Stray Dog

I was driving to get my coffee this morning -- yes, I am one of those people who LOVE the $2 coffee from the coffee shops -- and on my way, I saw a stray dog. It was a medium-sized yellow Labrador who looked like Maizy (another dog, another story).

She wandered down a sidewalk on 59th Street and we were not far from a busier street--Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis. A woman in an SUV had stopped and appeared to be watching the dog, but that woman stayed in her car. Admittedly, I have seen possible stray dogs before and done nothing. Today, I stopped.

Jodi had done this many times, saying, What if that were your dog? You'd want someone to find it!

Once I stopped, the woman in the SUV drove away. Now it was up to me. I called to the dog and she scurried in the other direction. If she could talk, I think she was saying: "Oh, dear. Oh, my, oh, my. Who is that lady following me?...."

I whistled for her to come. But she did not.

A teenage girl waited for the bus. "Is that your dog?" she said.

"No, but she has tags," I said.

The dog turned down an alley between the houses. Shoot! I jogged after her, turning down the alley. Then, I didn't see her. I hurried down the alley. The dog was drinking out of a blue plastic dish tub.

"Come here, girl."

She stopped drinking and looked up at me. Then, she darted into a fenced back yard of a house that faced Nicollet Avenue--the busy street. Was the yard fenced in front?! I hoped so.

I was reluctant to enter the yard. What if they had a dog? But their fence had been left open. So I guessed they did not. I whistled for the stray dog again. She looked around the corner.

"Here, girl!"

She stared at me, judging me. Could she trust me? I knelt down to be less intimidating.

She came over by the fence but as soon as I leaned toward her to get her collar, she darted back into the yard. What if she bit me? I was cautious. I went into the yard. I closed the gate behind me, in case she ran around the house and got out again. I didn't want her to feel cornered and get aggressive toward me, but I also had to get a look at her tags.

When I got to the front yard, I saw that there was a smaller gated area and now we were in front of Nicollet Avenue. I closed the gate behind me and whistled again.

I approached the dog slowly and finally got close enough. I carefully handled her collar and looked at the tags. She seemed calm enough.

The gold dog biscuit name tag said: Belle. The address didn't look far away according to the street numbers. There was a phone number. I called. Thankfully, the owner answered. He sounded calm--more calm than I would be if my dog had gotten loose. I would have been freaking out.

"I'm right across from Cub," I said. "I'll wait for you in the yard. It's a busy street."

"I'll be right there. Thank you for calling," he said.

Belle and I waited. I looked at the house, feeling I was trespassing on someone's property. Two kids climbed on a sofa in a picture window. They were watching us and smiling.

The front door opened. A man came outside.

"The dog came in your yard," I said, pointing at Belle. "She's friendly. I already called the owner."

"Phone?" he said and I could tell he mostly spoke Spanish.

"No," I said. "I already called. They will be here soon." I spoke louder, like people do when they are trying to get their point across. But this was a language barrier. It wasn't that he couldn't hear me.

The man came outside. "Habla Espanol?"

"No habla espanol," I said, knowing what that meant. "Que pasa?" I said, reaching for my limited Spanish vocabulary from a Taco Bell commercial. I knew that meant what's up, but it was almost all of the Spanish I knew. "Not el Gato," I added, making conversation. "Que dog?" How do you say dog? I was trying.

He didn't answer.

"Me llamo Kristin," I said.

No response. Maybe my accent was off. It had been several years since I had taken any language courses. Maybe I had it mixed up with the conversational Italian I learned for my trip in 2008. No that was mi chiamo Kristin. Maybe I should have said: Mi nombre es Kristin?

He motioned for one of his boys who was probably three to come outside and pet the dog. The dogs ears flattened. I was also leery of this idea. I knew that probably meant Belle was nervous, but she stayed still. It probably wasn't a good idea to let the kid try and pet Belle, but nothing happened.

The owner pulled up in a silver sedan and I handed the dog off to him.

"She's never run off before," he said.

I walked back to my car. Yay, I did it!
Now a group of kids waited with the teenage girl I had seen before.

"Did you catch it?" she said.

"Yeah, the owner just got her. She was from the other side of the freeway!"

"I thought the dog was aggressive," the girl said. Then she added, "But it probably would have run at us if it was."

"Yes," I agreed. "Have a good day," I said and left.

That was Monday. In Good Citizen class just the Saturday morning before, we were told the dogs must be able to be handled all over in order to pass level one. This situation with a dog straying is exactly why. If Belle could not have been handled around the neck and collar, I would not have been able to call the owner to come pick her up AND I may have been bitten.

