Duck, Duck, Goose, Great Dane?

The world is messed up, and I feel helpless to do anything to make it better. I find myself cursing humans every day. It doesn't help. The reality is that I have a small skill set and can’t do much, but I can drive. Which is why I volunteer to do transport for the California Wildlife Center.

The CWC is a terrific non-profit that handles native California wildlife that have been injured or orphaned. In the spring and fall, there are zillions of wild infants and babies from raptors to baby possums and squirrels crowding their clinic. This time of year, it’s usually injured birds: crows, ducks and geese that need surgery or supportive care.

What I do is pretty basic. I pick up critters in my area from a participating veterinarian or two LA Valley animal shelters and deliver the animals to the CWC with the accompanying paperwork.

Pretty simple. I can handle it.

The vet is home base for Hot Vet. Google him. Trust me, he is. Really hot. Featured in "People Magazine" hot. I never run into him.

Naturally, where I got into trouble is the East Valley Animal Shelter. The pound.

When I started volunteering for CWC I asked the head of the program if they provided a stipend for all the animals I’d adopt because I had to enter a shelter. She laughed assuming I was joking. I wasn’t.

Actually, I blame Facebook for my current problem. (Aren't most issues in 2018 Facebook's fault? I’m talking to you Sheryl Sandberg.)  I follow Facebook page called Southern California Great Dane Rescue. I know. Stupid idea. Mostly I joined because, like the CWC, occasionally animals need to be moved from place to place, and like I said, I can drive. I do the same for the American Brittany Rescue. 

About three weeks ago a female Great Dane came into the East Valley Shelter as a “stray.’ (Turns out the person who ‘found’ her, was her owner. Awful, but not unusual.) The tho bio listed her as six years old, which is not young for a Dane, severely underweight, with some medical problems. Oh, she also wasn't spayed. And, as if she didn't have enough problems,  they were calling her "FeFe."

Obviously she was calling out to me.

She had been haunting me, mostly due to her ill health and her age.  (She’s also black. Black dogs don’t photograph well and are the last to find homes.) Old dogs fair badly at shelters and often die there.

By the way, I love old dogs. I have adopted a bunch of them over the years and they’ve been universally great. They sometimes don’t live for long, but they have a great life while they are with me. I have wonderful memories of every single one.

The smart part of me had been avoiding the shelter like the plague.

It was working until  Friday morning I received a text from the CWC,  a Canada Goose with a broken wing needed to be picked up.  Of course it was at the East Valley Shelter. Uh-oh.

You don’t need to be a genius to know what happened next. I prefer think it was fate, not stupidity. 

Maybe it’s both.

While I waited for the officers to get the goose (I am nuts, but responsible, business first!) I asked about the "FeFe" which by the way, is a poodle name. Not a Great Dane name.

.She was a shelter favorite – all the officers knew and liked her. She had some tumors including an ugly one on her lady parts and was on medical hold. So I needed to speak to the Superevisor.

The Supervisor needed to speak to the medical staff before she could authorize anything, so with the goose in a box and the Supervisor’s cell number in my pocket, I headed out to drop of the goose. When I called the Shelter that afternoon, the Supervisor was driving home from work but was pleased to talk to me. She approved everything, and told me I could pick up FeFe the next day.

I came  at a time a friend who volunteers with the Rescue Train (a GREAT organization that helps people keep their pets. Google and please donate to them!) would be there. because I really can't going into the back of a pound. That was important.

Laurie found a volunteer who was delighted that I’d come for the Dane. Together they walked me to her pen for our meeting. Past rows of sweet looking, terrified dogs.

It felt like a Tinder date . I was nervous. Would she look like her picture? Would I like her? Would she like me?

I shouldn’t have worried. Dogs I get. People not so much.

But like an online date, she was older than advertised. Closer to eight than five, she is a sweet, gentle dog.  She is small, dainty even, for a Dane. Even after being stuffed with food for three weeks, she is severely underweight. Her backbone juts out like a e supermodel. Her once-black muzzle is now a mask of gray.

I had a instant, serious crush.

The officers took her away to vaccinate, chip and do paperwork while I stood in line to fill out my paperwork. It took almost an hour. Which is not a long time when you a completely changing two lives.

She climbed into my SUV with a little help, stretched out and immediately fell asleep. I think she snored a little.

On the way home I changed her name to Fiona, after the only celebrity I stalk: the underweight gray baby hippo in the Cincinnati Zoo.

My Fiona may be old and gray but she’s not done. When we got home she hopped out and met the other dogs politely. Within an hour she and Jasper were chasing each other around the backyard at full speed. Dalai joined in and out of the zoomies. Once Fiona was going so fast she jumped over Dalai so she wouldn't crash into her.


Yes, there is video. https://youtu.be/grESRXAJSC4

Since her arrival, there have been a few squabbles, which I expected, but nothing serious. She has been a champ. After a few complaints, she has claimed her giant crate as her own. 

She mostly respects the random, changeable, rules that Poppy, Dalai and Jasper throw at her.

The morning after she came, I left her locked in her crate when I left to ride. Four hours later, when I came back, all four dogs greeted me at the door; the pack had sprung her from prison.

They are a newly bonded pack. I may be in trouble.

