It’s funny how you’ll be bopping along in your life, wondering what would happen if you substitute quinoa for couscous in a recipe, when out of the blue, you learn a handful of important new words.
For example, last Tuesday night, Winnie, Rick and I learned the meaning, impact, and cost of three doozies: torsion bloat, gastropexy, and splenechtomy. Here’s a helpful one-size-fits-all article on how these topics relate, but the short story is that after a big hike, full dinner, and probably too much water, Winston suffered a bloat so severe that it flipped his stomach 180 degrees, ripping his spleen off.
The good Dr. Don Betts of Driggs Veterinary Clinic saved his life with a 1 a.m. surgery, and said that in 30-years of vet practice and on average 10 cases of bloat in dogs per month, he’d never seen that spleen-ripping business before.
We’re big fans of Dr. Betts. Big, big fans.
Experts agree that deep, narrow chested dogs with thin waists are most at risk, and while Great Danes, Weimaraners, and Irish Setters are all excellent candidates, my suspicion is that Standard Poodles may be even more at risk, given what delicate and particular eaters they can be.
Winston, for instance, makes it a habit to eat with his supermodel figure in mind. After checking his bowl for poison (this is accomplished by carefully selecting one random piece of kibble and spitting it out on the floor for TSA-worthy scrutiny), he’ll pick his way through a meal, stopping as soon as his hunger is satisfied and he recalls he has a photo shoot early the next morning.
We figure that on some days, he must be surviving on cigarettes and Chardonnay behind the garage.
That is, of course, unless he’s surviving on excellent vet care, rest, antibiotics, pain relievers, easy-to-digest prescription canned food, and the TLC of family and friends.
Did you know that flowers and a sweet card really do help with the healing process?
Anything that brings a smile to the face simultaneously lifts the heart…
… and there’s nothing better for the constitution than feeling loved and the anticipation of better days to come.
BTW, these are Winston’s buddies featured in this slideshow of a recent fishing trip with the Sordahls. He has asked us to relay his gratitude, and, LeRoux? You’re on!
I know the thoughtfulness and beauty made Rick and me feel a whole bunch better.
And as of last night, Winston was insisting he was feeling much better, too.
We’re glad for that shaved spot where the catheter was. It reminds us of Dr. Betts’ words at the post-op check-up:
“Winston will insist that within three or four days, he’s all better. DO NOT LET HIM LIE TO YOU. The stitches don’t come out for another whole week, and until then, no long walks, no excitement, no stress, and no ball chasing.”
So we focus on the leg…
… while Winston focuses on the ball and drools.
Hang in there, buddy.
It won’t be long before you’re back to your glamorous, elegant self.
Brace yourself: this post contains another parcel by mail, more shots of the damn dog, some very old news, and the extraordinary and entirely unexpected gift of healing and hope from someone I didn’t even know.
This could get weird for some of you before it gets better.
To set some context, this is as good a time as any to let you know that my employment situation with my company in California has evolved into half-time so that I can spend more time writing. I have a book underway called “The Accidental Speaker.” It’s about how to think about business presentations, and how they differ significantly from professional speaking gigs, and why knowing that can really help make the whole thing more comfortable and effective. It will be a fun book and the writing is coming along, but it’s difficult because it involves taking what I know and packaging it in text in a way that makes it accessible for other people. For me, this feels more like administrivia—organizing, cataloging, etc.—than it does writing. Still, it’s not horrible, and I think it’s necessary.
But in the last couple of weeks, I have also been exploring the idea of a parallel project of what feels like a more creative bent: a book that will be a hybrid of selections from this blog woven together with an easy going essay-style narrative of observations and musings on life, truth, and reality. Think “Travels with Charlie” or “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” except with photography, like here, and a storyline of two ridiculously happy fifty-something artists and their pooch moving full-time to a renovated 95-year old farmhouse in Teton Valley and figuring out what that looks like.
It’s the kind of writing that only happens in a flow, where I don’t really know what will emerge until I sit down, hands on keyboard, and just start. It requires the partnership of the Creative force, and looks more like a conduit than it does a file cabinet. It’s a decidedly un-corporate way to write, and while I’m familiar and comfortable with the bloggy part of the project, this other thing, this opening myself up and jumping into the stream, trusting that something interesting and engaging will emerge, is brand new, exciting, and frightening,
And my ability to leap thusly, it turns out, hinges on my being able to think of myself as a legitimate creator of valuable things that wouldn’t exist without me… an artist, and more specifically, a writer. This is not nearly as easy as one might think. A workbook called “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” by Julia Cameron is proving very helpful… life-changing, even. It’s about how to swap the “it’s too late…,” “you’ll never ‘make it’ as a real artist…,” type voices inside your head for ones that actually help you to get the work done.
