Return Visit

Some time ago we got word that one of our foster cats (mine and Stella's) was being returned due to a hopefully temporary economic setback. The extraordinarily handsome boy known to us back in the summer as Joey – now named Chance – has returned for an extended visit. This has made for an adventurous December as he's now somewhere in the neighborhood of nine months old which puts him in the "real wild child" category. My cat Gigi would love to hate him but he won't let her.

Stella loves him because apparently he knows the play bow which as you all might guess action sets off all manner of YouTube-worthy chaos. The two of them have been riding the rugs through the new living room and scattering cat litter all over the house for going on three weeks.

In case chasing after a dog that outweighs you by sixty pounds isn't enough in the "I might be a lunatic" department, Last Monday I had to get up and shower at 5 a.m. and after rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, I looked down and this cat was sitting in the shower with me. It was absolutely all I could do not to make eye contact.

Here's a picture of Joey Chance first from back in July, and then earlier today (on squirrel patrol with Stella).

Squatter

And if that weren't enough.. there's always an unlimited supply of foster kittens, right? We got one on the fly last Thursday and I took him to the vet Friday. It turned out he was old enough to get "tutored" along with all of his tests and shots. It was a long two days for him but now he's spent the entire weekend learning all about dogs and rattan furniture and what happens when you work your claws out on the priceless antique rugs of your foster mom's friends and he's doing great. 

His (temporary) name is Joey and his awesome-ness is off the charts so I suspect he won't be with us very long. He can be reached at Nashville Cat Rescue if anyone is interested.

The girl

Here is the first day report courtesy of Diesel's new mom:
(editor's note: Maggie is Diesel's new female companion)

Did you know that Diesel buries his food?  He’s a hoarder.  He buried a dog biscuit in one of the stalls and later took a mouthful of food from a bucket and buried in the vegetable garden.

He has met two of the cats and doesn’t seem to want to bother them, they don’t seem to be worried about him either.  He has been outside with them now – I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t chase them but he was too busy checking out everything else to pay much attention to them after he gave them a good sniffing.

You are right about his obsession with the red booda ball…I had to hide it but I think he’s getting the same way about the truck now…he can’t stop looking at it anytime we are outside and he can’t wait to get back in it.

I discovered that he’s pretty good at chasing a stick and bringing it back to me but it’s only because he doesn’t realize that he can be a couple of feet away from me and I can reach the stick…it’s not like a ball where you have to get right next to him to get it…I think it was a big surprise to him that I could get the stick from him.

The fence is completely working now much to his chagrin so he’s been outside on his own while I watch from the house.  He didn’t even get shocked but he’s smart enough to know that it’s on…he can hear it snap.  He hasn’t wandered far from the barn without me but he’s exploring a little on his own.  He hasn’t gotten over the horses yet, they came up to the deck a minute ago to be petted and he was entirely put out by that.

I worked the tractor for a while and he did go a little postal about the tractor…he tried to climb up to the seat.  I had to get my piaffe whip to make him stay far enough away from the tractor to keep him safe…after a few minutes he settled down and just trotted next to it but he wouldn’t take his eyes off of it and kept barking at it.

Maggie thinks he’s Satan.

This was written Friday. Three days have passed and things have begun to settle down, word has it that all is well and that Diesel and his new mom are having fun getting to know one another. He has his own bag of tennis balls and new girl Maggie - though still reserved - may be reconsidering her options. I'm pretty sure it's a done deal. We'll have updates periodically (thanks Debbie) and a few leftover pictures from last Thursday coming before long.

Meanwhile, is Stella pathetic or what? She got to visit the farm too and run in the pasture with Diesel before we went home Friday. He gets to keep his name, by the way, which is great. She's  obviously missed him but I'm certain she'll be fine too. We've gone back to walking in some of her old favorite places  - which is way more exciting for both of us than our standard romp through the neighborhood.

The Adoption

About the time we, the three of us got pretty good at all walking together like civilized animals, Diesel hit the mother lode.