I don’t know how long we will be together. There are never any guarantees in life. But I love her about and she seems delighted to be here.

I can't do much to fix the world. But I did do this.

“Saving one animal will not change the world, but for that animal, it changes everything.”

Faith is a Jerk

Faith at the Young Horse Show

It’s a fact that you really never know someone until you live with them. This is particularly true with horses.

That sweet, kind equine you’ve ridden, groomed and played with every day for years at the stable turns into a beast when it moves into the backyard. 

The quiet, gentle pony transforms into a boss mare or want-to-be stallion. They turn feral when the farrier comes and no one can catch them while the vet is waiting to do vaccinations with the clock ticking.

This has become increasingly obviously now that Faith is temporarily living at home.

Faith is my baby. Actually she’s Lucy’s baby. But I have been intimately involved in her entire life, from picking out her father to the present.  We met when she was 30 minutes old I've seen her almost weekly since then.Almost immediately she was attached to me like Velcro.

Just Born

It might be because she quickly figured out that when I appeared, so did peppermints and carrots. 

One Day Old

When she was tiny she would even leave her BFF Conamor to visit with me.

Faith and Conamor

When she was older, if I called her, she’d charge from whatever corner of her pasture she was hiding in to skid to a halt in front of me. She hasn’t hit me.  Yet.

So I thought I knew her. I was wrong.

What I didn’t know was that Faith is a jerk.

It may be the hormones -she is scheduled to be a teen mom, due in February. But I don’t think so.

I think she is just kind of clueless. To be fair, she is just three.

She is still a jerk.

Of course, Faith may be channeling the spirit of Dezi, who died a few months back. I adored him, but he was a certified jerk. Verging on an asshole.

Like Dezi, when I clean the barn, Faith follows me around. Maybe she thinks she’s helping. More likely, she is pointing out where I’ve missed a spot, or have failed to fluff the shavings properly.

She is always in the middle of stuff. Whatever is going on, she is right there pushing her way to the front to see what’s happening and getting in the way.

She’s always been that way. Bossy. So much so, that eventually she was yanked from the field of young horses and turned out with a group of old crabby broodmares to teach her some manners. She quickly learned to show them respect.

With her mom, not so much.

When I brought Faith home, there was no joyous mother and child reunion. It was more like Lucy rolled her eyes and moaned, “Damn, you again?”

Mother and Child Reunion

Typically, Faith didn’t notice. She just barged around the paddock. For a while she even pushed Talen around, shoving past him to get to the best hay or the snack first.

Initially he didn’t react. I think he was in shock. Nobody had ever pushed him around before. 

At first, Faith, being somewhat clueless didn’t notice when he pinned his ears and snarked at her. Then one morning she was covered with teeth marks. After that, she let Talen have first crack at the alfalfa and carrots.  

In her defense. She is bored. She is three and Lucy and Talen are dull. Talen is relatively young, but since he is quite lame at anything but a walk, running and bucking are rare.

Faith does her best to get her old pasture mates to play. She charges around the paddock squealing and bucking. Talen will canter a few steps and quit. Lucy doesn’t even try.

So I guess it's to be expected that Faith has turned her energy to a different direction. Like escaping.

Electric fencing surrounds the entire paddock. It was necessary because Dezi had the ability to open every gate ever made. So on top of the wire, all the gates are chained with double snaps.

Faith found another way out: she lifts the gate off its hinges and squishes or jumps through the space into the back yard. The first morning I found her wandering the destroyed yard, she was so proud of herself she galloped up whinnying.

After stuffing her back in the paddock, I rehung the gate and tied it closed with baling twine. What was I thinking?

That night around midnight I heard banging on the back porch. It was Faith, peering in the kitchen window. She obviously expected me to let her in the house.

Unlike Dezi, who always brought his posse with him when he escaped, she was alone. The others had stayed in the field either reluctant to jump the downed gate in the dark, or they were glad to have her somewhere else.

There I was in my pajamas dragging the  her back to paddock and tying the gate up again. I used rope this time.

The next day I went to Lowes and bought all sorts of hardware. That night she got the hinges off, but couldn’t move the gate. She was so frustrated she kicked it for a while before giving up and sulking in a corner.

I adore her, but I am counting the days until she can go back to Three Wishes to have her baby. I will miss her. Most of the time.

Because she is a jerk. But she is less of one there. Or so I can pretend.

Me and Faith

California Is Burning. Take Care of Your Pets

Unless you have been living under a rock, or are Donald J. Trump, you have probably heard that California is burning.

(A couple of things to note: the areas in Southern California that went up are not forests. Mostly they are densely populated areas. The wild lands -most of which is federally owned and controlled- are covered with scrub and desert-like plants. Again, not forest.

Unless you can figure out a way to log a tumbleweed, in which case, I would like to meet with you, these aren’t big moneymakers.)

Anyway.

In general, I’m not a fearful person. Okay, I am afraid of heights and I don’t like scary movies and snakes give me the willies. I manage my anxiety by avoiding them. Easy.

Fire is different. Fire terrifies me.  It’s also inevitable. At least in drought-stricken, climate changed California.

Since I’ve lived in in the Golden State, there have been numerous huge conflagrations. I’m lucky enough that most have not affected me personally.

Some have. Over the last 15 years, I’ve had to evacuate my horses from large commercial boarding stables at least ten times.

