The next adventure begins!

We got our 6th CCI puppy today -- a beautiful yellow lab/golden cross named Kyndall.

In anticipation of her arrival, I've redesigned and renamed my puppy blog. It's now called A Pup with a Purpose, and you can find it here:
www.jdewyze.com/puppies.

If you want to get regular new of our adventure with Kyndall, please go to that page and sign up to follow us. 

I've also created a new Facebook page.  If you "Like" us there, that's another way to follow my puppy posts.

Adios, amiga

At one point, she struck a pose that looked a bit melancholy.
We don't think she really was.

The house is very, very quiet. Although Dionne weighed less than 60 pounds, she always had a large personality. Now that she's gone, she's left behind a palpable void.

As I write this, she and her adoptive parents, Dave and Ann Seltzer, must be almost halfway to their home in Davis (east of San Francisco). They made the eight and a half hour drive from there yesterday, departing at 6 a.m. and joining us for an early supper. Also joining us were LeAnn, our longtime puppy mentor, and her good-natured husband Kevin. It was LeAnn who first introduced us to the Seltzers. She knew they'd recently lost their beloved Sailor, an almost 15-year-old CCI release dog, and they were ready for another canine companion.

Dave and Ann looked worried about us, sad and apologetic about taking this sassy beautiful charmer away from us. I reassured them that the one thing that makes it easier to raise a puppy and give it away is the thought of it going to a home where it will be showered with love. And it couldn't be clearer that Dionne will be drenched in that. She may not be turning lights on and off for a double amputee or calming trauma victims. But she'll have a mission in life -- making Ann and Dave laugh, entertaining them, receiving their conscientious and devoted ministrations. She'll get barrels more concentrated attention and exercise and adoration than she'd get in our house -- where she would soon have to compete for attention not only with our busy lives but also with Tucker and, soon, a new 8-week-old puppy.

So Dave and Ann returned this morning to collect her for the drive north. We gave them all her medical records; the results of her Dognition personality testing; a third of a bag of Eukanuba Adult dogfood. I removed her faded, dirty collar, and they snapped on the jaunty red and white polka dot one they'd bought for her.

 They promised to stop often on the road for potty breaks. They said they would be sensitive to her showing signs of separation anguish.

We'd bet money she won't feel any. She was wagging her tail as she walked out our front door, still wagging when she climbed into the back of their station wagon.

There she goes...

As for me, though, if I had a tail, it would be drooping.

A new adventure for Dionne!

Since I picked up Dionne from CCI three and a half weeks ago, a lot has happened.

Our reunion was ecstatic. At first when Becca walked her out, Dionne didn't notice me sitting on a sofa in the waiting area. Then she recognized me and almost burst out of her skin, exploding with happiness. She lunged to the end of her leash and climbed up into my lap, 58 pounds of wriggling Labradorean pleasure.

It was irresistible, contagious. Becca and I laughed, sharing Dionne's unrestrained delight. I drove her home, and she repeated the performance at the sight of Tucker and Steve.

We slipped right back into our old routines, but a key subroutine -- her almost ceaseless search for mischief -- has been missing. She seems calmer. She's much, much easier to live with. We leave the back doors open and she goes outside and, for the most part, nothing terrible happens. (I don't think a hole or two is terrible, though Steve might disagree.)

But, as it turns out, her stay with us won't be permanent. Ten days from now, she'll depart for a new life in Davis, California. How we made that decision is complicated, but the short version is that we became aware that some stellar dog lovers who lost their beloved 15-year-old CCI release dog last spring were ready to take a new dog into their life. After some thought, we decided Dionne would be even happier with them than she would be with us, as we're planning to start raising another pup in November. In Davis, Dionne will be the sole recipient of a lot of loving and devoted attention. We checked with Stu in Oceanside, and he gave his blessing to their adopting her. They should have all the papers filled out and the adoption fee paid by the time they drive down to get her next week.

She, of course, knows none of this. But we think she'd happy if she did know. CCI puppies are nothing if not resilient. Not to mention relaxed:

Our next CCI puppy is NOT going to get away with this.  (We've taken the pledge.) 

The handwriting on the wall

When I received The Call from CCI (8 years ago?) telling us that Tucker had failed to made the cut, I remember feeling the blood drain from my face. I felt faint, overwhelmed with a wave of disappointment.

We've gotten more blasé over the years. Or maybe Steve is right: we've gotten more knowledgeable about what kind of dogs are fit for a life of service. Either way, we both felt confident that Dionne was too rambunctious, too irrepressible to make it. So yesterday, when The Call about her came, I was more than braced for it.

