I was letting Brandy and Foster outside yesterday when Foster suddenly yelped. I yelled my loud customary HEY! and turned to see what’s up. After assessing the situation, I thought Brandy tripped him or stepped on him or something at first. Yes, Foster would totally yelp if stepped on, being the official drama queen in my household. He’s the only dog I know who yelps and cries and asks for comfort-rubs after being bitten by a bug.
A few minutes later, he yelped again and kept on crying for a few seconds with his left front paw lifted. Upon inspection, I found out he broke a nail. It looked like it split at the top. Here we go again, I thought. It was about time Foster and I made our semiannual pilgrimage to the emergency vet clinic, where everybody knows our names and serves us beer and chips while we wait.
Our last visit to the clinic involved a puncture wound on his side, which was made by none other than Foster himself with his own teeth. He obviously was chasing a bug with his mouth, which landed on his side. He cried bloody murder. He cursed and swore. He was beside himself yelping his brains out - Why me? Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Oh the things he had to go through! So on we went to the emergency clinic where they stitched him up, bandaged up his body and sent us home with a large cone because we knew he’s the master of getting to the stitches and taking them out. Nevertheless, the next morning, I was back at the clinic again with Foster, getting him stapled because he still managed to take half the stitches out. Of course. Then they bandaged him up some more to make his midsection look twice as big, put a gigantic cone on him and sent us home where I put a t-shirt on him as well, fastened with a rubber band. Needless to say, both Foster and I had a very long couple of weeks until the stitches and the staples could come out.
So this time around, I have to say I felt a little relieved that it’s just some broken nail, not that I’m happy or anything about having to go to an emergency clinic for a broken fucking nail. Not only there was not a drop of blood, but he was back to his usual pain-in-the-ass self, running around annoying Brandy in no time. When we got to the clinic, they informed us that the wait was about 2 hours, and since it didn’t look anything serious, I might as well take him home and see if he’s bothered by it and be back if that’s the case. So we unceremoniously cut our pilgrimage short and came back home with no bandage or cone to show for. Naturally I’m a little worried if this trip won’t be counted as official by the semiannual-Foster-emergency gods.
Last Saturday was a day that called for celebration, and I completely forgot even though I marked my organizer. That’s what happens when you carry an organizer to write shit down but there is nothing to remind you to consult the organizer.
Last Saturday was Brandy’s gotcha day. I first laid eyes on Brandy 4 years ago on 5/10 around 2 or 3am. I was involved in a transport of dogs in death row from a shelter in Indiana to NE area where the rescues and adopters were waiting. We started the transport early in the morning the day before, but the schedule delayed repeatedly by unforeseen problems from the very beginning: the first leg’s car breaking down, the leg right before me dropping a wrong dog off, not to mention the last leg, me, getting totally lost finding the meeting place in the middle of the night. Oh and did I mention one of the dogs got loose while hand-off? Thankfully we got her back after running around for about half an hour or so – we were extremely lucky. Because a wrong dog was dropped off and because the one who ran that leg basically drove all day from Ohio to New York, I had to go back to the border of NJ and PA to exchange the dogs. That was when I first met Brandy. She was the wrong dog, meaning that she was one of the two that I pulled to foster and find homes for. I wasn’t looking for another dog myself, you see.
Within a week, the other dog I pulled, Bella, already had a great family who wanted to adopt her and was adopted in 2 weeks. However, nobody was interested in Brandy. She was an odd looking puppy with disproportionately short legs and a tail which looked like it belonged to another dog that somebody jokingly attached to her body somehow. She was one of those all too common Shepherd mix, nothing but a dime a dozen mutt, a strange looking one at that. I wasn’t in a hurry to adopt her out though since she seemed to be “throwing up” a whole lot, and I wanted to find out what’s wrong with her and get it taken care of first.
After three visits to the vet, we found out that Brandy has congenital megaesophagus. Her esophagus has zero motility and whatever goes into her mouth just sits in her esophagus and comes back out when she lowers her head, jumps down from sofa or even just lying down. She wasn’t throwing up, she was regurgitating her food. There’s no treatment but an operation, the failure of which results in a much worse condition than before and the success rate too low to consider. The vet told me that she needed to be held upright to get her body perpendicular to the ground so that the gravity pulls the food down to her stomach every time she eats or drinks.