I’ve discovered that the Southern California horse community is amazing .When fire threatens, people with rigs, big and small, help out. The horses get moved. Day and middle of the night.

When the worst happens, and horses die, the entire community joins together and mourns.

I’ve helped evacuate horses (mine and others), when the flames were across the street, and the helicopters were just above our heads. I’ve also done it before evacuation orders were given, but the fire was moving fast.

The latter is definitely better.

Then you have time to label every halter with the horse’s name and barn using duct tape and a Sharpie. This is important because sometimes in the chaos, horses are separated from their barns. 

With time you can gather buckets for feed and water. You can grab meds. Sometimes you even have time to load up saddles and bridles.

That’s when you have time.

When you don’t, horses  get stuffed onto any available trailer and sent to wherever there is room. In big Los Angeles area fires, that can be as far away as Antelope Valley or the Del Mar Fairgrounds near San Diego. A single trip can take hours.

You don’t always have hours.

During this last event, people and horses fell into both catagories, depending on their location. The bottom line is, when hell is breaking out, the job is simply to keep the livestock breathing. 

Everything else is secondary. You can buy new tack, blankets and tack trunks.

One of the mantras we hear in California is to have an evacuation plan. Mostly people think about preparedness in terms of earthquakes. For me, it’s all about the fires.

I believe that if you have animals -and this means you too, folks with chickens, pigs, goats, and guinea pigs- you have to have a way to get them to safety. You don’t get to expect anyone else to do this for you.

This seems like common sense.

Apparently it’s not. A surprising number of people, think someone is going to materialize out of the ether and pick up and care for their pets.

Sometimes that happens, but how dare you take the risk. Seriously, how dare you?

In the last few days I have heard people whine, and whine, and whine: I don’t have a trailer. What am I supposed to? Where am I going to put the chickens?  The pony doesn’t load. I don’t know if the goats will lead. I don’t know who to call.

So I’m going to spell out what to do. By the way, this works in flood zones too.

When there are fires in your area, and they are reasonably close , (or floods are predicted), get the animal crates out and set them up. If you have chickens or uncooperative cats,  rabbits or whatever, put them inside. Gather enough food for a couple of days and put near the animals.

If you have horses or other large livestock (sheep, goats, pigs, alpacas, etc), contact someone with a trailer and tell them you might need them soon. If you don’t know anyone, call your local animal control – they have lists of evacuators. Do this sooner than later.  You should have a list of numbers in your phone long before the fire. Like now.

After you’ve contacted someone, but before you need them: pull together water buckets, pails with grain, medications and supplements. Put it next to the chicken crates. Put the animals in a stall with halters on. Write your name and phone number with a sharpie on the halter AND your horse’s hooves. Make sure there is a lead rope.

If your horse hasn’t shipped recently or is a bad loader, get Ace and put it in a syringe outside the stall. If push comes to shove that horse has to get on the trailer in less than 5 minutes, or it’s going to be left behind. Yours is not the only horse this person is trying to help. No one has time to dick around.

Have everything else already in your car so you can follow the trailer when it leaves. The hauler will not feed and settle your horse in a stall when it gets to its temporary home. Taking care of your animals  is your job. Remember when you leave an evacuation area after that trailer, it is unlikely that you are going to be allowed back.

That means, before shit gets real, pull together a ‘bug out’ bag for yourself. A couple of days clothing, pills, and anything you don’t want to lose. Put it in your car/truck. I also loaded my photograph albums, and paintings of my horses. And my computer. That was it. It all went into my truck. Just in case.

When the smoke started billowing up over the next hill over, I caught my canaries (who usually live in a roomy flight zone) and stuffed them in a parakeet cage. The cat went into a crate. They were plopped by the front door.

They weren’t happy, but they would have been really pissed if they burned.

If push came to shove, I didn’t have to think. Everything was set. Did I forget stuff? I’m sure, but would we have all survived? Yes.

I was really, really, lucky this time. The amazing firefighters hit the fire hard and knocked it down in three hours.

When it was over, I unpacked the truck, unhitched the trailer, let the cat loose and moved the canaries back to their aviary.

Then I took a deep breath and poured myself a glass of bourbon.

Was it all a pain in the ass? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Not So Privileged Anymore

I am privileged.

 I am a white, straight, older, Jewish woman. I grew up in a liberal New England town. I went to a private school that was practically a poster for diversity.

 

I didn’t know that; it was just life. My life. A privileged one.

When I was a kid I used to get annoyed when my dad, (whose WWII Army service interrupted his college career at UVA, Charlottesville), would talk with pride about the success of this or that Jewish person. If a football player, or a Senator was Jewish it was a Very. Big. Deal.

I didn’t understand.

Who cared if someone was Jewish or not? It wasn’t important in my world. My friends were black, white, Christian, Muslim, straight and gay. All that mattered was that they were good, fun and smart. Mostly smart.

That’s all I thought anyone cared about.

I was wrong.

The first time I was called a kike, I literally did not know what it meant.  I had to ask a friend. She blushed when she told me. “It’s a dirty word,” she whispered.

By the time an athlete I worshiped and knew,  used the word, I understood. I was also devastated – she wasn’t referring to me, she didn’t even know I was Jewish. But that she had the word in her vocabulary, and used it, gutted me.