The week between Christmas and the New Year, I got two serious inquiries about him. One was a note stuck to the door from a couple of my good neighbors (yes, they do exist).  I read the note, felt a little pang of impending loss but went ahead and made the call. He got a short interview from that call from friends of a friend, who happened to be looking for a dog. I passed my contact information on to them and waited. The very next day the rescue contacted me and said someone had called asking about Diesel. I had the idea that maybe it was the same person but that wasn't the case. Again, I passed the information along and a few days went by. Then, there was a message from someone we'll call Debbie on the machine. We spent about thirty minutes talking on the telephone and  I wondered after we finished, if Debbie was a hallucination I just had or a really mean joke.

You know how when you're a kid and you get a dog and some time passes how one day you come home from school and the dog is gone and one of your parents tells you that your dog went to "live on a farm"? Some - I'd say even many of you have heard this spiel - you're shocked and sorry, you never really saw the dog go or had a chance to say goodbye but of course it's a wonderful place where the dog can run and play and chase rabbits all day and though you feel just terrible somehow you convince yourself that what your parents said is true and the dog really is going to have a nice life there? Remember that story? This happened at my house more than one time although my mother will deny it to this day, none of those dogs ever went to any farm. They were all taken to the pound or dumped off somewhere or given away. I'll never know the details but it took a lot longer than I'd like to admit to figure out that "the farm" didn't exist and my dogs weren't hanging out at the barn in some canine Nirvana.

Guess what.

There really is a farm. And our friend Diesel found it or to be more precise, the farm found him. It was the second phone call. The dream I couldn't allow myself to have as a foster mom knowing it would obliterate all future candidates, called us right up on the telephone.

Diesel and I went over to Debbie's for a visit. We had a run in the pasture. We petted the horses and had tea - with fruitcake. I know what you're thinking. It was unbelievably good though, handmade-by-a-Louisiana-woman-type good. That was Tuesday. She filled out the application for Diesel and we all traded e-mails. 

It was then I started thinking seriously about Diesel's departure and our long history together. The neighbors, the police, him galloping through my flower beds in the middle of May, every May, his predecessor Buddy - who got hit and died slowly in front of my house the night before Thanksgiving and the rage I felt when his owner asked me to take care of it, because he just couldn't deal with it right now, how Diesel showed up weeks later - the rebound puppy, me already hoping for his liberation as he refused to become the bully his owner craved but howled insufferably on the chain, terrifying some of the dog walkers, regularly evading the dogcatcher and finally, how he won us over - me and Stella and all but the wimpiest of neighbors with his sincere loyalty and good-natured affection and now that I was thinking about it everything that's really good in a dog.

All of this reflection caused a minor league meltdown in the pet food aisle at Wal-Mart. It was warped and poetic, pain and joy all ground together with a discount mortar and pestle against the backdrop of Wal-Mart. It was as my young niece Katie likes to say: epic.

We are so happy to report that as of yesterday, Diesel has his very own family. It is made up of one woman, three horses, a female dog and three cats, a creek and a never-ending supply of rabbits, mice, horse manure and neighbor dogs to run the fence with. I'm guessing if you're a dog it just doesn't get any better than that.

 

 

Treats for humans

Diesel and I got a little birthday present in the mail today. We had a cheapie video camera last year sometime but it stopped working (as expected - it was really cheap). This one isn't top of the line or anything but in nice light, I think it'll be fine and I can use it for my impromptu interviews as well. The sound is excellent.
This little clip was just me trying it out for the first time. I predict someone is going to fall hard for this face when it finally does happen. Until then...

They should've named him Easy

She lifts his entire hindquarters with her head and trots him through my office on his front paws like a wheelbarrow. He doesn't mind. In fact, he likes it. When they pass back through, the situation is reversed and now he is prancing, the loose skin of her jowl clenched between his teeth. She smiles and waves on the way by. I am a bystander. In this canine charade, I can only watch and learn and be entertained.