I stopped my effort to adopt her out and decided to keep her. I gave myself an excuse that nobody would adopt her anyway and even if somebody did, they’d get sick of her ruining the couch or carpet with her regurgitation and she’d be dumped again. But the truth is that I was already so deeply in love with Brandy. She’s the embodiment of gratefulness, appreciation and loyalty. I could always feel it looking into her eyes looking back at me with such devotion.
Sometime last week, I was talking to my friend who used to pet-sit for me and also lived in my livingroom for a month to help me take care of Brandy when I had my shoulder surgery. It was about Brandy’s current problem having soft stool, and I said, “It’s so fucking unfair! She’s the most loyal, most grateful one and she has to suffer so damn much.” And his reply drove me to tears. “Yeah, I know. She would die for you in a heartbeat.”
Yes, I know she would.
Happy belated gotcha day, Brandy! I suck moose’ ass for forgetting.
Brandy is a shy pooper. She finds a spot as far from me as possible, looks at me to see if I’m looking, and assumes the position only when I look away from her. She always starts with her back towards the audience, but she’s also a walk-around pooper. She makes little steps while pooping, and because of her efforts to to see if her poop is coming out safely without getting hurt by turning her head around, she walks in a spiral.
After Foster came, Brandy developed another habit. Foster, of course, didn’t let Brandy poop in peace. It’s just not in his nature. He would “attack” Brandy EVERY SINGLE TIME she assumed the position, which of course pissed the living daylights out of Brandy. Worse, he would “attack” her while she’s in the midst of the process, the turd half way out, in which case she had to just helplessly take it. Sometimes Foster would start running towards her and Brandy would see him coming – I could see the panic in her eyes, and push with all her might, and at the very last minute she would take off with that last piece of poopage flying out of her ass making a nice trajectory of a few feet.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I tried to contain Foster. But it was when he still did not listen to me, and when Brandy is pooping, he could see or hear nothing else. How could he, if you think about it? He sees this great opportunity to jump helpless Brandy and be the annoying cute little brother he could. How could he possibly have any cells left in his teeny little head to register anything other than the picture of him successfully pester the crap out of Brandy, quite literally I might add.
Now that I can call off Foster and make him stay, Brandy very cleverly runs over to the farthest spot of her choosing when she sees Foster not too far away from me, then she looks at me and waits. I call to Foster, who eagerly runs to me and sits and scratches me raw repeatedly gives me a paw repeatedly and tries to lick some part of me, ANY part of me: touch me, stroke me, rub my belly, scratch my ear, how about my butt, pet me, scratch my neck, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh? When the containment of Foster is satisfactory for Brandy, only then she proceeds with her pooping.
On a side note, Brandy hasn’t forgotten or forgiven Foster for his lack of basic manners regarding pooping process. So she started taking revenge by doing exactly the same thing to Foster what he did to her long time ago. Luckily for Foster, Brandy, as I stated many times before, is so fiercely loyal to me that after calling her off and making her stay right next to me a couple of times, she now looks at me whenever Foster sniffs around for the spot to poop. Then I signal her to come, and she comes with her eyes fixed intensely on Foster, and stays right next to me until Foster breaks out of his pooping stance, at which time she flies off after him.
Edited to add Brooklyn’s pooping picture.
Brooklyn, being a Shiba Inu mix and all, is very fussy and meticulous about everything. Naturally that includes her pooping ritual.
When I first adopted Brooklyn, she had a very bad case of diarrhea, the brown liquidy kind which you can’t even pretend to scoop in fear of being the recipient of dirty looks for not picking up after a noticeably skin-and-bones thin dog. Her diarrhea continued for 3 days before she was hospitalized. Since I was worried about her having accidents while I was at work, I covered half the room with wee-wee pads, and she never used them either. Because you know, HOW COULD I EVER! EVEN THINK THAT SHE WOULD DEIGN TO USE WEE-WEE PADS INDOORS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! What was I thinking? Didn’t I know the concept is beneath her? In short, I never have to worry about Brooklyn having an accident inside even when she has a diarrhea. It’s just inconceivable.