Still, I just filed the information and moved on.

I went to work in the music industry, where being Jewish was commonplace and really no one cared. Or if they did, they kept it to themselves.

At that time it was far more traumatic being female than Jewish. Decades before #metoo,  women who wanted to keep their jobs kept their mouths shut and heads down. We just grimaced at the radio promotion guys’  jokes.  Which weren’t funny at all.

But that was the way it was.

I am actively liberal. I’ve worked hard on rallies for choice. I march. And, most important, I vote. In. Every. Single. Election.

I raise a stink when black men are mowed down for existing, and LGBTQ, Muslim and others have their rights threatened. 

I never thought I was one of them.

That’s privilege.

When anti-Semitism started coming out of the shadows in Europe, I felt sick, but figured I’d vote my conscience with my wallet and never go to those places. I could live without traveling to France, Italy and Spain. I don’t shop at Chik- fil-a, Wal-Mart or Hobby Lobby. I thought that was enough.

It's not.

Shortly after a Jewish Center near me was shot up by an anti-Semite with an assault rifle was the first time I attended High Holy Day services with TSA-style metal detectors and armed guards at the door. It was disturbing but I felt safe. The horror of that attack  had to be the result of a single lunatic. That wasn’t MY America.

I was wrong.

Charlottesville woke me up.  The President of the United States proclaimed that there were “good people on both sides.” But one side were Nazis and the other peaceful protesters.

I finally got angry. How dare he try and take my country, away?  He’s the fucking President. He’s supposed to represent ALL of us.

He doesn’t. 

Between the dog whistles and not-so-very-coded language Trump repeatedly makes it clear that he and his followers believe the country belongs to them and only to them. He speaks to his base, and they are the basest: white supremacists.

I love this country, it’s been good to me and my family and we’ve been good to it. I want the US to be the best it can be. And make no mistake, it can always get better. Everything and everyone can always improve.

Apparently the United States no longer loves me. For the first time in my life, I feel unsafe here.

In supermarkets (Krogers), legal demonstrations (Huntington Beach) and yes, places of worship (Sutherland Springs, Pittsburgh) people who aren’t white Christians are under attack.

The perpetrators are not the bogeymen that our current government portrays and brays about. These 

fanatics are not militant Islamists, or some vague turban-wearing strangers.

These very real terrorists are familiar. They are angry, Fox News, Breitbart and Daily Stormer believing, white men. They carry legally obtained weapons of war, AK-45s. And they are killing people who they feel are taking something from them.

I’ve read and paid attention to history. So I am afraid the time is coming that there will be a Kristallnacht somewhere in this country. I am afraid of the day when angry white men board a bus and demand to know who is Jewish or Muslim and then kill them.

Maybe this is hyperbole. Maybe I’m being hysterical in reaction to the ever–increasing daily insanity of the current administration and its effort to dismantle the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But maybe not.

Maybe this is EXACTLY how Hitler came to power.

I don’t know.

But I do know, I don’t feel so privileged anymore.

It's Not A Pet, It's A Horse. And Other Lies

 Many, many, many years ago, when I was about 12 and lucky get my first horse, my father sat me down and sternly said, “This is, a horse, not a pet.”

I adored my Dad, but he didn’t know me at all. Actually he did, he and knew I wasn’t listening.

Fast forward to six years ago.

I was the proud owner of three horses. One was

Murphy and Dezi

ridable. The other two, Murphy and Dezi had one job:  they had to look glad to see me when I visited them weekly at their retirement farm. And brought 25 pounds of carrots.They handled this brilliantly. They would whinny and saunter up to me. It was enough.

I'd bought Murphy when he was 12 to be my show horse. Before he transitioned into a show hunter, he’d had a failed career in racing. At 18 he developed neurological issues that made him unsafe to ride, so I retired him.

Finding a place to park old horses isn’t as easy as it appears. The first place I found for Murphy was a disaster. The field was big, but the weeds were sparse and contrary to what was promised, the horses weren’t fed supplementary hay. Every time I drove away Murphy would  follow my car, running and screaming after me.  He lost almost 200 pounds in four months there. This was 13 years ago, and I’m still furious.

The next farm, however, was horse heaven. Big pastures. Shade trees. Food. And care.  Great care.

I eventually paid to build a three-sided shed for him to escape the elements, but it was worth every penny. Murphy made the transition into retirement with gusto. He was paired with an old mare, and they were a darling old couple.

I bought Dezi (who I showed as Babaloo) when Lucy had her first serious injury and was sidelined for almost a year. He was an old warrior- a European jumper who had been there and done that. I didn’t really know how old he was, but a German clinician saw his breeder’s brand and told me that style had been obsolete for about two decades. Draw your own conclusions.

I knew when I bought Dezi that he wasn’t going to be my riding horse for long; the vet had predicted a maximum of two years.  I rode him for three, and then he joined Murphy in the field. The old mare was long gone and while Dezi didn’t take to retirement with Murphy’s enthusiasm, he adjusted. Dezi became the field boss.

My equine herd is why, when I was forced to move from my (paid off) home in North Hollywood, I looked for horse property. I wanted, no, needed a place to keep my Boys where I could enjoy them daily, instead a few hours on the weekend.