"She's a good girl," Stu began. "And she settled into the kennel environment pretty well. But she's got a lot of energy." He went on about how CCI doesn't aim to break puppies' spirit, but the service dogs do need to be under control. Dionne "needs to be busy," he said, repeating that she was "not a bad dog at all. She just wants to be a dog."

So tomorrow I'll drive up to Oceanside to collect her and bring her back here. That will be fun, after our abrupt leaving-taking at the end of April. Fun for us and, I suspect, deliriously exciting and pleasurable for her to re-enter Civilian life. As a dog.

Dionne gets a second report card!

It arrived last Friday, and the comments of Dionne's trainer, Kyle, might appear to be nothing worth getting excited about.  They were so similar to his comments in the first report card that for a minute I thought perhaps a mistake had been made and we'd been sent the wrong file.

But I compared them and found small differences between the two reports. The biggest one was that next to the Potential Breeder box, NO has now been checked, rather than YES.

Other than that, Dionne is still apparently displaying "a higher level of energy than normal, excitable greetings, distractibility, and rough play with other dogs in the play yards."

Still.  What did excite Steve and me was that Dionne is our only CCI puppy, other than Brando, who ever got two report cards. Tucker and Yuli only got one before being released. Darby never even made it to the first report.

Brando, of course, was our sole star, going on to the glories of graduation and service. Could Dionne possibly follow in his footsteps? It seems unlikely (particularly in light of Kyle's comments). But at least we can still dream...

Some news, at last!

Steve and I have been holding our breaths for what feels like weeks, waiting for the first Professional Training Report about Dionne to arrive. As noted in my last post, we celebrated when she made it past the point where Darby was released (before she even got her first Professional Training Report). We thought Dionne's report was supposed to be e-mailed to us Wednesday. But Wednesday came and went.

It finally arrived this morning. Nothing in it surprised either one of us. Our first reaction was to try and parse out: just how bad is this report? Our conclusion: not that bad.

After the standard boilerplate paragraph about how the dogs have mostly been undergoing temperament and medical testing and being evaluated on how they were fitting in came the meaty part:

"Dionne has transitioned well into the kennel environment and is starting to adapt to the advanced training schedule," we read. "At times she displays a higher energy level than normal, which can be counterproductive to training" (no!!!!! not Dionne, we thought, rolling our eyes), "but with consistent work we have seen some improvements."

"She is easily distracted by her environment and other dogs and needs help refocusing on the handler." That's the Dionne we remember! As, to be fair, is the Dionne who "is relaxed during grooming sessions and does not require much help to get into a cradle position. She has shown some rough play behavior in the play yards with other dogs but can easily be called over to handler to break this behavior. Dionne has been progressing at known and new commands at a normal rate."

They checked off "excitable greetings," "rough play with other dogs," and "distractibility," among the bad behaviors she had exhibited. But they also checked the boxes for "interacts appropriately with people," "walks nicely on leash," and "willing."

So I guess we keep holding our breath.  The next report -- should we get one -- should come in about a month.

Milestone

This is what she looked like a year ago.
What's she doing now?

Two small but encouraging developments:

The first was a letter from CCI last weekend. Steve's reaction to the envelope was, "Uh-oh." But it turned out to be a note from Becca, thanking us again for our work in raising Dionne and informing us that her trainer is Kyle (new to us). We would get more details about her progress in the first professional training progress report, Becca said. (I believe that's due to be emailed around July 9.)

Hmmm, we thought. If they were going to release Dionne very, very soon, they probably wouldn't have wasted that stamp on us.

Among our first four puppies, the earliest to be released was #4 -- Darby. I had calculated how many days elapsed between her turn-in and The Call. Then I applied the same formula to Dionne, using the date she should have been turned in (May 16). By this formula, if we had received The Call about her yesterday, she would have survived in Advance Training for exactly the same amount of time as Darby.

But no call came yesterday! This means Dionne has at least beaten Darby's record.

Stay tuned.

Turn-in day

Turn-in days are always sad. This one was just sad in a different way. 

CCI's veterinary technician called me several times this week. On Tuesday, she reported that Dionne was still dripping blood, and under the microscope, her cells confirmed that she was still very much in heat. On Wednesday, Melissa saw little change, but she pointed that things could turn around overnight. 

