Dog of My Heart

Striking a pose.

October 12th marked the ninth anniversary of Abbey's homecoming, so it's time for the annual "I love my dog" post!

Sebaceous adenoma.

It could be said that, for Abbey, this past year has been the Year of the Lump. She's somewhere in the vicinity of eleven years old now. Her muzzle is grayer and she's starting to get a gray hair or two in her eyebrows, but she has yet to develop the fully grizzled "sugar face" of a truly geriatric dog and time, thankfully, has been kind to her joints, so she can still bounce and play like she did as a young whippersnapper. So far, the greatest toll age has taken on her body is in the proliferation of rouge cells. To date, all of her various age-related growths have been benign, but I still find it worrisome. She has about seven sebaceous adenomas, the little oil gland tumors that are commonly called "old dog warts" because they are, well, wart-like, and extremely common on old dogs. In the last month or so, the one on top of her head has, unfortunately, passed the stage where it can be ignored while you stroke her. It's big enough that it's pushing her fur up and that standing hair always seems to be a little bit greasy. I'm afraid it will continue to get bigger and bigger over time, so the poor thing will have a big, knobby growth on the top of her head, which is hardly the kind of thing a pretty girl wants to be sporting! But unless they get massive and bleed, sebaceous adenomas are best left alone.

An "old dog wart" pushing up the fur on Abbey's head.

While slightly icky, the sebaceous adenomas have the advantage of being external growths and therefore easy to identify. Alas, Abbey's cells have also been busy crafting internal lumps. She is a real expert at creating lipomas, or fatty tumors. She has about half a dozen of them now, some on her neck, one on her side, another on the chest, and a bunch in belly/groin area. So far all of these ones have behaved themselves, not growing much bigger or harder, and again, it's best to leave them alone, as surgery is much harder on a dog than carrying around fat deposits that are each roughly the size of an olive.

Lolling in her bed after her surgery this June.

Abbey did, however, develop a lipoma that couldn't be left alone. It was on her left front elbow. At first it didn't seem to bother her, but then I noticed that she was increasingly pausing with her paw up as if "pointing" and it dawned on me that 90% of the time, she was "pointing" with the left leg. When the vet examined her, he determined that the lipoma had adhered to a tendon in the elbow that runs right along a major nerve and that the tumor was probably putting occasional pressure on the nerve, giving her a little zing that made her pause and point. It was definitely a tumor that had to go, so I signed her up for surgery. When the vet opened up the leg, he found that the tumor was embedded in two of the muscles, but it wasn't attached to the nerve, so he was able to get all of it out without causing further injury. (He'd promised that if the nerve was involved and he had any doubts about his ability to perform the surgery, he'd sew her back up and send us to a specialist to make sure it wasn't compromised.) Later that day, I brought my groggy girl home and settled her in her bed. I spent the first three days carrying her up and down the stairs (I was grateful that I'd built up enough strength in my arms from working with horses that I was able to lift my 47 pound dog!) and giving her pain pills in a marshmallow whenever she started to get restless and uncomfortable. She was quite dejected during this period. Her tail didn't wag and she had no expression in her face; it was a reminder that she is usually an extremely expressive dog who communicates many gradations of mood with her ears and eyebrows!

Basking in the sun while wearing one of my shirts to cover the stitches.

On the fourth day, Abbey suddenly perked up and went back to being her normal self. She didn't need any more pain pills and made it quite clear that she was capable of doing the stairs herself, thank you very much, and was puzzled why we refused to play with her. I took her dressing off and put her in one of my shirts to cover the stitches. Abbey is such a good girl that when we told her to leave the wound alone, she did, and she did not need to wear a cone at any point! She rather liked the shirts, in fact, and would wag vigorously any time I went to put one on her.

Proudly showing off her already well-healed incision
after the stitches were removed. 

When I took her to the vet two weeks after the surgery to get the stitches out, he was amazed at how rapidly she had healed. She had nary a limp, everything felt great and she had full range of use, her incision was fully healed, and she was cleared to do bouncy play if she wished! The vet confided in me that he had been more concerned than he had let on, as the location of the tumor and its removal could have potentially caused problems with a number of vital muscles, tendons, and nerves, but everything had gone far better than expected. Abbey decided she wasn't quite ready for twisting and bouncing play right away, but all of that has come back in time. The only sign that she had surgery at all is the shaved area on her leg. In another month or two, the fur will be completely regrown and the saga of Abbey and the Elbow Lipoma will be officially over!

