have hurt!

Despite the injuries to Rob, I think Leo actually has learned some bite inhibition. He has spazzy bitey moments, which earn him time outs, but he hasn’t wounded me or torn my clothes lately.

With the exception of the jacket I got Rob for his birthday in 2005. I borrowed it for a walk over the weekend. Leo jumped up once and tore the sleeve. Boy did I feel like a jerk for wearing that jacket. I sewed it up with a matching thread and everything. But it looks like crap. I know what Leo’s getting Rob for Christmas.

Lots of exciting things coming up at the end of the month. Leo starts prep school on Saturdays when Rob can come too. I start a writing class. Both book clubs meet. Then it’s October and I’m 35.

I can’t wait for the trees to start looking like they’re on fire. Damn. I need a Halloween costume.