They didn't. We spoke again at the end of the afternoon Thursday, and Melissa said the cellular evidence was still unambiguous. If Dionne participated in Friday's turn-in ceremonies, the male dogs would "go nuts." 

Melissa and Becca, the puppy program coordinator, both stressed that Steve and I were welcome to participate using a stuffed stand-in. But we both felt that would make us feel even sadder (not to mention that the authorities have been urging people to stay off the freeways if possible, given the fires still burning around the county.) 

Now we won't get any official report until July. Worse still, unless Dionne graduates in November, we could wind up never seeing her again. That feels sadder than sad.

Feedback!

It's always satisfying to get feedback about science experiments in which one participates. We've just gotten some from the folks at Dognition. That's the company/website set up by the Duke University  anthropologist who specializes in canine behavior research. I'd read about him and his work in the New York times about a year ago and was very excited when we learned last July that CCI had formed a partnership with Dognition, so CCI puppy-raisers would be able to participate for free, instead of paying the normal $99 fee.

We signed up, and last July Steve and I administered all the science-based games to Dionne to assess her empathy, communication skills, cunning, memory, and reasoning.We quickly got her assessment: of the 9 profiles types, she fell into the category of Charmer, the Dognition site informed us -- gifted with "exceptional social skills." She literally scored off the chart for memory, and her performance in the "Empathy" section also was extraordinary. "If most dogs are bonded to their owners, Dionne absolutely adores you," the report informed us.

Now CCI has sent out some of Dognition's broader initial findings about CCI pups who've been tested (almost 300 of them so far). Apparently, they've identified significantly more "Socialites" and "Protodogs" among the ranks of the CCI participants. "This is no surprise," the report said, "because Socialites and Protodogs from a young age tend to be more bonded and use more collaborative strategies when solving problems…we are also starting to see differences within the 5 cognitive dimensions. Specifically in the Memory dimension, Canine Companions' dogs are significantly more…reliant on their memory than most other dogs. It seems that dogs from Canine Companions naturally have an amazing memory, giving them the ability to remember many different commands and situations to help their owner."

I'm a little confused by what it means that Dionne was a Charmer, rather than a Socialite or Protodog. Will it make her do better or worse in her Advanced Training? But we're generally in the dark about Dionne at the moment, since she's still in the kennels because of being in heat.

I did hear from the puppy program manager that the vet tech will begin testing Dionne to see if she can come home for a brief spell before the ceremony this Friday.

Watch this space for news!

Post-partum depression

After I delivered Dionne to the CCI's campus in Oceanside this morning, I drove to the home of my friend Leslie, in nearby Carlsbad. Leslie commented at one point that, while sudden and a bit premature, Dionne's departure from our lives wasn't caused by a tragic event, say, her getting hit and killed by a car. I agreed and remembered what I tell every stranger who exclaims that they could never raise a puppy/service dog because they could never bear to give it up. "Yeah, it's hard," I acknowledge. "You have to keep in mind that it's not your dog; that you just get to live with this really cool animal for a while. Kind of like taking care of a friend's dog while they're on vacation." (An 18-month-long vacation.)

Still. This feels worse than normal. Dionne and I walked in CCI's front door a little after 11. I handed the receptionist all my paperwork (hastily completed in the last two days), then she took the leash and they walked away. (Typically, Dionne never once glanced back.)

She was so distracted by the sounds and smells of the other dogs, she wouldn't even look at the camera.

My last glimpse of her. Note that the tail is wagging.

Home again, only staid, sleepy, 9-year-old Tucker was there to greet me. (Steve's away on business for two days.) So many routines were instantly upended. I opened the doors to the patio -- and left them open (the way we used to live before we began raising CCI puppies.) I got out the nice new rug we bought last month and laid it on our bedroom floor (where we'd been afraid to install it, lest Dionne be tempted to chew on it.) I put my gardening shoes on the floor of Steve's office, by the door (instead of out of reach on top of a filing cabinet.)

All afternoon I've been aware of all the things we've become accustomed to tracking constantly, almost unconsciously, things to which I suddenly need pay no more attention: where Dionne is, when she last defecated (and whether either of us had yet cleaned up her and Tucker's droppings), whether she required a break for exercise; a toy to play with. All trivial and mundane, like the chatter of a talk radio show playing softly in another room. Then someone turns it off, and the silence can be jarring.

All these changes occur every time you turn in a puppy. The surprise, to me, is how the pomp and ceremony of the Turn-In proceedings blunts them. It helps to hear the stories of the folks who are receiving graduate dogs. It helps to experience the sadness of giving up the puppy that you raised in the presence of a cohort of other sad puppy-raisers.