With a little help from my friends, I found almost ¾ an acre (in Los Angeles, this IS horse property) in the western San Fernando Valley. It had a seven stall barn and an arena. I turned two of the stalls into in-and-outs with the arena as a paddock. (The other stalls are for hay and shavings storage. NOT horses.)

There was also a cute little house. I barely looked at it; this place was bought for the Boys and dogs.

They loved it. Retirement AND they got to see me all the time!  And most of the time, I was feeding them. Or giving them snacks. Jackpot!

Dezi was the king of the field. And the yard

.

No matter how much time you spend with your horses, when they are boarded, you don’t really know them. I had no idea how wily Dezi was. With a touch of sneaky. Almost immediately he learned how to breach every gate.

That first year, I’d wake up in the morning and regularly find the Boys waiting on my back porch.  Pissed that breakfast was late.

I invested in  chains and double end snaps for all the gates and teamed them with solar powered hot wire fences. That mostly worked to keep the Boys safely inside the paddock. But Dezi never stopped trying. If gates were left unchained, he was out.

By the time Murphy died, Christmas two years ago, Lucy had joined the Boys. But even my incredibly bossy mare, was no match for Dezi. He ruled the paddock with an iron hoof. He checked every pile of hay before deciding which one he’d eat. If he was napping, the others stood guard. Where he walked, they followed.

Dezi loved people and was very sweet. He’d follow me around the paddock when I was mucking the barn, just to hang out. (Or maybe to ]ensure I was doing a good job.) He loved being scratched and adored babies. When people brought infants to see him, he would carefully lean in and sniff them gently.

This summer was rough on Dez. It was brutally hot. There was a week that it reached 118 degrees. In an effort to keep the gang cool, I bought an industrial standing fan in addition to their stall fans.

They loved it. All three (Talen, my most recent retired show horse joined the herd last spring) would line up in front of it, their manes and tails blowing in the wind. They looked like an equine shampoo commercial.

Talen, a relative youngster at 13, barged in and took control.  Dezi didn’t give up easily; he always sported a nip or cut, but it wasn’t serious and Talen had bite marks as well. They figured it out.

Maybe because of the heat, or the competition, this summer Dezi suddenly got old. 

As recently as last spring he was a fat, shiny boy. But now no matter how much food I stuffed into him, his backbone, hips and ribs jutted out. But he still seemed pretty happy.

Three mornings ago when I went to feed breakfast Dezi was hobbling. He was unable to walk without considering each and every step. I poured pain meds into him and locked him in a stall, which made him miserable and didn’t ease his pain

.

It was time. He and I have been together for more than eleven years. He was my pet for eight years. 

It wasn’t enough.

Where Have All the Clean (Big) Sheets Gone?

There’s a fine line between being completely reasonable and Tom Hanks-like, and going all Joan Crawford screaming about wire clothes hangers. I think I’m about to cross it.

About bed linens.

I like to think of myself as a pretty reasonable person. (Okay, maybe not about the current occupant of 1600) Or that’s the way I used be.

When it comes to big issues like familial cancer, friends nearly dying and mortality I’m pretty solid. I deal, okay, compartmentalize, and function appropriately. I don't panic and can be counted on in a crisis.

It’s the little things that are going to lead me to walk in front of a bus. Like sheets.

This is a first world problem. I am well aware of how lucky I am to have small problems

Still.

Since Mom’s permanent home is in the Berkshires of New England, where as of mid-March it is still snowing, she spends the winter with me in Los Angeles. Mom is mobility challenged, which is medical-speak for the fact that she is confined to a wheelchair.

Mom’s pretty easy; she has a good sense of humor and deals with her disability much better than I would. The problem really isn't her.

The thing is these days Mom comes with a series of aides. Don't get me wrong. I am completely grateful to them. The ladies are pleasant, kind and put up with Mom, me, four obnoxious dogs and they rarely complain. Neither Mom nor I could function without them. We are blessed.

But.

I’m used to living by myself. At least as alone as one can be when you live with Great Danes, Brittanys and keep horses in the back yard.

Living alone is good. I can nap without feeling guilty. I can put stuff down and it stays there until I move it. I can watch really shitty television without being judged and I don’t have to slink out to my office to listen to music loud. Oh, and I can cuss a lot. 

After four months I’m getting used to some things like sharing my tiny space and all of the associated inconveniences. I dare say I’m even pretty good about it, though I miss swearing. 

What is going to break me are sheets. There, I said it again. Sheets.

It seems so simple, even logical to me. Mom’s room has a queen sized bed with a brand-new mattress. (Because the Danes ate the old one…) In her closet are shelves with sheets. Queen-sized sheets. For her bed.

In the hall is a linen closet. With towels and sheets for my king-sized bed. (Don’t be like that – I share that bed with Great Danes.) While my sheets fit Mom’s bed, hers do not work on mine. There are a three sets of sheets for each bed, with a few extras including blankets and pillows.

So how come last night I ended up wrapped in a one dog blanket and a horse cooler I won many years ago?

I am not exactly suffering, though my feet did get a little chilly around 2AM. But the missing sheets are driving me crazy and making me a bit cranky. Especially since it’s been raining, which means that the dogs make the bed filthy and I’d like to put on clean sheets.