She's back to bouncing and pouncing and twirling and whirling!

Abbey posing with her nemesis/new friend.

Abbey took on another big, scary thing this year, namely, the vacuum. She will launch high-speed stealth attacks on it when it's running, so the usual policy is that Abbey and I retreat upstairs behind a closed door while the vacuum is at work downstairs and that we go downstairs where I keep a close eye on her while the upstairs rooms are vacuumed. A dog blog that I follow launched an advice column "written" by one of the dogs and casting around for an excuse to submit a question, I settled on having "Abbey" write in asking advice on how to kill a vacuum. (You can read her letter--and his answer--here.) The person behind the blog has real training experience, so after the humorous advice, there were some great suggestions on how to get Abbey acclimated to the vacuum. It involved turning the vacuum into a treat machine. Abbey was tentative at first, but soon she started requesting to play the "treats with the vacuum" game and thought nothing of pushing the vacuum with her nose to get treats underneath it, giving the handle a shove to dislodge treats perched above her reach, and sticking her head between the bag and the handle if it proved to be the best way to get at a tasty morsel! It had been recommended that when it came time to turn the vacuum on, we should start with a recording of the vacuum at a lower volume than its natural roar and gradually increase the sound as Abbey became comfortable with it. Before I could come up with a good way to record the vacuum, my mother politely asked if it could be moved so it was not a permanent fixture in the family room, and I must confess that vacuum training has stopped, and Abbey managed to execute a great attack the other day that disconnected the bag from the body. So maybe we haven't really made huge progress the vacuum. At least we know now that Abbey is incredibly treat-motivated!

Oops.

We've also been working on Abbey's fear of thunder and fireworks. Unfortunately, we had an unusually stormy summer, so there were a lot of opportunities for practice! Earlier this year, while I was away from the house dog-stting, my parents took to leaving Abbey in the study instead of her crate during the day, thinking that it would be more pleasant, seeing as she had the couch to snooze on and room to move around and the occasional sunshine to lay in. They came home one day to find that Abbey had done a destructive number on the door, pulling part of the frame away from the wall and leaving deep scratches in the door itself. This is extraordinarily out of character: in all of the years we've had her, Abbey has only ever destroyed toys and, even then, only when we've given her permission to do so! She's never chewed anything she shouldn't or gotten in the trash or any sort of naughty behavior. Our best theory is that there was some kind of scary noise, either thunder or some kind of explosion, and she panicked. She hates being shut in somewhere when she's scared and on this occasion, she did the best she could to get out. We got her a ThunderShirt after that, and while it helped, she was still pacing and panting and shaking during storms or when the fireworks went off. By chance, we discovered that Abbey felt the very safest during a thunderstorm if she was sitting in the car in our garage. She started requesting to go in the car in the garage during storms (with a door open, of course), sometimes by herself or other times in my company. It helped if I sang to her, but then the day came when we had a prolonged thunderstorm in the morning and another in the evening. I sang myself hoarse, but she was still a panting, pacing mess. It's stressful for us humans to be around and my mother broached the topic of pharmaceutical intervention. I dose Abbey with Rescue Remedy (which she likes, though I don't know if it makes much of a difference), but I wanted to try a few last-ditch efforts before getting into doggy downers. She didn't want to stay still long enough for me to work on acupressure points, so I went searching online for dog-calming music. I know people who swear by it, but I must confess that I was skeptical. I found a YouTube channel of dog-calming songs and noticed, with a skeptic's satisfaction, that it didn't seem to be making a difference. Then, halfway through the fourth song, Abbey lay down. She stopped panting. Then she put her head down. And then she sighed.

A stressed-out Abbey, clad in her ThunderShirt, anxiously looks to the sky for signs of lightning.