Maybe one other thing that makes this experience worse is that we're not planning to get another puppy until November. Various commitments make us think we'll be too distracted between now and then to undertake the responsibility again immediately. Steve was fretting last night. "What if we get out of the rhythm? Maybe we won't be able to go back to it."

That I'm not too worried about.

Noooooooooooooo!

I have't been able to bring myself to blog during the past couple of weeks. I had a topic: I was going to write about filling in all the paperwork associated with turning in a CCI puppy. I took a picture of the pile.

But then I couldn't seem to bring myself to sit down and start. It's tedious work. And filling in those papers is a brutal reminder that one is about to have to give up the puppy that one has been nurturing for the past 18 months.

At the same time I was procrastinating, I continued to worry about the thing that has concerned me since last September. When Dionne finally went into her first heat back then, CCI's vet tech casually mentioned that most bitches go into heat again six months later. Usually pretty precisely.

I realized this would mean Dionne stood a good chance of starting her next cycle around the time she was scheduled to be turned in. I've talked to other puppy raisers over the years to whom this had happened, and they all looked pretty disgruntled. You have to take your girl immediately up to Oceanside to be put in Fertility Control confinement, and you miss all the pomp and emotionally satisfying completion provided by the turn-in ceremony.

Yesterday my fears came true. I noticed she seemed to be licking herself a lot, so I swabbed her with a kleenex, and sure enough, a tell-tale red stain appeared. I called CCI and they confirmed that I would have to bring her in as soon as possible.

This is a bit more complicated than usual, as Steve, Dionne, and I are in Phoenix at the moment, attending a professional conference. We brought Darby to it two years ago, and we enjoyed the adulation she inspired. Dionne's presence has provoked a similar response. In fact, the organizers even had a badge ready for her, when we checked in.

Her badge says, "Puppy Wolfe"

Dionne, of course, is oblivious both to her stardom and to what's looming on Monday. That's when I'll drive her up to Oceanside and hand her over. Then we'll cross our fingers and hope she gets all this reproductive nonsense over quickly. There's some hope she could do that, and we could attend the ceremony together. But it's a slim one.

Can we teach a young dog a new way to have fun?

With only 36 days remaining of Life with Dionne (less if she goes into heat during that time), we've settled into some pretty staid routines. She has long ago been introduced to all the CCI commands. If she continues to misbehave (as I was lamenting my last post), it's in the old, familiar ways: stealing slippers and socks, digging on those rare occasions when we allow her off leash in the yard, snatching items off the kitchen counters or our desks. But within just the last few days, something new and intriguing has developed: 

Dionne has engaged in some actual games of Ball.

Steve and I are startled by this. Ball, as we have played it with most of the ball-playing dogs in our life, consists of the human throwing a ball, the canine racing after it at extreme speed and then returning to drop it at our feet and wait expectantly. Our most ball-addicted dogs (Pearl, Yuli, Brando, Darby) would do this to the point of exhaustion.

In the 17 or so months we've lived with Dionne, she has disdained this game. She finds Keep Away vastly more amusing. On the rare occasions when she has pursued a thrown sphere, she almost never has brought it back. But yesterday Steve threw and she retrieved a tennis ball for several long minutes. (He almost fainted.) I tried a session this morning, and I too could see a different response in her. 

She almost looks like she cares.

She still would prefer that Tucker chase her and try to get the ball away. But to counteract this, I called him next to me and ordered him to Sit. His presence at my side seemed to communicate to Dionne that no chase would be forthcoming, and she responded by coming and Dropping the ball, over and over.

Steve and I theorize that she may be so bored and desperate for exercise, that even (ugh) Ball is starting to look good. But that works for us. We'll keep up the indoctrination program.  

It may not look like much, but this is a photograph of an actual ball, taken shortly after it was retrieved and dropped by the Black One.

The final stretch

Would she have been a Hell's Angel, in another life?

Steve and I returned from our travels Monday evening, and within minutes of getting home, Steve picked up Dionne from the valiant couple who had agreed to host her. (They were scheduled to depart for China the very morning after our scheduled return!) They told him they had greatly enjoyed having her and gave him their written "puppysitter feedback" report. In it they said Dionne had adjusted "very well" in the first few hours of her visit. But they also noted she was "a little unpredictable" with other pets at times and "tends to jump up on people and get very excited."

