A New Beginning…or An Old

The decision was made, it was time for a new beginning…or an old.  The house was too quiet and I had too much love to supply.  It was time to adopt.  Carolina Border Collie Rescue to the rescue!  I was immediately drawn to Bailey with a face too precious not to love.  Bailey is estimated to be 14 years old, was treated for heartworms and diagnosed with Cushings Disease upon his arrival to CBCR.  That weekend we drove the hour to meet Bailey for the first time.

He was shy but warmed up to us quickly. So sweet and mild tempered. All he wanted was to have his belly rubbed. Arrangements were made to have Bailey visit for his trial adoption. Let’s see if the cats like Bailey as much as I do.  It’s been one week now that Bailey has been “visiting” (let’s face it, he’s not going anywhere). One exhausting week…

Day 1: The day of his arrival. We were all very excited and there was a lot of getting acclimated. Bailey loved his new bed and as the evening wore on, his exhaustion overcame his apprehension and he curled up on the bed. Have you ever awoken in a strange place and had that moment of panic? My cat Johnny knows what I’m talking about. As Bailey is laying there trying to fight his exhaustion, eyes closing then snapping open, he sees Johnny out of the corner of his eye and that moment of panic sets in. Let me just say that dog moves fast. He’s up in a flash and after the cat. Of course, Johnny has the stairs to help his escape. After a bunch of “Bailey, No”s, he wakes up enough to lower his head and realize what he’s done. Then come the “It’s okay Bailey”s. That night, his bed is moved into the gated exercise room so that he can rest without the fear of a cat sneaking up on him.

Day 2: We’re off to the store for some grocery shopping. The plant never saw it coming. Bailey’s separation anxiety set in and he pulled open every plantation shutter in the windows in order to see out. The plant was precariously placed in his way to obtain his objective and did a double flip onto the floor. Oops, a little light vacuuming was on the agenda. Rest of the day was spent feeding treats and carrots as a way to comfort his transition. The next morning was spent cleaning up the midnight puke from his upset stomach. Oops.

Day 3: First full day of work and Bailey is gated into the exercise room to limit his ability to destroy the house just as a precaution. Plantation shutter slats are opened so he can see out the windows. Oh well, it was an attempt. He decided that he didn’t want to look through the slats, he wanted them opened wide. Problem being that one would not cooperate so he chewed the corners off the slats instead. Goodbye plantation shutters. That evening was spent picking up the crate I loaned to a friend.

Day 4: Keep in mind that Bailey has been crated for the past year so my thought was that this will give him some comfort. So we put a nice piece of eggshell foam on the bottom of the crate and a kennel bed on top of that. He went straight into the crate with his tail wagging. Perfect. Bailey thought so too as he chewed the eggshell foam into tiny little pieces. Can we say separation anxiety?

Day 5: Good day and no problems. Yeah. Damn, celebrated too early. Whining and scratching at 1:30 in the morning. Have to go out pee in the middle of the night. When did this schedule change take place? 5:00 am wake up call with whining and scratching. Bailey is done being alone and wants his belly rubbed. Day 6 starts out as a sleepy blur.

Day 6: What else to shake off a sleepy blur but a nice morning run? As we’re carrying stuff out to the car in the morning, Bailey slips out the front door. And he’s off. Here’s the visual…me in two inch heel boots running down the street, yelling “Bailey No”, “Bailey Come”, “Bailey Stop”. Bailey looking over his shoulder as he trots down the street almost saying “see ya, thanks for the sleepover”. End of the street, he stops to sniff some grass and I snatch his collar. Okay I’m awake now. Already scheduled for a half day vacation and will definitely need it. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, Bailey is headed to the groomers. So let’s load him up in the car, drop him at the groomers and go to work for four hours. Fortunately his day was as exhausting as mine. We spent the afternoon with me asleep in my recliner and him curled up behind me. Oh blessed sleep.

Day 7: The day starts with a good night’s sleep on the sofa to sway his middle of the night anxiety. Into the crate for the day with an old sweatshirt that I had been wearing for the last few days just for him. I think we’ve made some progress.

Bailey is finally settling in. We’re getting into a routine. As exhausting as this first week has been, it has been as equally rewarding. Every tail wag, every belly rub makes me realize that this is exactly what I needed and that Bailey’s new home is filled with endless love for him.  Welcome to the family Bailey!