I couldn't believe it. We were in the midst of a two-hour long storm. Thunder still rolled overhead as she lay there with her head on her pillow, her eyes fluttering closed. I called to her and when she got up, she did start to exhibit some of the same stressed behavior as before. And yet, halfway through the same song, she again settled down, stopped panting, and put her head down. I repeated this experiment three more times with my mother as a witness. Every single time, the same thing happened. We then let the music continue and eventually Abbey fell asleep. I am now a believer! I went right to iTunes and bought the album containing her "favorite" song and then loaded it onto my iPod so if there are storms in the night, I can put the iPod on the dock in my bedroom and let the music lull her into a state of relaxation. We've had another small storm since and she was again able to stop pacing and trying to hide under things and assume a relaxed position with her head down. If you have a dog that's anxious or needs help settling down, I definitely recommend trying music! "Through a Dog's Ear" is one of the main purveyors of dog relaxation music and they have some free, playable tracks on their website as well as downloadable albums. I know someone who just loves their portable music player! RelaxMyDog has an entire YouTube channel of songs set to soothing videos. This is the song that works on Abbey--the track is technically called "Around the Campfire" and is from RelaxMyDog's "Dog Relaxation Music - Music to Help Your Dog to Relax From Stress or Anxiety." We are all so happy to have found something that helps!

Before we move on to the fun stuff, here's one last thing on a serious note. We don't know anything about Abbey's life prior to her adoption nine years ago other than that she was a young adult stray who had not been spayed but who had also not been bred. She had a rudimentary understanding of commands like sit, down, and shake, and a very deep fear of men. Time after time she's informed us that men are not to be trusted. I thought of that, with sadness, when, earlier this summer, Abbey and my father were hunting a fly together. (Abbey is a skilled stalker of things that buzz.) When my father raised the flyswatter to kill the fly, Abbey cringed and cowered. During the first months she lived with us, she used to cringe and cower whenever anyone lifted their hand, but it had been years since I've seen her flinch. And yet, after all this time, after nine years during which no one has ever raised a hand against her and my father has never done anything even remotely threatening or violent toward her or anyone else, she still expected to be hit by the upraised flyswatter. Then, a few nights ago, Abbey was sleeping so soundly in the evening that she didn't hear my father calling her, as he does every night, to come downstairs to go out one last time. He came up to see where she was at and was standing in the door of my study, talking to me, when she awoke. She didn't think, "Oh, it's Dad, the kind man I've lived with for almost all of my life!" No, she went straight to SCARY MAN ATTACK mode and charged at him, barking and snarling, all of her hair on end, telling him to GET AWAY BAD MAN. "Abbey! It's me!" he said, but she continued to circle near my chair, growling, and wouldn't come when he tried to call her out into the hall where the light was better. I finally had to get up and walk her out into the hall, where the instinctive SCARY BAD MAN response shut off and she went, "Oh! Is it time to go out?" and went thundering down the stairs to be let out as if nothing happened. I know she had that response because she had been sound asleep and didn't recognize him right away, but again, it makes me sad that she still assumes, if she is surprised by the sight of a man, that it's a bad man who has come to hurt us. And all this, even though she loves my dad. She yodels for joy when he comes home from work, licks his ears from the backseat when he gets into the car, loves to play with him more than anyone else in the family, knows he's good for a scratch if she sidles up to him, and that he just might slip her a snippet of cheese while making a sandwich. He's often the one who feeds her (her favorite!) and takes her out (her other favorite!), and when he's away on business, she will lay facing the door to the garage in the evenings, waiting for him to come home. Dogs don't hold on to bad experiences the way people do, but some fears die hard. Once upon a time, there was a man in Abbey's life with a terrible temper who would trap her, grab her, and hit her, and, if a few of her other behaviors can serve as clues, yelled at and hit people, too. That has never, ever happened in my house, and never will, but nine years have not been enough time to fully undo the impact of that early trauma.

Abbey and her Screamie.

Sprouting lumps, snarling vacuums, scary thunderstorms, and the occasional bad memory aside, Abbey has had a good year. If it has been the Year of the Lump, it has also been the Year of the Screamie, a toy she's been absolutely bonkers about. My mom can't remember where she bought the first two, so Abbey is currently playing with a Screamie that has lost its voice, but she still likes it a lot. She's also very fond of the toy we call her "pet," a purple squeaky ball with a bulldog face. It's also the toy that she's most likely to treat like a puppy and tuck into my bed when I'm off dog-sitting and she's missing me! She doesn't play quite as much as she used to and her new thing is wanting whatever human who's playing with her to do at least some running, too. Abbey's always been good about sharing--now she wants to share the fun of fetching! So while she no longer needs a rowdy game every night and she maybe doesn't need as long of a game and maybe she doesn't do quite as much jumping, she still gets tons of pleasure of running and bouncing and spinning with her toys.