I felt a rush of pleasure at seeing Dionne again. She's a beautifully proportioned dog with a coat like polished ebony. She seemed exuberant to be back home with us. And we were reminded of what a Presence she is. She's not some fixture, like a carpet, that you barely notice. If she were a teenager, she'd probably be racing motorcycles.

Worse, she doesn't appear to have settled down yet, as Steve and I have kept hoping she would. Late yesterday as I was resting on the couch (battling a bad cold and jet lag), she leapt up and landed on me, on all fours. This hurt, and I was annoyed. This morning, she came to the side of our bed and barked. Several times. It was a command: time to get up and play!

We're feeling a sense of despair; at this point, we cannot imagine her making it as a service dog. We can envision her as a drug-detection dog, maybe
-- but as far as we know, they have to be good at returning toys, whereas Dionne's fondest game in life is still keep-away.

Turn-In is just six weeks from tomorrow. Unless some miracle happens, we're expecting to get The Call from Stu in record time...

Travelin' pup

One of the cool things about CCI puppies is that they get to have more adventures than the average bear. Dionne went on one last weekend. With a group of old friends, Steve and I spent Saturday night in Jacumba, a strange little wreck of a town in a neglected stretch of the end of America. Once upon a time (back in the 1920s and 1930s), Jacumba and its hot springs enjoyed a reputation as a classy resort, one supposedly patronized even by actor types from Hollywood. But when the interstate was built and by-passed it, the town plunged into a steep decline. The resort burned down in 1983, and today the whole place hearkens up the spirit of other ghost towns of the West.

But some life still stirs. In fact the Jacumba Motel recently underwent a complete renovation. Also, most of us had been to the town at one point or another over the years, and we knew that an overnight here would feel like a journey to another time and another land. Also, Steve and I were heartened to learn that we could bring not just Dionne but also Tucker, which made it an extraordinarily simple one-night getaway. 

The new hotel is pleasant.

A lot of rain preceded our arrival. But despite periodic showers and threatening clouds, we had a lovely time.

Even though the tennis court behind the hotel is sad, it was a perfect place for dogs to run wild.

Steve and I got a room with its own dog-friendly private courtyard, and of course Dionne instantly identified the only square foot of dig gable dirt.  She dug it. 

We toured the town attractions on foot, including this eye-catching sculpture. (Photograph by Bob Schneider.) 

From the hotel, you can hike within minutes to beautiful spots like this. (Photograph by Alberto Lau.)

As well as scenes of extreme devastation, like the ruins of the old spa. (Photograph by Bob Schneider.)

We also walked to the border fence, weird and wild in its own way. (Photograph by Howie Rosen.)

Tomorrow Dionne will be off to some very different adventures. She'll be staying with two different puppy-sitters while Steve and I fly off to a couple of literally different lands. Tucker will be hosted by old family friends. 

If all goes well, we'll all be reunited in about three weeks. As usual, we'll miss our furry pack members when we're on the road. But we'll appreciate them all the more when we're reunited. 

The worst news possible

Ella, as captured by her puppy-raisers

I got a bone-chilling e-mail yesterday from Kathy Alameda, puppy-raiser of Ella. Kathy picked up Ella from CCI on the very same day I collected Dionne. Since then Ella was our house guest on two separate occasions, and Dionne visited Ella in her home several times. We thus have felt a special bond with both of them, so it was particularly horrible to hear that Ella was in the veterinary hospital, battling for her life. Kathy reported that the cause of her illness was mysterious. She had been unable to keep down food or fluids and had become very lethargic.

A few hours later, Kathy sent an update: Ella's liver was failing. At 6:20 last night, she reported that she had just spent two hours at the vet's with her girl, trying to comfort and cheer her. But a little after 3:30 today she sent the worst possible news:

"With a very sad heart I write to tell you that Ella passed away today. We are all in shock. We never found out the cause of her liver failure."

Steve and I feel shocked too. Ella was a gorgeous blonde and a vortex of energy and high spirits. She and Dionne adored each other and had glorious, ecstatic times running around the Alameda's Rancho Santa Fe property. Times like this, which Kathy captured on her phone in January:

You know when you volunteer to raise a puppy that something could go wrong. I've heard of several examples. But the dogs are almost all so vibrantly, jubilantly happy and alive, you don't expect anything will go wrong. It seems almost unthinkable.

Now it's happened, to an exemplary family. I can't imagine she's in a happier place than she lived in. If brief, her life was extraordinarily happy. This is one of my favorite moments of what I was privileged to share of it: 

Sweet dreams, Ella. 