Time Goes By So Quickly…

Time goes by so quickly.  Months filled with care and concern keep you occupied then before you know it, time is empty and you wonder how you filled your days.  Her decline was slow but noticeable and I knew her time was drawing near.  I spent every moment that I could with her, etching her into my memory and trying to prepare myself.  I am grateful for that time because some are not afforded this.  I am not writing this as a sort of cathartic healing but in the hope that others in this position can take something from it.

Bingo was a strong-willed dog with a spark for life.  She was love and temperament squished together in a body that was determined to fail at a young age.  But her strength carried that body and the pain into her fourteenth year.  She suffered from idiopathic seizures since she was a puppy and as she got older these seizures turned into little 2 to 3 seconds seizures every 5 to 10 minutes.  Sometimes her feet would just go out from underneath her, leaving her slightly dazed and confused.  She suffered from deforming arthritis in her front feet which she licked constantly.  In her last few months, she had lost most of her muscle mass in her hind quarters due to the arthritis.  It was a miracle every time she stood up from sleeping for hours.  But that was Bingo, resilient, obstinate and a miracle.  I feared every day that she was in pain but she’d come over to me and lay her head on my leg to let me know she was okay.

In those last few months, it became impossible for her to negotiate her way down the ramp to go outside.  I thought it would devastate her to be stuck inside every day but still every evening, she greeted me at the door with a wagging tail and that happy grin.  I watched her every day as it became harder to stand long enough to eat her dinner.  She would eat until she fell down then lay there for 30 minutes then get up and finish the bowl.  She refused to eat lying down.  She refused to let her frailty stop her from living.

But the struggle got harder.  She began to have episodes of her brain believing that she could not walk and she would lay there not sure of what to do.  I felt helpless but I knew that she had to sort it out herself.  There was nothing I could do but continue to tell her she was okay, that she was safe and that I loved her until the episode passed.  I hope she took solace in my comfort.  She and I had a deal, I would take care of her until she told me it was time.

And time goes by so quickly.  I heard her struggling to stand up in the middle of the night and went to check on her.  As I reached the bottom of the stairs, she let out one last small cry then laid her head down and refused to lift it again.  I lay there with her the rest of the night and she slept and chased bunnies in her sleep.  By morning, she still would not lift her head even as the cats played around her.  As much as I wanted to deny it, we had a deal.  She was tired and she had decided that the time had come.  We said our final goodbyes that morning of December 30th.

It was a decision that one never wants to make but it is a decision that every pet owner has an obligation to make when taking home a puppy or a kitten.   Our beloved pets rely on us to know when it is time and when it is not.  It is up to us to make sure they do not suffer and it is up to us to read the signs.  My love for Bingo overcame my sadness for losing her.  I know she will always remember the love and compassion that I had for her and will have for an eternity.  She brought so much wealth to my life.

My Dog the “Drug Addict”

Who knew there would be a day when my dog took more medication than me?  Yet, every day, twice a day, I line up her pills, ball them up in a piece of bread, and drop them in her mouth.  With her pacing back and forth, like an addict waiting for her fix.
Oh, and she’ll tell you when it’s time for her pills in case you forget.  She’ll come up and lay her head on your leg or lay in the middle of the floor making these impatient little
whimpers.  Two times a day, I know exactly where I need to be and each and every day is planned out to be sure that I am home to deal the drugs.

So what’s being dealt at my house?  Don’t get too excited.  If you’re old enough to start feeling age settle in, it’s probably the same “drugs” you’re taking now.  She starts with one 1000mg Fish Oil twice a day for her joints, skin and coat.  Next is one Benadryl, the little pink one, in the morning only, to keep the skin infections at bay.  It also makes her
sleep most of the day which is an added benefit for the cats.  They get to run around the house in the morning while she is sleeping off the Benadryl.  In the evening, she takes a 1500mg Glucosamine Chondroitin, which everyone with “creaky” bones knows helps with joints and arthritis.

Now we’re up to what I call “the disposable income killer”.  Deramaxx.  She takes one 75mg of Deramaxx which I break in half and give her one half in the morning and the other in the evening.  I had a vet ask me once, “why do you break it in half and not give it to her all at once?”.  It seemed pretty self-explanatory to me.  Deramaxx is an NSAID sort of like Advil to humans.  If I’m trying to regulate pain, I take a smaller dose several times a day instead of taking the whole bottle at once.  Duh.  And she does better when I give it to her that way.  Duh.  Now Deramaxx is specifically made for dogs and the drug manufacturers understand this and make it conveniently overpriced.  Can everyone say “second mortgage”?  Ninety tablets is $180 from an online pet pharmacy. Never go through your vet because of the middle man markup.  There are other drugs on the market that do the same thing which also require an adequate line of credit.  But the relief she gets from this drug is worth the money.