For me it has been the Year of the Insect (you can see posts on the subject here and here) and Abbey was a big supporter of my desire to photograph them. She loved it when I hunted for insects in the backyard because she could come out with me, sprawling in the sunshine and scanning the trees for squirrels. She was less pleased when I took my camera into the front yard. She'd settle herself by the front windows, woefully watching me stalk critters in the bushes, wagging her tail when I looked her way. I was often rewarded with a yodel for coming back inside!

Abbey tries to conjure up squirrels by staring intently at the trees.

Abbey looks on as I photograph critters in the rhododendrons outside the front windows.

Peanut butter tongue.

You could also say that this was the Year of the Treat. Some of the treats were for training purposes, like those used for helping Abbey befriend the vacuum or redirecting her attention while riding in the car. She has, in her old age, become rather paranoid that people in other cars are going to attack us while we're stopped at lights. Since she has a 94-pound bark in a 47-pound body, car rides had become a rather trying experience. We first used treats to redirect her attention away from the person in the neighboring vehicle when she barked at them for moving their hands or looking in her direction, but in doing so, we inadvertently taught her to bark for treats. Now we're trying to reinforce non-barking behavior, which is somewhat trickier. Abbey's never been a sneaky dog, so I find it a bit funny when she pretends to bark at something in hopes of getting a snack, but not amusing enough that I award her for it! We also used treats after Abbey had her surgery to exercise her. We initially made "go in your house" a game after she started refusing to go in her crate during a period when my health was worse than usual. She's back to putting herself in her crate without complaint when we leave the house, but the game of "go in your house" remains a favorite. To play, Abbey and a person holding treats will stand together in the kitchen. When given the command "go in your house," Abbey goes trotting to her crate (sometimes breaking into a gallop) in the family room, throws herself down in it, and breathlessly awaits the release command. When she hears the "okay!" she comes thundering back to the kitchen and gets a treat. The whole scenario is then repeated as many times as the person is willing to play it. It worked well as exercise when her elbow was still recovering from surgery because there aren't any funny hops or bounces or sideways moves necessary and she likes it so much that she will sometimes request to play "go in your house" (it's lumped under the word "training" in her vocabulary, as in "Shall we do some training?") instead of a game with toys in the evening.

When I say treats, I'm usually talking about cereal. We trained her with Cheerios for years (she got her own single-serving bowl of Cheerios in her most recent Christmas stocking) because they're small, crunchy, low in calories, and we usually had some around. She thought they were pretty much as good as treats get (she'd love cheese, of course, but cheese is not on the menu, and peanut butter isn't well suited for the car) until she discovered her true love: Rice Chex. Abbey thinks Rice Chex are amazing. She will do ANYTHING for Rice Chex. Other dogs go nuts for things like bacon; she'd probably got nuts for bacon, too, if we offered it to her. But why give your dog bacon when she's not just willing but clamoring to do whatever you want her to do for something as simple as Rice Chex? We get the store brand variety, so it's a cheap treat, too. In addition to sprucing up some of her other skills, I also taught her to catch with Rice Chex. It seemed a pity that she couldn't nab a flying morsel out of the air, especially since she was capable of amazing catches when it came to balls, but until recently, if you tossed a piece of food her way, she'd look puzzled and let it hit her in the face. Not so with Rice Chex! She immediately grasped the concept (and the fun!) of snatching a piece of cereal out of the air. I've recently been working on photographing her catching Rice Chex, a practice agreeable to both of us. I like it because the resulting photos make me laugh. She likes it because I am terrible at tossing the Rice Chex and taking photos at the same time, so we have to do it over and over again! What a win-win!

Catch the noms!

Abbey working on an antler.