Rick and I had just finished Week One in the program when this parcel arrived in the mail.
The return address said it was from Mary in Oregon. As I don’t know a Mary in Oregon, I opened it carefully and with a great deal of curiosity.
The note read:
“Hi Kathy, I know you don’t know me so I hope you don’t mind that I have been reading your blog since Kylie posted on Facebook about the SecurID that Winston chewed up. Your stories and photos are so creative.
I’ve enclosed some of the dog toys that I make for our company craft fair in Hillsboro for Winston. He looks a little pampered and I’m sure he must have a few toys already, but what dog doesn’t need more?
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Mary”
Mary, there are just so many things about this that make me puddle up in a super-sized flood of gratitude, I can’t even begin to tell you. But let me start with the obvious:
Your following the blog at all. Seriously, there isn’t a blogger on the planet who “minds” if someone they don’t know reads what they write. In fact, the first time you get a comment from an unknown reader is a moment of pure disbelief and excitement. Your family is obligated, BY LAW, to comment once in a while to let you know they’re still reading it, but a stranger?! The completely voluntary comment lands in an entirely different place.
Your spontaneous generosity and for all the effort it took to actually act on it. Anything that requires finding the right box, getting it wrapped, labelled, and schlepped to the post office, then finally paying for the postage represents a serious intent to do good.
Your attitude that a dog can never have too many toys.
Your kind, kind words. You will see in what follows how they mean so much more to me than you can ever have imagined. Thank you.
Mary sews labels into her creations, identifying them as “Merry Bears.”
(Ready? More weirdness just around the bend ahead.)
In the early 90’s when I was busily employed mothering my kids, I had a Christmas craft business that made enough money to finance our annual family vacation for the years I did it. I made salt-dough teddy bear Christmas-tree ornaments, and for five dollars, would calligraphy people’s names on them with a fine-point sharpie, right there at the craft fair. People snatched them up as affordable gifts for music teachers, favorite aunts, etc. My mom helped out at the table, taking orders, getting the bears lined up with the names on little slips of paper, packaging up the completed ones and distributing them to their new owners while I churned ’em out.
I called them “Merry Bears.”
I remembered I had a newspaper clipping from those days in a scrapbook buried deep somewhere in one of the three huge, stuffed attics we have.
I hope you enjoy this photo. It came at a great cost of digging through mountains of old flotsam and other surprising and completely distracting finds of jetsom along the way.
The point here is that Mary’s gift, a token of appreciation and support of my writing and photos, pointed me directly back to a time when I did consider myself to be an “artist.”
There are still a few of these little critters that show up every year on our tree.
I was so excited by what was coming together that I did what I always do: yelled, “Where’s the camera?!” I wanted to set up a beautiful photo shoot for Mary’s creations so that I could blog here about how sweet and “coincidental” it all was.
And that’s when I learned that Mary puts intoxicating doggy-squeakers in all her toys.
Winston’s a sucker for a squeak.
I grabbed all three at once, and amazingly managed to connect with all three squeakers, simultaneously. Winston responded with enthusiasm to the sirens’ calls. Every time I’d get set up, he’d sneak up and slide one of the toys off the table, wrecking my photo shoot.
After five minutes of this fun game, I gave up and told him to pick which two he wanted.
Mary, I hope you don’t mind, but he left the blue one, and I’m keeping it for myself.
I wanted to have something to remember your kindness by, and W. has an intense focus on finding and removing the squeak. Death by nibbling, we call it, and he’s relentless.
Is there such a thing as “dognip” that they put inside those things?
Anyway, he settled in with the red one. I told him to lick it.
Dog slobber is a guarantee of permanent ownership granted to the slobberer. No one else even wants to touch the slobberee.
He seemed pleased with his choice.
In fact, eventually he took such umbrage at my own relentless camera work that he decided to seek more private quarters to bond with his new buddy.
Look out… comin’ through….
(Ready?)
Remember I said above that in the search for the newspaper clipping of me at the craft fair, I came across some surprising finds?
One of those was my third grade report card.
In the first term, Mrs. Eglington reported that while I was A-okay on the basics, she felt that I “…daydreamed tremendously.” This apparently did not bode well for my future, especially when combined with a tendency to be “…too self-assured for her own good.”
I now take the “daydreaming tremendously” comment as a compliment. I only wish I could grab back some of that assurance that my eight-year old self had in the possibility of those dreams when the unison droning of multiplication tables I already knew weren’t enough to hold my attention.
I wonder what happened to that pure confidence that anything was possible, not just for me, but for everything and everyone?