A girl and her toys

Dionne has so few toys. It's partly her fault that she doesn't find balls riveting (we have plenty of those).  Apart from balls, CCI only declares two toys to be safe for CCI puppies (Kongs and Goughnuts). We have both, but they're pretty boring (unless the Kong is stuffed with peanut butter or cream cheese).

So I was thrilled a few weeks ago when I spotted a new toy at Costco. The OddBall isn't on the Approved Toy list, but another CCI puppy-raiser had praised it highly, and it looked indestructible. For a day or two Dionne seemed enchanted.

There's a tennis ball inaccessible within the tough clear outer ball.

Even Tucker seemed to like it, which made it much more desirable in Dionne's eyes. But within days, she was power-gnawing on the handle section, and we could tell that soon she would gnaw right through it. Since then we've limited her access to the OddBall, as her interest has simultaneously waned.

Clever pup that she is, Dionne has since found other toys that ARE ravishingly interesting -- common sticks. She's delighted that we have a large supply of strewn around the yard, and every time she finds one, she snatches it up and rockets around the property, powered by joy. Sticks have the advantage of not only being smelly, but you can CHEW on them and reduce them to nasty piles of splinters. This makes you feel powerful. And if you're a bit peckish (pretty much always, if you're part-Labrador, you can eat the splinters.

Why, oh why, don't the humans see how wonderful they are?

Diggety dog

With turn-in looming less than three months from now, I feel like I'm more and more often being asked to predict Dionne will do. I've been focusing on the positive a lot. We enjoy long stretches of time together in the house when she either snoozes or lies quietly, not getting into any trouble at all. A year ago, that was never the case. And I cannot remember the last time she threw up as a result of eating things outside. A year ago, it happened almost any time she was out in the yard off-leash for more than a minute or two.

Because of this last turn of events, I've been allowing her some free time outside. But Steve points out that unfortunately she's still digging up trouble. Or more precisely, she's been digging. He fears she's going to kill some of the trees, if she's not prevented from indulging in this particular passion.

Here's what this morning's destruction looked like.

She doesn't exactly look guilty.  But the evidence is as clear as the nose on her face...

Average or above average?

Last week when Steve took Dionne to the vet because she was limping, he noted this poster on one of the walls:

We figure Dionne has eaten at least 5 of the 10 -- socks, rocks, balls, chew toys, and sticks. (Does that make her average? Or above average?) Fortunately she's never eaten enough of any of them to require surgery. And with less than three months until her departure for advance training up in Oceanside, you can bet we will not be leaving any bones or corn cobs or underwear unguarded. (Happily hair ties and pantyhose are not much in evidence around here.)

Also happily, we have not had to return to the vet this week. The limp has completely disappeared. The dreadful  cystic growth has shrunk and toughened. It's now almost indistinguishable on her paw.

She's baaaaack

Last week when Dionne was limping most piteously, Steve uncharacteristically reacted by buying something -- bright pink "Pawtectors" that he hoped might stay on her better than the loaner booty we got from the vet.

Dionne was NOT impressed. Getting them on her was a nightmare, and she looked mortified when we hoisted her upright.

Attempts to walk in them resulted in some hilarious gyrations:

The whole attempt was an abject failure.

The GOOD news was that starting last Friday, she obviously began to feel better. She stopped sleeping all the time and started snatching our slippers again and attacking Tucker.

Steve took her grocery shopping on Saturday, and yesterday we all did our customary hour-long walk up the hill. The cyst is still tender, and we're still cleaning and medicating it daily.  But it has developed a protective crust that must make it hurt less. Dionne is still limping somewhat, but often it's barely perceptible.

As icing on the cake, when Steve tried to return the Pawtectors to Amazon this morning, they told him not even to send them back. They would just credit his account.

Sounds like we're not the first to try them and find them wanting...

Patient patient

I'm a little surprised by the way Dionne is handling being incapacitated by her paw tumor.  This formerly wild, boisterously exuberant girl has spent most of the last few days resting quietly. She limps to meals or outside for water or toileting breaks, and once in a while, she accelerates and the limp disappears. But more than anything, she's been sleeping.

Fortunately, we've gotten a few bits of encouragement, to counterbalance this depressing state of affairs. We e-mailed the local CCI headquarters to see if the folks there could add to or amend what we heard from our vet.  But Stu, the program manager, only replied that Our national office refers to these as "CCI Warts" as they are not uncommon and they do resolve with no surgery.