Okay I'm really cranky. Like insanely crazy

I just hope that when you spot me wandering the streets of Chatsworth barefoot and clutching a torn, dirty sheet and screaming "WHERE DID ALL THE SHEETS GO?, " you will understand. Or at least point me towards Bed, Bath & Beyond and hand me a 20 % off coupon.

Emotional Support Animal Or Cheap Passengers?

 

   I think the tipping point was Dexter the Peacock. His owner, a photographer and questionable ‘performance artist,’ claimed Dexter was an emotional support animal when she tried to board a flight with him perched on her shoulder.

     I have nothing against peacocks; in fact I was incredibly excited when a pair of wild juveniles hunkered down at my place before deciding my ranchette was too crazy for them, and moved on. But as emotional support?   

    The shrieks of peacocks are the antithesis of soothing or calming. They sound like a cat being attacked by a coyote. At about 90 dbs.

     Dexter’s owner is far from the only one pushing the ESA envelope. Everyone who has boarded a plane over the last few years has seen ESA offenders. They are the miserable-looking dogs being dragged around by self-entitled women who are too cheap to pay the fee for taking their dogs on board.

     In addition to the unhappy dogs, the owners are usually surrounded by Gucci rollerboards and a condescending attitude. They DARE you to challenge their disability, because they are married to a lawyer. And they will call him RIGHT NOW.

     Things have changed since when I moved to Los Angeles, and flew carrying a goldfish. In a bag inside a bowl.  Herbie was the hit of the flight; little kids kept running up to take a peak at the flying fish. Most were disappointed that he was just a goldfish, I’m sure they were hoping for something more exotic.  Herbie, by the way, was an excellent passenger, though I never took him anywhere again.

     Obviously, even if Herbie were still alive, (he passed at the age of 10 and was buried under a rosebush), we’d never get on a plane. His bowl was far too big to get through TSA.

     The Dexter incident is unfortunate for everyone who travels with an actual, legitimate, support animal. Like Monty.

     My 87 year-old handicapped mother lives with me six months a year. She travels across country, bringing a couple of checked bags and Monty, her 13 year-old Silky Terrier. 

     The first few years, when Mom was healthier, we gladly paid the $125 to bring Monty on board. We shoved him in his crate and stuck him underneath the seat in front of me (or whomever was accompanying Mom.) Once we were airborne, we’d plop the crate on the companion’s lap. Monty would sleep and Mom could see he was fine. All was good. He didn’t bother anyone and life was good.

     Until it wasn’t. Two years ago, Mom and I checked into first class (thank goodness for that Delta AMEX card) and proceeded as usual. When everyone else opened their laptops, I took Monty out.

The flight attendant  had a fit.  She hissed and spat like a cat in a bathtub.

      “Put that ANIMAL on the floor.”

     It took me a moment to realize that she was referring to the snoring little dog on my lap. But I followed instructions, and soon Monty was whimpering softly and my mother was whining loudly. I put the carrier on my lap, and opened the top so Mom could reach in and touch him.

       The animal police arrived immediately and started screeching like a peacock.

    “Put that CREATURE on the floor. It is upsetting people!”

     There was no one sitting next to us and the folks across the aisle people were sleeping, or had been, until the stew lost it at the top of her lungs.

     “It needs to be moved immediately!” She hovered over me until I did so. I spent the rest of the flight bent over Monty with one hand slipped into his crate to pat his head. For a week I walked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

        I don’t want to damn all Delta stewardesses. Far from it. A few years later I was taking my seven-week-old Great Dane puppy home from Kentucky. Jasper Johns was booked and paid for as my carry-on. I got to my seat and discovered I had been moved to the bulkhead, and there was no place to put him. In a panic I pointed it out to my seat companion and the stewardess.

        The flight attendant looked at me like I was crazy. 

     “He looks like a support animal to me. What do you think?” She looked at my aisle mate, who nodded enthusiastically.  For the entire flight, he, and everyone in my row kept asking if I needed them to hold Jasper so I could go to the restroom.

        The earlier Monty incident spooked me. Now when Mom travels, Monty carries ESA identification. He has letters from two of Mom’s doctors, a photo ID and a badge. He has more documentation than I do. His picture is better too.

         The thing is, neither Mom nor I want to be one THOSE people, you know, the cheaters. We'd happily pay for Monty's travels. Truth be told, we aren’t lying about his ESA status. Moving Mom coast-to-coast is difficult and stressful and anxiety-producing. Knowing Monty is there, and safe, is calming.

     I’m not sure though, whose emotions he is supporting on these trips, Moms or mine.

               

               

The Curse of the Pigglesworth

I despise Walmart. I hate their business model, which drives vendors to near bankruptcy and kills locally-owned small business. I hate their gigantic stores which swallow up acres of once open land that. I hate the way their treat their employees, most of whom are part-time so they won’t have benefits and are depend upon food stamps for survival. I hate the politics of the Walton family, who support the GOP with fistfuls of money.

I mostly hate Walmart because it has made me a hypocrite.

Because of my aforementioned revulsion, until recently I had never set foot in a Walmart. Or a Sam’s Club. I was  smugly proud of this.

But then I discovered Pigglesworths.

For those of you who do not have Great Danes, I will let you in on a secret: these are must-have Great Dane toys.

.