Pretty soon, someone is going to come along [you] and adopt this beautiful foster dog right out from under us. I can feel it. Stella and I will probably cry our eyes out that day but for some lucky person or family, it's going to be a life-changing event.

Sorry we've been slow to update. It's been extremely busy around here and any free time has been spent parading around the neighborhood with the large adoptable dog and his oh-so-ladylike girlfriend, Stella. Soon.

Cutting out the middle man

Here are a couple of stray shots I forgot to include in the last post. Believe it or not, that little duck appeared to be teasing Diesel. It kept coming back to us for the better part of an hour. I guess it gets pretty boring just floating around on the lake. Of course Diesel might as well be wearing a t-shirt that says Rookie on it so maybe it just couldn't resist.

The Graduate

We got the certificate.
Diesel, formerly misunderstood, outside, chained to the doghouse, could've been a junkyard dog, Diesel - is officially a Pup Scout graduate. Many thanks to his teacher Jane and his anonymous sponsor and all the other pups and owners who graciously put up with us for nine weeks. We commend your brave spirits.

Up to the very last week, he/we had trouble getting into and out of the room where our class was. I mentioned at the beginning we had to pass through an agility training room filled with equipment and dogs each week. At this point in his fresh start - just opening the door to go into this room was like plugging him into a wall socket. He did (mostly) get used to being around the other dogs in class though and that part was very good. That's actually the biggest hurdle we faced and the reason I wanted to take him in the first place. It was established early on that he's some kind of boy genius. Smarter than I ever gave him credit for before. He learned to sit and lie down, stay and come and all of the basics on the first or second try. He's seriously food motivated though so if you don't have any in your hand - his responses vary, for now anyway. For some reason he blew off every trick I tried to teach him and didn't learn a single one, not even with Stella and her oh-so-theatrical demonstrations. We'll more than likely try again on some rainy day or save them for his future owner to work on.

Field Trip + separation anxiety (mine)

Diesel (bathed and manicured) went on a field trip Thursday with a kind person who I reckoned might be a perfect match for him. He got a manicure with the Dremel tool. I can't believe two big dogs in a row have let me use that thing on their toenails. Anyway, I was nervous about him going in the same way a mom is nervous about the first day of school. Would he be good? Would they like him? Would he play well with others? Once he'd gone I was fine. Stella, on the other hand was a little distressed. She laid in front of his crate much of the evening and even manged to parlay that into sleeping in the bed with me and the cat.

It ended up being an exercise as much as anything. Although I'm told he did play well with others for the most part - it was also true he wasn't a good fit for their particular household. There were variables, like work schedules and energy levels and roommates. And roommates' pets that came into play, derailing his chances this time around. The good thing though is that everyone took something from the experience.

This begs the question: Once someone is interested in your foster dog - what is the best way to go about setting up meetings, home visits, etc.?  What's best for the dog and the dog's eventual success. Every situation will be a little different but I found once the interest was there I wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. Should we meet in the park and go for a walk? Should I have them over to my house? Or go to theirs? Sleep over? Loan the dog out for a day or a week? Would two nights be better than one? Do I wear him out before he visits or let them experience (and drain) his energy first hand?

In this first instance, there was someone I knew who could vouch for the potential adopter so though I didn't exactly know him, he wasn't a total stranger either. He suggested the sleepover and I just went with it. He was young and seemed perfectly capable, even well-suited I thought, to tend to the needs of a big goofy dog. Had it been someone that showed up out of the blue, or seemed only partially qualified, I think we would have moved much slower. My friend Beverly suggested a polygraph and a background check (she's taken a shine to Diesel herself) but that could be construed as excessive, working against us in the long run.

Hypothetically speaking, if this person had decided to adopt Diesel - then what? I know the mechanics of the application papers, the rabies tag and microchip transfer, that could all happen in an hour but is there some window of time or schedule of events that's better or worse for the dog? Should I let the new owner pick him up or should I drop him off? 

Am I talking about the dog really or am I talking about me? It's hard to say but I can't wait to meet the person who realizes that he's going to be their next best friend.