That was mildly comforting, and my dog-savvy cousin Mary offered some welcome advice and encouragement. ("It will go away...Don't worry, I know how you feel...it's sad for us, but the dogs don't care...they carry on!)

I know she's right. They do. And I've also nursed a pipe dream: namely, that this hopefully very BRIEF experience with pain and disability will somehow make Dionne more attuned to her potential mission in life. More empathetic and motivated to serve. 

That's pretty silly. But at least for the moment, she does seem like a changed girl. 

Sore and sad

We couldn't get a vet appointment yesterday, but today Steve was able to get Dionne in to see Dr. Scoggin first thing this morning. After what he learned, all I can say is: it's a good thing Steve and I have day jobs. Maybe we should consider abandoning amateur veterinary science altogether.

Dr. Scoggin quickly rejected the notion that Dionne was suffering from panosteitis. She also dismissed our weekend theory that the little bump between the toes of the topside of her right paw was causing her pain. (She thought it was nothing.) Instead she focused on the angry red growth on the underside of the paw.

Here it is. Nasty looking little thing, isn't it?

It was a histiocytoma, she declared -- a benign tumor of a sort that commonly afflicts pets. The unfortunate part was its location. (Steve says the vet didn't make him feel bad that we had not recognized its presence immediately; she said they can be hard to see at first.)

I suppose some good news is that it should go away by itself. Dr. Scoggin said she could remove it surgically, but given its location, there were likely to be complications (such as Dionne ripping out the stitches.) She gave us an antiseptic solution in which to wash it daily, oral antibiotics (to help prevent any infection), and a cream to apply to it every evening.

The bad news is she said it could take a couple of months to disappear. She said we need not restrict Dionne's activity during that time; we could even take her on walks.

She also lent us a leather booty that she hoped might protect the paw from irritation.

Dionne may not have liked the boot, but Tucker thought it was intriguing.

We took it off when Dionne was napping in her kennel (so that she wouldn't try to chew it off). But when we tried to put it on before I walked with her to the mailbox, she almost instantly flung it off, and we couldn't figure out how to secure it.

So I walked her bootless.  Or rather, I walked. She limped. Steve and I are sad to see this. I'm not sure how Dionne feels.  Steve and I have been reading Temple Grandin's book, Animals in Translation, and Grandin says animals don't get depressed when they're in pain, the way people do.

I hope not.

A clue?

Dionne's still limping. She's not limping any more badly than she was when it started last Tuesday. But she's not any better either. However, we have more insight into what's going on.

Steve very intelligently sat down with her last night and carefully massaged both her legs. She was totally relaxed, and she never whimpered or otherwise reacted, even when he squeezed pretty hard.

But her right paw was another story. That's the one she's been favoring, and she struggled every time he probed it. He finally found a small but distinct bump between the pads.

In the sunlight today, we could see it clearly, though we have no idea what it is -- a tick? an infected thorn? A cyst?

We'll try to get her in to the vet tomorrow.  But at least we have a clearer idea of where the problem lies…

Limp

I hate, hate, HATE when any of my dogs, long-term or CCI loaners, show signs of illness or injury. They can't tell you what's going on, which makes it hard to assess the gravity of the situation. Ill or injured puppies seem like a crime against nature. I want them robustly, strappingly healthy.

I'm commenting on this here because Dionne has started limping. I thought I noticed a different rhythm in her walk a day or two ago, but the limp only really became apparent last night. Today it has varied from "almost imperceptible" to "definite" (but not extreme.) We keep scrutinizing her right front paw, feeling the pads and furry spaces in between them, but we see nothing and we can't seem to identify a specific point of pain.

Such a well-behaved patient

By coincidence, she was due for her final set of shots today. Steve took her in to the vet's office, where she was very brave (by his account), not flinching at the injections or resisting the intranasal bordatella vaccine. Steve mentioned the limp to the vet tech, who agreed that it didn't seem very pronounced. She suggested we wait a few days and see if it clears up.

In the meantime, I'm wondering if it could be panosteitis. None of our puppies has ever had that, but I've seen other dogs afflicted with it in dog class. It's an inflammation of the bone shaft that people sometimes refer to as growing pains. The good thing is that it goes away, often quite suddenly and usually by the time they're two.

Not a horrible affliction, if a pup has to have something.

Not that Dionne would be...