Abbey has been enjoying a rawhide stick on Saturday mornings for a while now, but after getting her teeth cleaned this year, I thought I'd try to introduce a hard chew. Lots of dog owners had been raving about antlers, so I went to specialty dog store and found a "senior" antler, one already split in half so it wouldn't be as hard of work. Abbey went crazy for it. As with anything of high value, I only let her have it for short, supervised periods. It didn't take her long to wear it down to a nubbin small enough to swallow, so I got her a new one. She made short work of that one, too! Unfortunately, it took me several months to get her a third. The regular pet store sells antlers, but I like the split ones--she's an older dog, after all, who doesn't have a long chewing history and who's already lost one tooth. When we finally got around to getting her a new antler, she had different approach. She decided that this antler was to be savored, like her rope bones, and only enjoyed on special occasions. I let her have it full time now because she rarely chews it. She's made her own rules about it, in fact. Abbey will only work on her antler when a) everyone in the family is home and b) everyone in the family is happy and c) at least one other person besides myself is in my study in the evening. She might chew for a little bit while we're watching a show, but she especially seems to like it when someone comes into my study to talk to me. Of course, she never chews it for long. We may be watching a 90-minute movie, but she's not going to put in more than 10 minutes of chewing. She's going to make this antler last a looooong time. Sometimes she'll lay on it when she's happy. She likes knowing that its around. But she would rather save her antler, just as she's opted to save the rope bones that came before it. It's better, in Abbey's mind, to have something you COULD chew on than to actually chew it. When it comes to delayed gratification, Abbey is a champ!

If I was going to give Abbey spaghetti, I was definitely going to play "Lady and the Tramp" with her, too!

Antlers, car training, vacuum training, "go in your house," and Rice Chex aside, what really has made this the Year of the Treat is a shift we made in our philosophy regarding them. We never gave Abbey many treats because she has a sensitive stomach and because she's been so well-behaved and easy to train. A few Cheerios here and there, some tasty things to keep her distracted at the vet, an "all-natural" Cheeto when she came in from going outside, and she was good to go. We never fed her from the table and when you dropped food in the kitchen, with the exception of cheese, she would back away from it and look up at you with worried eyes before the words "Leave it!" could even leave your mouth. She didn't beg and it was nice. But then, one day, while cooking spaghetti, my mother reminisced about how fun it was to give the dog we had when I was growing up a piece of spaghetti. "Could we just give Ab one?" my mom wondered. It was tempting, that's to be sure. It's always funny to watch a dog reel in a long strand of spaghetti. Then my mother reframed the question this way: "Will we be sorry after she's gone that we never gave her a piece of spaghetti?" That settled it. We were both going to be very sorry if Abbey lived her whole life without ever getting the chance to reel in a piece of spaghetti. And not just spaghetti: we're not feeding her off plates or anything, but maybe we'll let something fall on the floor and let her clean it up. In fact, every time I eat sunflower seeds, at least one ALWAYS "accidentally" lands on the floor. It turns out she's as good at catching bow tie pasta as she is at catching Rice Chex. And it turns out that Rice Chex have absolutely nothing on potato chips! She doesn't get treats whenever she asks for them; in fact, the more she boldly she asks (and if she's asking boldly, potato chips are probably involved!), the less likely she is to get a treat. And it's just those little things: a seed or a nut here, a piece of plain pasta there, a dropped fragment of a chip, perhaps a piece of cereal exchanged for a "sit" when the pantry is open. Abbey is extremely happy with this new plan and we are, too, knowing that we won't be sorry that we didn't baby her enough after she's gone.

That last bit, the part about "after she's gone," scares me. I know that Abbey is what people refer to as "the dog of my heart" or "the dog of my life." Of the many dogs I hope to have over the years, she's going to be remain a standout. And it's not just that she's special, it's that she's essential. I must have a dog. And all dogs must die. Maybe I'll get lucky and Abbey will be with me for nine more years. Maybe she'll live for five more. Or two. Or, what really scares me, she'll pass away very suddenly. She's old enough for that to happen and since she's never been one to complain, I can definitely see her hiding signs of growing discomfort and sickness until it's too late. I fervently hope that I have some advance warning, maybe a couple of months, when the time comes. It's not saying good-bye that scares me (although I know it will be heartbreaking) because I've loved her immensely and she has known that love every single day. What terrifies me is the time after, the raw hole with no dog to fill it, right when I need a dog most. A dog isn't optional for me, and yet Abbey must be an only dog. I had been thinking I wanted my next dog to be a service dog, but service dogs involve waiting lists and training times and it could be months, if not longer, before I had a dog at home again. I don't think I can go without a dog for months. I'm trying to work all these things out now, to have a plan in place for Abbey's eventual exit, because that's one of the things that will keep me going when she's gone.