Finally is Tramadol which is actually a human pain killer.  She currently takes one and half pills in the morning and two pills in the evening.  This dosage has increased from one pill a day over time.  I’ll never forget the first year of her prescription.  The vet said
it would help alleviate the pain from her arthritis and I took home 30 pills for $45.  She responded well to the medication so I surrendered to the cost.  After about a year, I was talking with my dad who also had an elderly dog, Kristie, who was also taking Tramadol and he mentioned that he got his prescription from Walmart.  AND HE ONLY PAID $6.00!  Do I need to mention that I never saw that vet again?

To some of you this may sound burdensome between the time commitment and the cost but to me this is love and responsibility.  A commitment I made the day I brought home the pudgy round bundle of puppy and named her Bingo.  And as long as I can ease her pain in her golden years, I will, twice a day, deal the “drugs” to my furry “drug addict”.

Wanna Play Ball?

Bingo lives for chasing a tennis ball.  She sees a tennis ball and her whole body tenses up and her entire focus is on that ball.  I’ve never seen such dedication to an object ever before.  Then her body began to fail her and I thought her spirit for the tennis ball would fail too.  Yet, she never ceases to amaze me.

One evening while she was lying in the middle of the floor, I picked up her tennis ball and her ears perked up.  So I tossed it to her.  She snatched it out of mid-air without even getting up.  Wow, I thought.  So I got a couple more balls from her stash and tossed them to her.  She caught each one and earnestly looked around for the next.  So I grabbed her plastic ball tosser, a long plastic stick that the tennis ball fits into the end, and reached out to roll the balls back to me then tossed them to her again.  Bingo volleyball was invented! 

 

With the help of a friend, this game progressed into a nightly event, where the highlight was to get Bingo so excited about catching the tennis ball that she barked until you threw her the ball.  The object is to bang the plastic ball tosser on the floor and ask silly questions like, “Who wants to play ball?”, “How old are you?” and “Do you love your mommy?”.  Bingo barks her answer to you at the top of her lungs and then she gets one tennis ball after another tossed in the air to her.  She catches most of them but some she bounces off her nose right back at you.  So you better have quick reflexes or get hit right in the face with a tennis ball.

One of the benefits Bingo gets out of volleyball is that the barking clears her lungs of phlegm which used to be controlled with exercise from running around in the yard.  But the biggest benefit of all is that Bingo still lives for chasing a tennis ball and will always have the sparkle in her eyes when you have a tennis ball in your hand.  So, wanna play ball?

I truly believe that dogs smile when they are happy

(I wrote this last fall)

I truly believe that dogs smile when they are happy.  For a couple of weeks now, I’ve noticed that Bingo has been sleeping on her cooling bed but not because she is hot.  The weather has cooled off and she doesn’t pant as much as she used to but she heads right over to that cooling bed every night.  Every now and then I throw one of
those thin dog beds over top of it and she’ll lie on top of that until she gets in a nesting mood and paws the bed into a pile and uses it as a pillow instead.  So of course my mind starts whirling, why does she sleep on that bed when she isn’t hot?

First let me explain the cooling bed in case you’re not familiar.  It is a large, rectangular,
vinyl dog “waterbed”.  You fill it up with water and it transfers the heat from the dog to the floor through the water.  I bought it for Bingo 3 years ago because she panted all of the time and always seemed to be hot.  At first she didn’t want anything to do with it.  Then the A/C went out one hot summer day and she and I spent the whole day on it in a desperate attempt to keep cool.  Since then I can’t get her off of it.  But why is she still sleeping on it when she lies in front of the radiant heater when I turn it on?

I had to flash back to my younger years when my boyfriend at the time had a waterbed.  I remember lying there like you were suspended in mid air.  No pressure points just floating. Epiphany!  She doesn’t want to sleep on the hard floor anymore!  Maybe?  I don’t know, I can’t read her mind.  So she needs something comfortable to sleep on, I think.