Pigglesworths seem simple. They are rubber toys in the shape of pigs that make a disgusting grunt instead of a more plebeian squeak. The pigs come in bright colors including lime green, orange, purple and pink and have contrasting spots.

 It shouldn’t be a big deal. Pigglesworths are just dog toys after all.

Not exactly.

I kept hearing about these pigs on every Great Dane page.  Danes apparently adore these toys. Not like, but adored. Every Dane worth his slobber has at least one. Or 40.

Did I mention, they are cheap?  That means when the noses are chomped off, the stuffing extracted and grunter ripped out, you can get another without breaking the bank.

Dane Facebook pages are filled with dogs posing with piles of nose-less, silent piggies.  The lack of stuffing and noise doesn’t seem to dim  the dogs’ enthusiasm at all.

Pigglesworths could just be the perfect dog toy.

My dogs are just a wee bit spoiled. They literally have toy boxes filled with dead stuffies and other toys. Hedgehog? Check. Rope toys? Check. Flamingos? Check. 

(They have no Teddy Bears . For some reason, most of my Teddys arrived wearing clothing.  Murray the Dane, being a practical dog, found this simply wrong. Bears, unless their first name is Yogi, shouldn’t have clothing. Which meant that he constantly undressed the Teddy Bears. I found this disturbing, and removed them. Murray has been gone for years but I’ve never replaced the Teddys. )

But I had no Pigglesworths. Zero. Obviously I needed to rectify this problem.

So off I went in search of the mysterious, nay, legendary grunting pigs. 

I admit, I was naive. First I went to independent pet stores. No hogs. I went to Petco and Petsmart. Nary a porcine to be found. 

Every time I passed a pet store, I went inside. Pigglesworths had become my quest. My Holy Grail was a rubber florescent colored swine. And there was only one place they could be dependably found in the United States.*

Which is how I found myself in the parking lot of the local Walmart. I sat in the car for almost a half an hour, trying to figure out what the offset for shopping there would be. Do I go to a local pet shop and buy a ton of overpriced chew toys to make up for my Walmart sins? Maybe a donation to a local animal shelter would absolve me.

Finally, I took a deep breath and went into the store. It was every bit as awful as I imagined.

I dislike shopping but I truly hate shopping in big box stores; they overwhelm me. Usually I get dizzy and walk out empty handed. But even Costco (which treats its employees AND vendors well) had not prepared me for this.

My head started to spin. The store was immense and was filled with goods I had never thought of, and probably no one needs.  Items were piled to the rafters and wrapped in shiny plastic.

I had the urge to bolt, but because of my rotten, spoiled, dogs, I pushed on. Somewhere in this godforsaken place there were Pigglesworths. I would find them and purchase them if it was the last thing I did.

For a moment it seemed like it might. I immediately got lost in the children’s clothing and baby supplies. Next I came upon the medical department, which went on forever. By the time I found the pet aisle, I was lightheaded.

There, near the floor, in a dusty bin, were Pigglesworths. Once I spotted them, they practically glowed. I grabbed two of every color, in the hopes that the pig supply would outlive the dogs. As everyone likes to remind me, Great Danes don’t live long, so there was a chance.

My arms full of pigs, I ran to the checkout. There were hundreds of people in line. Many had dozens of children and overflowing carts filled with life’s necessities.  A few stared at me and my arms filled with colorful pigs.

Yes, they were judging me. I didn't care. I had my loot.

Eventually I made it outside. I took a deep breath. The air smelled a little off, but that could have been because the Walmart was in Porter Ranch, during the gigantic Aliso Canyon natural gas leak. Or that just could have been the smell of Walmart.

 I didn’t care, I was just glad to be outside. With the pigs.

When I got home, I was surrounded by Danes.  Excitedly I took out a Pigglesworth for each dog and presented them with a flourish.

Nothing. Nada. They barely blinked.

Dalai finally politely nosed one and walked away, bored. Poppy the Brittany was interested and poked it. When it grunted she leapt back in terror and took off.

Finally, Jasper crept up on a green piggie from behind. He grabbed it by the head and took off grunting it while running circles of joy. 

Success! He LOVED his Pigglesworth.

It was always nearby. He even took it to bed, so if either of us rolled over in the middle of the night, we were startled awake by grunts.

Unfortunately, I discovered that since they are cheap rubber, Pigglesworths do not, in fact, last forever. In less time than you can imagine, the noses were gnawed off, and the stuffing yanked out, leaving dozens of husks of colorful rubber.  I’ve taken to impaling them on fence posts, like heads of pagans in the Middle Ages.

Lately Jasper has been standing in front of the fence, sadly whining. Which means one thing.

So help me, I need to go back to Walmart.

*Pigglesworths are available online. From China. Between the cost and the shipping they average about $15 a pig. If they are in stock. Which they never are. I’ve checked. Honest.

Losing JP

 Recently over a single weekend, my mother fell - and for a time it seemed like she might die; my horse broke an in probably a career ending way, and I had to return my beloved JP back to the rescue.

Don’t judge me, but of the three incidents, losing JP is the one that haunts me.

Mom was/is getting the best possible care and so was/is Talen. There is absolutely nothing I could do for either of them that wasn’t/isn’t being done.

JP is different. I failed him. Repeatedly.