That didn’t mean that Brooklyn would joyfully relieve herself once let outside. She used to refuse to poop anywhere near our place. So we had to walk over AT LEAST to the next block for her to even consider sniffing around for “the” spot. Usually, if she could still see our place even when she really had to go, it was safe to say that she would rather hold her poop while pulling on the leash (she usually doesn’t pull since, again, it’s beneath her) with incredible strength to go to a spot where our place is safely out of our view.
Now that we live in a neighborhood where there is no sidewalk and people let their dogs out in their front yards or walk them without leashing them, I can no longer walk Brooklyn because she’s dog aggressive and it’s also very distasteful to her to be peeing or pooping on pavement instead of somebody’s front lawn. So naturally, I had to make her poop and pee in *GASP* OUR OWN BACKYARD!!! Of course she refused to poop or pee. But she didn’t have a choice, did she? And she peed about once a day and pooped about every 4 days or so. She still does sometimes, but usually when it’s wet outside.
(I found it! I knew I had everybody’s pooping picture!)
Even on a nice and clear, and most importantly, DRY day, it’s not easy for Brooklyn to poop. Because God forbid she’s considered easy in any aspect of her life! Everything has to be “just so” for her to assume the position. Wind, noise, smell, air quality, and some other mysterious things factor into her calculation deciding the exact time and place. Usually, one of those factors change in the midst of her push – change in wind direction or its speed, change in noise level, a car driving by, a squirrel moving on the other side of the fence, a leaf falling down, a dog barking 5 blocks away, a fly landing on the neighbor’s tree, Obama losing support, McCain fumbling on war issue, a cyclone in Myanmar, a star exploding in the galaxy far far away, etc, etc. And she would have to make necessary changes accordingly by looking for the perfect spot again and again and again. And yes, that quarter of a step to the left or right matters!
When she’s done, she breaks out of her pooping stance with a couple of steps, in which her hind legs are spread as wide as possible so as not to touch any poopage that rolled and strayed away from its kind in the pile. Then she trots away as if she cannot BELIEVE I’d let a poo pile inside our own yard. And she licks herself.
Regrettably, it seems I don’t have any pictures of Brooklyn pooping, only some peeing pictures. Here is one of her licking herself instead. I will add a picture as soon as possible.
Finally I present to you a whole entry dedicated to poop and pooping process. Some of you might ask what took you so long? given my unusual fondness for discussing it. Well, I’m going to make up for it by writing a shit load – a whole series about poop. This is the first installment of the series, starting with Foster, … of course.
A few years ago when Foster first came, he hated pooping. It took away from his precious playing time – read annoying Brandy time. Why waste time relieving himself when he can “play”? So he held it. I could always see he had to go, circling that perfect spot, or sometimes scooting around on his butt, but he held it until he absofuckinglutely had to go.
Not only that, he couldn’t wait until he finished pooping… naturally. So he would break his pooping stance with the poop that still not completely cleared its rightful passage to be born, and try to run and play. Of course he would realize the poop is still hanging out of his butt, and would start walking funny, like he had some turd sticking out of his butt, which was indeed the case here, and we ALL know how them dogs freak out when a piece of turd hanging out bounces against their precious bum! Right? Especially when that said piece of turd is hanging by a thread of grass he chomped on earlier? Then he’d assume the position again reluctantly and start pushing again. Repeat this process two or three times, and that’s how he used to poop (I’ll discuss his appetite for fresh poop later in another entry), or give birth to his poopage – have you noticed that his pooping process used to be remarkably similar to that of birthing? This process made poop scooping chore very interesting (read frustrating) for me since I would have to try to follow his track to pick up any unfortunate piece of poop that fell down haphazardly while he was running with it sticking out of his butt. And try to do that at night with a flash light.
Now that he seems to have understood Einstein’s theory of relativity and accepted that time doesn’t exist, he no longer holds his poop. Nevertheless, after he’s done, he very cautiously breaks his pooping stance, in stages, and walk a couple of steps gingerly, still crouched ready to push if needed, as if he still has turd hanging out of his butt, which is rarely the case any more unless he has munched on an inordinate amount of grass, to make absolutely certain he doesn’t have anything that might bounce off his butt. And then he takes off as if his life depended upon it. For somebody like myself who really does fart to amuse herself when left by herself, it provides me with boundless amusement. And people shake their heads and ask how I live without TV?
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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