Our trainer also said the group of people who gets the most dog bites every year is groomers. This is because they have to handle the dogs all over and some dogs can't accept that.

Conflict and Story

I walked Rex one day that first week and we passed a house with a "Wage Peace" sign posted to a metal fence. Rex lifted his leg and turned on the faucet. The sign dripped dog pee. Peace was not something Rex wanted to preserve.

A week later, on the same walk, Rex peed on a second sign posted in the same yard. I looked around but luckily no one saw. Rex had waged war. There would be no peace. Only pee. Just like in war, he was marking his territory, all over the neighborhood. We wondered where all the pee came from. He seemed to void but there was always something left to make his mark elsewhere if he chose.

After that, I loaded Rex into my too-small-for-a-105-pound-dog Honda Prelude to do errands. He wanted to go for a car ride. What dog wouldn't? Alas, I had a black "Wage Peace" button stuck into the mustard-colored dash. Rex's tail immediately swatted the button out of place and onto the floorboards. There would be no peace in that little car or on that car ride either.

In Writing Fiction (5th ed.), one of the writing craft books I was reading at the time, Janet Burroway says, every story needs conflict. Without that, there is no story. The main character must run into trouble.

"Only trouble is interesting" (29), Burroway says.

Charles Baxter adds to this in Burning Down the House, as qtd. in Writing Fiction:

"Say what you will about it, Hell is story-friendly. If you want a compelling story, put your protagonist among the damned. The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over" (29).

The question that I wasn't sure how to answer in this story was this: Who was the protagonist? Who would be trying to get us out of this trouble? Maybe there was more than one.

I had found trouble--the conflict-loving dog definitely qualified. This was a story and I was actually living it.

The Foster Manual

Before fostering a dog, I had to go up to the warehouse/office and sign some paperwork. This was the Foster Agreement. I had to initial each of the items, acknowledging that I'd read it.

This was on Friday, February 19. We were getting the dog on Saturday.

That first week, we had lots of questions. I read through the agreement I had signed numerous times, especially because he wasn't neutered and had dominance issues. We were waiting to get him in to be neutered and I wanted him in asap.

I wondered if I could take him to somewhere closer that could get him in faster. I reviewed the foster agreement. as a foster, I would not have to pay for anything for the dog if I followed procedure, except for food and toys. But anything medical would be covered by the rescue agency.

Foster Home Agreement, Item #4:
Protocols for Emergency care must be followed as outlined in the Foster Manual.

What Foster Manual?

Was I missing something? Had I not received an important document that would answer all of my questions? That would make everything clear? How to help him adjust... how to get him to behave... how to get him to listen?

Whatever the document was, I did not have it. And I thought his getting neutered also qualified as an emergency. Supposedly, he would calm down after the procedure because his testosterone would lessen. I wanted this done immediately, if not sooner.

Bringing Him Home

On the way to get Rex, we played Paul Simon's Loves Me Like a Rock over and over, singing along with the words and driving in Jodi's Honda CRV. Like new parents, flying abroad to get a child from China, we were so excited! We had also brought Jodi's dog Ruby along for the two-hour drive. We thought it would be a good idea to get the new dog socialized right away with Jodi's dog since he would be at Jodi's house some of the time.

We met our foster contact in a Super America parking lot in Alexandria, MN, halfway between Minneapolis and the South Dakota Indian reservation. Our contact led the dog out of her back seat. He was HUGE. His ears pointed forward.

Gulp.

"I have some bad news," she said.

My first thought was he had a disease or injury.

"I talked to his previous owners and they said they got him in 2003. So, he's probably more like seven years old."

The ad had said two years and five months (best guess).

"Oh, and he also had an accident on the way here. He pooped all over my back seat," she said.

I didn't even want to see what that looked like.

We unloaded Ruby out of the back of the CRV. He growled at her. He barked. We held them on tight leashes a ways apart. Ruby was a black Labrador and half his size, at 50 pounds.

Double-gulp.

"Let's walk them," someone suggested.

We walked them on leashes through the parking lot. Rex remained growly. Ruby was another dog in his space and he wasn't happy about that. Plus, he was confused. Where am I? What's going on? Who are these people?

We were the fosters but to him we were strangers.

But we had agreed to foster him and provide a good home until a forever home could be found. And we were people of our word. "Okay, well, let's go," we said, wanting to get going because the drive back would be just as long and the sun was setting as it was getting to be late afternoon.