Ah… I see where it went. It came down to earth.
Well, Mrs. Eglington, in the spirit of “better late than never,” I’d like to respond, if I may.
Leaving aside your own inability to stay within the lines and a questionable subject-verb agreement choice there, I beg to differ with your conclusion about both my downfall and where I need to be.
I’m still skipping along just fine, thank you, and sometimes my feet don’t even touch the ground.
Your report on my prospects is returning to the back of the attic where it belongs, and Mary’s blue Merry Bear will stand guard over my keyboard, with her encouraging note on my bulletin board above my desk, where they both will remind me that I’m not in this alone.
Remember how we gave such great thought to what we should name this little pootz before he came to us?
In their helpful book, “The Art of Raising a Puppy,” the monks of New Skete Monastery devote a full five paragraphs on the serious undertaking of naming your puppy, thus our grave deliberations in the weeks prior to picking up poocher from the rescue saints.
And I quoth: “We should select names that speak to a dog as a dog yet respect her own dignity and uniqueness.” They suggest short, two-syllable names that are easy for the pup to understand and for you to pronounce, and are clearly distinguishable from obedience commands. Also, they recommend avoiding “… excessively sweet or joke names totally inappropriate for a dog. Dogs are remarkably intuitive; they sense when they are being made fun of or when they are the objects of suffocating sentimentality.”
All right, then.
Given the breed, we anticipated our standard poodle puppy would, at minimum, grow into a big dog and would need a name that could carry the weight.
Check.
At five months, the dog weighs 45 pounds and–surprise!–is chin-level with the bathroom counter while on all fours. Because of Rick’s previous experience with the breed, however, we did have a few expectations beyond bulk.
He would be highly intelligent and constantly attuned to the presence and needs of his people, often going first (if permitted) on border patrol.
He would move through our lives with grace and a confident inquisitiveness…
… yet be companionable…
… good-natured…
… and noble with an air of natural authority.
We named him “Winston.”
And then we watched a few episodes of the TV show, “The Dog Whisperer” with Cesar Millan, noting the sharp hissing “sstt!” noise he makes when rebuking a dog. As in, “Hi there, good buddy WinSSTTon!”
Talk about your mixed messages.
Yup… Every time we called our dog by name, we were accidentally making a noise that, apparently, translates into “BAD DOG!”
Perhaps the monks and Cesar should hang out for an afternoon and share tips before they write their respective next books. Or maybe they could just co-host a TV show called, “The Dog N’ Chanters.”
Anyways, we’ve shifted to “Winnie,” which is more dog-friendly and an actual nick-name for those named “Winston.”
And, as it turns out, it’s perfectly apt for this incredible gift to our family: caught mid-hop, you can clearly see that we’ve been blessed with the living incarnation of the legendary Golden Bear of Kansas, Pooh-style.
In truth, we collectively already have experience with an “early driver,” and while they lead to great war stories about just how tough it is to raise little ones… in real time? They’re kind of hair raising.
And deceptively sweet.
Who can blame a little pupper wupper for a minor nibble on the sole of a shoe?
Especially when they are so docile during the introduction of hygiene practices?
Yes, his posture is saying, “Yes, of course… Go right ahead. I understand. Ears need to be cleaned. I’ll just wait here until you’re done, then… pinned down between your knees… shall I?”
However, note the eyes, screaming, “ARE YOU FUDGING KIDDING ME??!!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM??!!!!”
And this attitude is just one reason why we’ve been SO BUSY in the last couple of weeks. It was this, and the first draft of the book we need to have finished by Monday.
Questions come naturally to quick, growing learners.
For instance, check the head tilt, suggesting, “Shoes? What shoes? I only see Monkey, Mr. Rooster, and a pair of not-so-well-concealed-slippers…. and, well, yes… I suppose I notice a pair of red suede shoes… sorta….”
Of course, what I SMELL is an entirely different matter.
And who can smell an object to absolute certainty without verifying it via other channels?
Just a sec, please. I’m almost done my completely scientifically objective investigation.
Ack.
Okay, I’ve got it. It was a red suede Dansko clog, last worn without socks for 10 hours in an under-ventilated corporate office.
Shall I check just once again to be sure?
Dang it. Red shoe gone. Only under-flavored nyla bone left in compensation.
We wants our red shoe back. Please.
And why do they keep looking at the size of my paws? They grow every morning, just like the rest of me.
Wha??? What’s wrong with these people? If I doubled in weight in the three weeks I’ve been here, what do they expect from my feet?!
Sheesh… You’d think they would have figured out the growth/skill acquisition rate earlier in the game, given that we’ve shifted from HER first person perspective to MY first person perspective in the course of one short blog posting.