JP (Jackson Pollack)  came to me in July when he was five months old and 87 pounds. He is an absolute stunning, loving, sweet and huge Harlequin Great Dane puppy.The story was that his owner was ill and could not care for him.

While JP obviously was well-treated, he was barely socialized, had zero training and was fearful because of it. He also had a complete lack of boundaries. Zip. 

If he wanted something was on the counter, JP helped himself. Dalai or Jasper probably would too; but they would be furtive about it. 

I always instill a huge amount of Jewish guilt in all of my dogs. They may be naughty; but they feel really bad about it.

It didn’t take long for JP to catch on. He continued to counter surf,  but soon learned to slink up and give me guilty side eye to ask for a forgiving cuddle. He is one smart dog.

JP also has boundless energy. That was part of the attraction.

At seven and a half, Dalai is an old Dane, playing is way down on her list of fun activities.  Not so much for one and a half year old Jasper. For him, JP was the  Ever Ready Bunny buddy of his dreams. They chased each other for hours, leaping in the air and colliding with a crash like a pair of fighting T-Rexes, before eventually collapsing in a snoring, content puppy pile.

They adored each other and their good-natured devotion never failed to make me laugh.

Okay, I was genuinely pissed when they ate the guest bedroom’s mattress down to the springs, but I needed to replace it anyway. It was falling apart anyway. Sort of.

Because of his lack of socialization JP often missed picking up on other dog’s body language. Like Dalai, She was unimpressed completely with JP, but he didn't understand.

He’d gambol up to her bowing and trying to play. Usually she’d growl. He was a big dopey puppy, so would usually just bounce away, completely confused and upset by her irritation.

It all worked. Until it didn't.

In late November Jasper was neutered. Danes are prone to bloat, and the best way to prevent stomach torsion is a gastroplexy where the stomach is stitched to the wall so it can’t twist during a bloat.

I have this done when my dogs are being neutered or spayed, so they only have go through surgery once. It is major operation, but much safer than having their stomach flip.

I was a wreck, but Jasper came through it well. He never fussed with his incision so he didn't even wear the cone of shame. After a few days he  was feeling pretty good was nearly impossible to keep quiet.

When I separated the boys, they howled for each other, and JP quickly learned how to turn door knobs, so I gave up. They played, albeit a little fiercely than usual.

This was my first mistake. 

After a week I brought Jasper in for a vet check and he seemed to be doing great. He had dissolving stitches, so he didn’t need to return . He was good to go.

Weirdly, he started having mood swings. Jasper has the best temperament of any dog I’ve ever known. I literally had never heard him growl. Until he was neutered. The longer it was post-neuter, the crabbier he became. I chalked it up to changing hormones and figured it would pass.

Wrong.

A couple of weeks later I was replacing a garden fence that JP had blundered through and knocked down. Out of nowhere JP and Jasper got into it for real. This was not a small fight, WWE fake fight. This was the real thing. 

They were ripping each other apart. When they finally were separated , Jasper’s incision had burst open and JP’s head sported a gash that eventually took seven stitches to close. They each had a dozen or so other more superficial wounds.

I took each to the vet, separately since I was afraid to have them in the car together. It turned out that Jasper was desperately ill. Apparently he was one of those rare (Mega Millions rare) dogs allergic to dissolving stitches. His had become infected, which explained his bad temper, and while they were fighting, the incision exploded.He immediately went into emergency surgery.

The following evening, while Jasper was still in the hospital recuperating, Mom fell.  Ten hours later she finally let me call the paramedics to transport her to the hospital. Where she promptly became semi-comatose.

Oh, and the vet checked Talen, my new show horse the next morning, and found him worse after a miracle treatment. Good times.

That night I picked up Jasper. The boys were wary around each other. JP in particular was nervous. He was always a fearful dog, but now he was terrified. Every time Jasper approached him, he’d growl.

A smart person would have crated him and let them both calm down.  Not me, I put JP in his crate, but when when Jasper climbed on the bed, JP had a fit in the crate, I let him out. 

Stupid, stupid move.

All hell broke out. They tore into each other. It took about five minutes get them apart, and it was horrifying, like a scene from a massacre. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the dogs and I were covered with blood.

A return trip to the ER, (“Is that Jasper? Didn’t he just leave?”), proved that under all the gore, Jasper had no new injuries. They cleaned him up and I took him home.

I was in shock, but realized that JP was going to have to go. For his own safety. 

I spent the night with JP in Mom’s room with the other dogs locked in my bedroom. Even though JP was cut up and wounded, he curled up next to me and cuddled all night. As usual, he practically purred when he was close.

I cried for five hours straight and in the morning made arrangements with the rescue to return him.

Since I was incapable of driving a dear friend drove JP and I the three hours to the rescue. I cried the whole way. When we walked in, JP started to shake and clung to me. The rescuer had to literally pull us apart.

All the behaviorists and dog trainers and experts tell me I did the right thing. That the dogs would never get along again. That it was better for JP.

I don’t’ believe them. They didn’t see the look of betrayal in JP eyes as I left him. I have never, ever deliberately hurt an animal before, and I don’t know that I will ever recover – even though he probably has.

Mom has mostly recovered, and will be coming home soon. Talen is probably the same. But I'll never stop worrying about JP.