Ruby and Rex had to be separated for the ride back. We never thought to ask if it was okay to have another dog along for the meeting. Apparently, the instant socialization with another dog was not a good idea. We didn't know better.

Ruby sat in the front seat. Jodi drove and I sat in the back seat. Rex was in the far back area of the SUV. A quiet sense of shock overtook the journey.

I sighed.

Jodi sighed.

Ruby even sighed.

What had we gotten ourselves into?

The drive home was quieter. Paul Simon did not croon from the radio. The sounds of silence seemed more appropriate.

But, instead of silence, nervous panting from the rear of the Honda filled the void.

Reservation Dog

The first day we had T-Rex home we walked him. But this was a country dog and he was used to wide open spaces. In the city, he would walk on sidewalks. New sounds of children in playgrounds and cars whizzing by would make him look around and wonder where the heck he was.

On that first leash walk, a plane flew overhead. Rex stopped and stared at the sky. That may have been the first plane he ever saw.

On the reservation, he probably saw mostly pickups trucks, if any traffic.

The moment he stared at the sky and the silence surrounding the plane reminded me of the aftermath of 911. The day after September 11, 2001, no planes were seen or heard. This was a dramatic silence for anyone living near the Minneapolis airport. We're used to hearing the constancy of takeoffs and landings, so much so that we forget it's going on around us in the busy HUB. Planes had become as common as geese flying overhead.

I went to the Regal Theater in Eagan and watched the movie United 93. The movie was about the high-jacked flight where the passengers took action so the plane would not hit the U.S. Capital. The flight had been delayed so when the highjackers took over, the passengers on board got word of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

I remember coming out of the theater after that sobering movie. The first thing I noticed was a plane that flew overhead. It was eerie.

Now it was Rex making us stop and take notice again of the miracle flying overhead. But soon he too would not take notice of the jets flying overhead. They would become as common and taken for granted sight for him, perhaps, as mosquitoes and gnats. He adjusted to the change and forgot about it as quickly as some of us who resumed travel after the events of 911.

Yours, Mine, and Ours --, Resource Guarding

During the first month of fostering T-Rex, whenever he would be cute and easy to handle, I would say, "He's mine."

"Mine," Jodi would respond.

But when he would pull the leash while walking him or growl, then I would say, "He's yours." and Jodi would respond: "He's yours."

But we had adopted him together--so he was Ours.

Jodi called me one morning and said, "Guess what we're doing!"
I had no idea.
"He likes fetch!"
They were playing fetch in her fenced back yard. And Rex loved it! And he loved tennis balls.
"I'm never walking him again," Jodi said.
I stopped over later that day and played fetch with him too. The problem was he wouldn't drop the ball. Does anyone have a crowbar?

I asked Joann about this at training. And she told us to have two balls. When you get ready to throw the second one, he should drop the first. This worked for a while but he was never very willing to give up the ball once he brought it back. Later, he had a stuffed toy hedge hog outside. I reached for it and he grabbed it. Again he was resource guarding.

On Saturday, day one of Good Citizen training, I explained the problem to Joann and she said that he was resource guarding. Rex thought that the toys were his and now I needed to let him know everything was mine and that nothing in the house was his.

It's funny because the night before we had gone out and bought him a pink stuffed bear and thought: this will be one of his first toys. Awwww. He loved the bear. Even a 105-pound dinosaur will look like a big baby if he's carrying a floppy pink teddy bear around in his mouth. But now I would have to take the bear away and say it was mine -- mine!

Joann took a squeaky ball she held it in front of his face. When he grabbed at it, she said, "Leave it!" Once the dog backed off, then she held it up by her shoulder and said, "Mine." The dog kept watching her and the ball. She held it to his face again and said, "Leave it." This time he left it. She said I had to do this with every toy in the house so he knows that nothing is his and that his very existence and everything he has is because of you. "It's all yours."

I took the teddy away. Rex cocked his head. I told him to leave it. He did. I laid the teddy on the floor and he started toward it. I said: "Eh!" He stopped. I reached slowly for the bear. He leaned. "Leave it," I said firmly. He stopped. I picked up the bear and said, "Mine." He waited with cocked head. After several seconds, I handed him the bear.

Joann said that training is forever. It's not just during the class. Then you have to train the dog with every interaction. Forever. Echo.

That was yesterday. The mine concept has to be reinforced constantly. Especially when you are dealing with a rambunctious T-Rex.

I understand resource guarding. I have always resource-guarded my time. Maybe we all need to lighten up a little in the area.