Okay, let’s all just settle down and admit it: I’m going to be a BIG, SMART, CUTIE-PA-TOOTIE, CURLY HEADED PUNKIN’ DOGGIE FROM HERE FORWARD…
Faith was rescued the day she went to labor with her 12 puppies. She was so emaciated that only four of the puppies survived. The good news is that under Madeline and Brad’s excellent care, they are thriving now and all have been adopted and will be heading to their new homes within the next week or so. Our own little squirmer will be landing at Chez Jamison on September 12.
We’re not sure which one of the fat red balls lined up at Faith’s feeding trough will be ours, but I’m sort of hoping it will be the one on the far left. I think that sweet little butt speaks to an intelligent, mellow, friendly sort of poodle, don’t you?
We need your help here. In addition to stocking up on water bowls and squeaky toys, we are trying to land on a name.
We were strongly leaning towards “Watson” for a while there, in part because of the recent announcement of IBM’s artificial intelligence machine, and partly because it would be fun to holler “Watson! Come here!” every day. But “Watson” is already a family name, and we don’t wish to incite umbrage in the sharing parties.
We like “Omar” very much (big fans of “The Wire”) and Mr. Sharif was a cool, elegant dude. Plus, it’s a beautiful name that means “flourishing and long lived,” and has a dignity that befits the noble poodle. However, we also would like to get a goat someday and, obviously, the goat would need to be named “Omar,” too. This might get confusing down the road…
“Winston” is a particular favorite, and lends itself to the term of endearment, “Winnie, the Poohdle.”
We’re also considering “Ripley,” believe it or not, since poodles are incredibly intelligent and will spontaneously create their own circus tricks, just for grins and chuckles.
“Gizmo,” “Emile,” and “Gnemo” (the “g” would be silent) all would work too. But the name at the top of the list right now is “Apu,” because I just can’t help myself.
Or are we barking up against the wrong tree altogether here? Please jump in with your thoughts. Otherwise, little Spanky is likely to end up with a dog tag that says “Thank you!” on one side and “Come again!” on the other.
So it’s a serious issue when, as a couple, your lifestyle doesn’t represent a responsible space for living with a dog.
What does that say about your life?
It means you either need to give up on connecting in a meaningful way with the wonderful species of canines, become cat people, or find a new lifestyle.
Wanting but not having a dog is equivalent to failing to connect to the color green, or to great spaghetti sauce, or to laughter.
And yes, cats are fabulous, if you enjoy a life of domesticated service and don’t have allergies to cat saliva, disdain, or shredded everything.
So when the “wanting to but not being able to” light bulb went off in our collective head this month, it served as yet one more confirmation that the time has come to make some changes.
Ready?
We’re making some changes.
We’re also communicating with the Southern California Poodle Rescue Operation, and have bought the book “[easyazon-link asin=”B00BR9WLR8″ locale=”us”]The Art of Raising a Puppy[/easyazon-link]” by the monks of the New Skete Monastery.
Two new ecru Poos flew through the dunes of Half Moon at noon.
Did we just win something? I feel like we should have won something…
The one in the green collar is Oliver. And the one in pink?
Lulu.
They’re five-month old Standard Poodle siblings. Lulu lives in Half Moon Bay. Bro Ollie lives in El Granada. Their respective owners got them together for a visit and a romp on Sunday.
There was some important skills-training going on with the older kids. The black Standard (from the same breeder, I think) was working the ball moves, showing them how it’s done.
Lulu caught on quickly.
While the twenty-yard tennie chase was fun, the pups had their fill of it soon enough.
Time to practice the synchronized prancing routine.
Of the eight available paws here, it seemed that only three were touching the ground at any given moment.
The new trick for the weekend? The half-circle split and return. They did pretty well, except Oliver couldn’t quite get the syncopated trotting thing down. No worries… there’s always next time.
And look! Kids!
We thought they were a mixed Afghan-Poodle blend at first, the way that kinky hair shimmied and shook. Lulu was working on the blond hair flippy thing that female teenagers seem to enjoy so much.
It turned out they were simply soggy Standards.
Like all youngsters, they were trying on different roles and poses. For instance, it occurred to Lulu that if she could get both ears flapping in time, she might get a bit more lift. She’s seen “Dumbo.” Don’t tell her what is and isn’t possible.
Oliver started the butt nipping circuit.
Lulu ended it.
I must say, I don’t blame Oliver. Lulu is so sweet…
If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends! Click the “Share It” button just below, select your social media community of choice… and… doink! You’re the instant sharer of good stuff. People like that.