But she's not gone yet, my brindle girl. I have a sense that I need to be paying attention now, to be active in the way that I love her, but aside from a growing collection of lumps and some more gray on the muzzle, Abbey is as she has always been, the imperfectly perfect brindle beauty that we adopted because she was sitting so patiently in her kennel at the shelter nine years ago, not knowing how silly she could be with toys and how much she would make us laugh when we watched her play; not realizing exactly how perfect her deep, plush, soft, and odorless fur was and that she would love to be petted as much as I love to pet her; unable to imagine how much she would love riding in the car or the "go in your house!" game. We didn't know she had food allergies or would get gum disease or be such a prodigious shedder; we were only dimly aware of the amount of joy that the sight of her relaxing in her bed would give us; had no idea how expressive her warm brown eyes and super-soft little ears could be and how much we would love to read her many thoughts and emotions writ by them; and we simply could not have comprehended how essential she would become, my loyal brindle shadow, and how much I would need her, and how being my companion would fill her life with meaning, joy, and purpose.

So here's to my girl, who will carefully back herself into position so she can noisily bang her wagging tail against the armchair and the end table; who likes to wriggle around on a corner of the family room rug after she's had her dinner, snapping her jaws with pleasure; who hates delivery men with a passion and will give a low, warning "wuff" (if not worse) any time she hears a heavy truck in the neighborhood; who likes to ride in the car with one of her forelegs up on the door's armrest; who will try to entice you into following her by repeatedly pausing and looking over her shoulder with a beguiling expression to see if you are following; who, after boinging after squirrels in the yard, always has to sprint over to her bathroom area to take a post-chase poop; whose breath smells like bad salmon; who likes to wait at the top of the stairs with her front paws dangling off the top step; who sneezes when she's excited; who loves picking up family members from the airport; who hates getting her feet wet and going out in the rain but loves to swim; who will not get up on my parents' bed even when invited unless I am on it, but loves nothing more than sitting up there with my mother and me at the end of the day while my dad is getting ready for bed; who doesn't like baths or getting her nails clipped but is patient and resigned about both; who has terrible social skills with dogs and strangers because I have not, to my great regret, been well enough to socialize her; who knows to stay completely still when I point my camera at her; who can hear the sound of the lid on the peanut butter jar being unscrewed from anywhere in the house; who loves to get up on my bed in the morning to hollow out a little spot in the blankets while they are still warm from my body; whose brindle is darker on one side than the other; who loves to sprawl in sunbeams; who, when she spies someone sitting with one leg crossed over the other, can never resist throwing her front half down on the floor and wriggling her raised rump against the dangling shoe in the most undignified manner; whose velvety ears are the softest thing you will ever touch in this life; whose warm, brown eyes contain drifting iridocillary cysts; who is more willing than any dog I've ever met to take "no" for an answer; who wraps a paw around her nose when she's sleeping very hard; who wags her tail every time I look at her; who is the dog of my heart and my life.

Anyway, enough of that mushy stuff. In honor of her adoption anniversary, I took Abbey to the lower lawn at Mr. Gorgeous' house for a great game of fetch. She doesn't get to run free nearly as often as she would like as she can't be off leash around other dogs and I'm not often up to taking her to the out-of-the-way spaces where I know we won't be interrupted. Then I thought of Mr. Gorgeous' property. His people gladly open their yard and waterfront to their friends and they happily extended that invitation to Abbey when I called to inquire if she might come over. She was so excited to have a chance to play fetch off-leash that she completely ignored Mr. Gorgeous when he came to investigate who had come calling. It was a glorious day to be out and she skimmed across the grass, ears flapping, leaping and diving and skidding after her ball. Then she'd run back to me, her face alight with joy, and toss the saliva-slick ball for me to throw again. She would have happily played fetch forever, but mindful of her age, I brought the game to an end as she started to slow down. She had to walk up the stairs last night, instead of bounding up them as she usually does, but playing fetch in the grass with her blue squeaky ball was the perfect present for my perfect dog.

"This is the best day!"

p.s. If you like Abbey, you should check out her out on Pack! It's a photo-based social network for dogs and I post a new image of Abbey every day. Sign up your dog, track Abbey, and I'll track you back!

I also post non-Abbey photographs every day on my c.creativity Facebook page.