JFK and Herb Brooks

"We chose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard." -- John F. Kennedy

That quote has always stuck with me.

JFK and I have a lot in common: We have the same initials (only mine are backwards from his), the same birthday, and we both liked Marilyn Monroe. But only one of us had the Happy Birthday song sung to us by the siren.

The movie Miracle was made about Herb Brooks, the coach who famously took a bunch of kinds from Boston and Minnesota to the Olympics to play hockey and beat the Russians in 1970. Herb was told of his plan to beat the Russians in the Olympics: "That's a pretty lofty goal, Herb." His response: "That's why I want to pursue it."

So, what in life is worth pursuing? If you want to achieve greatness--be something and someone who rises above mediocrity--then you have got to take on something BIG.

What is bigger than a 105-pound unneutered male Golden Retriever/St. Bernard mix who is 7 years old? Yes, that's right. The advertised yellow Labrador turned out to actually be something different: a Golden Retriever/St. Bernard mix, which explains his enormous size.

To battle mediocrity, you also have to go against the grain. An old cliche states: You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, I think you can.

In one month, T-Rex, the obstreperous dog, has already learned these commands:
*Sit
*Lay down
*Leave it
*High-5
*Shake

So here's to setting lofty goals that take us to the moon! What are you going to take on in the next decade?

Writing -- Where do you start?

They say when you are writing and don't know where to start that you should start in the middle of the action or a conversation -- start in the middle.

Well, that is exactly where I am -- I am in the middle of a story. I have adopted a dog with a friend -- joint custody. We are on week 4 of Obedience training. Yesterday Rex Learned to do a High 5 -- this was akin to watching a baby take its first steps. I was amazed!

This story began two months ago when I got an email....

February 12, 2010, my friend Jodi emailed me a posting for a rescue dog. "How about this one," she said. "Isn't he cute?!"

I looked at the photo. I had been saying I wanted a yellow lab for months and here was one staring me in the face. He looked tough with his Popeye arms firmly planted on the snow.

But I had questions: Why was the photo taken with him standing so far away from those pickups in the background? Why did his former owners keep him outside all the time?

He squinted. Was the wind blowing in his face? Maybe he was lonely and cold, like the ad said.

I was told he was at the tribal police on a South Dakota Indian reservation and they were going to SHOOT him if a foster home wasn't found right away!

Maybe this was the dog I had been waiting to save.

The ad said: Biscuit -- Urgent!! Foster Needed!!!!
Won't You Consider Helping him get a new start?

The facts: Labrador Retriever
Age: 2 years, 5 months (Best Guess)
Good with People: Yes
Good with Dogs: Yes

Description:
Biscuit is Lonely and Cold!!!

Biscuit is coming to us from an Indian reservation. He was picked up by the tribal police as the owner does not want him back. This poor boy is stuck at the "tribal pound" which means he spends his days and nights chained up outside at the police station. It is way too cold!!! The police dispatcher says he appears very submissive, he goes belly up when you approach him. Biscuit was found with other dogs so we are assuming he is good with them. Won't you please give a new home?

I decided I could foster him and then figure out later if I wanted to keep him -- if it was a good fit. Plus, if it was a good fit, I figured I would have him with me through my forties, since he was just over two years old. The previous owners were moving and decided not to take the dog with them. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were lazy and how awful it was that they would just give up their family pet.

"Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes."

Soon I would have a taste of what the former owners went through. But those people gave up on Biscuit. I would not. At least I haven't yet....

Just before picking the dog up, I found out he was actually closer to 100 pounds. Probably 7 years old--not 2 1/2). And he had issues. (to be continued...)

Citizen Canine

The Goal:

Take one difficult dog and have him pass the Good Citizenship test within one year. Can it be done? One vet I talked to said No way.

The obedience trainer I’m working with says it can be done in 6 months.

The dog:

T-Rex (formerly known as Biscuit, Wish, and even Cujo by a former foster home).

Answers to: Rex, Rexy, Rexford

The problem:

He is unruly, a.k.a. obstreperous. He growls at other people and other dogs. He has been an outside dog most of his life, tied up on a chain on a South Dakota Indian Reservation. And he’s big -- 105 pounds big. He is also 7 years old. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Let’s find out!

While I’m at it…

Let’s make another goal to learn some new words since my vocabulary might suffer—as any new parent’s does—because I will be spending more time baby-talking and using small words like these: Sit, stay, come, down, No! etc.

First Word: Obstreperous – unruly. Rex was an obstreperous dog when I first got him.