Boy party

I don't want three dogs. Steve doesn't want three dogs. But if we ever had to have three dogs, I'd want one of them to be like Cletus.

We actually wind up living with three dogs fairly frequently -- whenever we're dog- or puppy-sitting. We feel an obligation to do that pretty often, because we turn to our friends and fellow CCI volunteers pretty often to take care of Tucker and our current puppy, whenever we're traveling.

Like Tucker, Cletus was raised (by Pattie and Glenn Urie) to be a service dog, but he was released (in his case for separation anxiety and alert barking). We know the Uries because we've attended puppy classes with them. Moreover, they came up with the idea of the CCI puppy drill team, and we regularly participate with them in parades. Pattie also organized a Meet-up group for owners of CCI release dogs who need pet care. When Steve and I saw (from the Meet-up announcement) that they needed a sitter for Cletus, we were happy to volunteer.

Although I didn't know Cletus well, I found myself admiring him almost as soon as he walked in the door. He's well-mannered -- waiting at doors and sitting promptly when directed to and walking nicely on the leash. I found that I could walk all three dogs myself, something I'm hesitant to do when they together weigh considerably more than me. Pretty soon, he was following me everywhere in the house. Whenever he could, he would endearingly plaster himself up against me.

Although Cletus looks a lot like Tucker, his face is a little foxier, his head a little flatter.

He's only a couple of years old, still frisky enough to be happy spending some time racing around with Dionne or wrestling with her.

(I couldn't get many pictures of that. Why do dogs get so self-conscious when they realized you're photographing them?  You can almost read his mind: "Why is she pointing that thing at us?")

As for Dionne, she liked Cletus a lot, even if he did try to rape her. (She sometimes reciprocated.) But she liked his kennel and the soft pad in it even better. We'd regularly find her sprawled within it, and Cletus moping nearby. Once I even found that "someone" had dragged the pad out and over to Tucker's bed. Double softness!

But the Uries just came by, taking Cletus and his kennel and pad with them. So the party is over. We're back to just two (large, boisterous, hair-shedding) dogs again, for the first time in two weeks. It will probably feel almost boring (for a few minutes.) 

A jumper!

Two weeks ago, I failed to record a fairly significant piece of news: Dionne's advancement into the Advanced class.  We go to the one that's held in San Diego. It runs from 8 to 9 p.m. Mondays. Maybe because that's a bit late, there were only 2-3 other dogs in it. And ALL of them will be turned in for their advanced training in Oceanside in mid-February. We don't know if Dionne will be an only student then. That would be something different.

That class two weeks ago didn't go so smoothly. Bob asked us to have our pups execute the Jump command, and even though Dionne had been routinely Jumping from our lower yard up to the pool level, in class she froze and balked at jumping up on the class bench. Bob worked with her for a good five minutes, but all Dionne wanted was to hide out Under the bench.

Monday night was a different story. I tried having her jump up from the closed narrow side, figuring that maybe the open bottom scared her. She refused, but then I scooped her up, plopped her on the bench, let her walk around a bit, ordered her off, then ordered her to Jump again. That did it. She succeeded and seemed to enjoyed being praised by everyone in the room. She did it over and over.

We still have to work on a few other Advanced commands, notably the Visit and the Back. But she's acing everything else.

Girl party, Part 2

One of the things I love about dogs is how adaptable they are. Unlike human teenagers, they never whine about how much more fun they had someplace else. Although partying at Kathy Alameda's house enabled Dionne and Ella to zoom around in a big space for hours on end, they never rolled their eyes and said snarky things about how much less room they had, once they'd moved here. They seemed to love being together even in the cozier spaces.

They engaged in huge amounts of neck-biting, for hours and hours. They're both energetic girls, and at times they seemed to literally bounce off the walls. 

This kind of roughhousing is very hard on any house, and Steve and I sometimes made them go outdoors, to burn off some of that energy. But unlike Dionne, Ella's a swimmer, and she would invariably follow her dips by romping through the muddier parts of the yard. 

At that point, the only solution was to kennel them. Ella had her own kennel, but she and Dionne seemed to enjoy hanging out in Dionne's larger one. 

It permitted more neck-biting! 

Occasionally, they would crash. The ever-patient Mr. Tucker even let them share his bed. 

Scenes like that made the increased levels of squalor easier to take.
And all things come to an end. Kathy arrived Friday afternoon to take Ella home again. She called yesterday to report that Ella seemed depressed.

I might say the same for Dionne. Except that Saturday morning Cletus arrived! More on that adventure soon.