The search begins for the ultimate dog bed for what I think is the most scrutinizing dog ever created.  What will she like?  Will it be too hot?  Can she hoist herself up on
those 5 inch high beds?  Will she be able to get up out of a bed that’s too soft?
Should it be an orthopedic bed that costs a fortune?  Yikes, a second mortgage for a dog bed?  Did I ever think that I would lose sleep trying to decide on a dog bed?  The only solution was to start small and if that didn’t work go bigger.  I bought an extra large eggshell bed that is about 4 inches off the ground with the fake lambswool covering.  Dragged it home and threw it in the middle of the floor.

Immediately, she walked over to it, sniffed it and wagged her tail.  So I sat down on half of it and gave her the customary pat on the bed for her to sit next to me.  She climbed up on that bed, laid down beside me and gave me the biggest ear to ear grin.  Then she turned and looked at the cat, Johnny, and growled to say, “Stay away from my bed”.  I couldn’t be happier and I think she’s pretty pleased too!  I moved the bed to her napping spot, directly behind my recliner in the corner and that’s where I find her.  She goes
back and forth between the cooling bed and her new extra cushiony bed all night long.

That smile will be with me long after she has gone.  Thank you Bingo!

A Ramp On The Road

Imagine your world cut in half.  Everything you knew is now restricted.  Bingo may not have felt that way but I sure did.  Putting up that baby gate and restricting her to the downstairs portion of the house was devastating for me and took weeks of negotiations in my head to accept.  “She understood that it was the best thing for her”.  “I did the right thing in order to protect her”.  Good news was that she could still negotiate the four steps out the front door to the yard.  And with a little help could get back up them.  Funny thing about good news…it’s short lived.

Ever wake up in the morning and think “there’s something wrong”.  Your heart starts racing and all of your senses fire up.  Then in the distance you hear this little whine.
YOU’RE UP, YOU’RE RUNNING, YOU’RE TRYING NOT TO GO DOWN THE STAIRS HEAD FIRST!  And there she is, lying between the recliner and the lamp stand in a funny position.  Superman moves the recliner in one clean sweep.  You hear someone in the room saying over and over “Are you okay?”, oh wait that’s me.  “Come on, get up”.  She struggles, no good.  Your mind is racing, what if she never walks again?  You reach for her, she growls.  You grab the muzzle, some senses are still working.  Muzzle in place, you scoop your arms under the belly of this seventy pound dog.  And, wait, superman is back, you lift her onto all four and say, “WALK”.  And she’s off and moving, wobbly at first then picking up speed.  Tail wagging and that look like “What’s the big deal?  Why are you out of breath?”

From that point forward even the front steps were barely negotiable.  Eight hundred dollars later, the ramp was in place out the garage door for easier access in and out of the house.  Don’t get me wrong, the ramp is still a negotiation for her.  The angle
is steep enough to cause her some trepidation and we have the occasional spill
and slide to the bottom.  But the opportunity to get out of the house and just ‘be a dog’ is priceless.

The Long Road Ahead

A year and a half already since the flash of black and white fur streaked across the yard chasing the fuzzy yellow tennis ball as if her life depended on it.  A year and a half
since she pushed her way out the door, bounding down the front steps, frantically
barking as if to say, “I’m coming out, here I am, does anyone want to play!.”  I miss that carefree love of life that a dog never seems to lose.  And when I look into her eyes, the spark is still there even if the body can’t keep up.  She is my thirteen year old American Border Collie, Bingo.

Three years ago Bingo and I, and my cat Johnny, moved back to North Carolina
after my divorce.  Bingo was my protector and I, hers.  She slept on the bed with
me every night.  She barked and growled at anyone who came to the door.  We took
occasional walks and played ball in the back yard every night.  Then suddenly, I noticed that she became hesitant going down the stairs in the morning.  But with a little encouragement she would make her way down.  It was only when she started struggling to get up the stairs that I knew there was a problem.  The final straw was when she made it up six steps and her legs went out beneath her and she slid all the way back down.  That was when I set up her bed downstairs and put a baby gate up at the foot of the steps.  Gone were the nights of the snoring dog on the bed beside me.

Amazingly, she adapted better than I did.  I guess she knew it was in her best interest.  I made sure that she had a comfortable bed, although she spent most of her time on the couch.  I gave her extra bedtime kisses and left her country music playing on the tv.  But this was just the beginning of our long road to this point.