Discovery Dog

After we finished laughing, Jeff and I agreed that it had really  just been a  matter of time until she figured it out for herself. We were wrong.

Sadie made a  few more leap-over attempts, but obviously never caught on that she’d need momentum. She scared herself silly with the first crash and caught her foot in the mesh on her second. She must have decided that particular risk it wasn’t worth it, because her tactics changed.

One day she sat staring into through the hallway door, whining pitifully. We’d both taken a turn checking out what the problem was. The first time, Jeff searched for her red ball, and came back empty handed. The second time, I figured something must really be wrong for Sadie to be so insistent.

Her ball definitely wasn’t on the inside side of the gate, but, ahhh …. Miss Fred was. I scooped Sadie up and told her she was being a silly dog. Freddie immediately jumped the fence, flattened her ears in displeasure, shook a front paw at both of us, and took off the other end of the house.

It wasn’t the last time Sadie’d ask to be let into litter box heaven. She’d prance back and forth from the hallway door to the den and try to catch our eye, hoping we’d follow.

After a few times, we were on to her, but bless her goofy puppy heart she’d would whine jealously about Fred being inside and her being outside.

She’d lie on her belly, back legs tucked, front legs stretched out ib front of her and eventually let out a loud sigh of frustration. She even had the almost teary, super sad eyes of an abused animal commercial pitch, many of which I’d seen over the years. Sadie was certainly dramatic.

Jeff and I became accidentally more educated on Sadie’s particular type of different. Nothing that interesting was on TV, so Jeff shuffled through channels until he landed on Animal Planet. In some sort of agility course event, appropriately sized Jack Russells were weaving and jumping and plowing through tubes. Just when it seemed like the contest was over, the announcer said something about the need to reset the course from the Smalls to the Talls.

I looked over at Jeff who was looking over at me. “Sadie!” I exclaimed. She catapulted to the couch from a complete sleep.

I kissed her adorable heart-shaped nose, and happily informed her, “You’re not a freak, girlie girl! You’re – a  – TALL!”  

She had no idea what I was saying, but she happily kissed my chin, energetically struggled out of my grasp, bounced off the couch, ran in a circle and took off a full run. In a flash, she was back –  gripping her prized red ball.

“Where do-ya think she got that from?” Jeff asked, suspiciously.

 

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Dogs and Their: Toys

Dogs and Their: Fetch Fettish

Dogs and Their: Lick of Affection

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Leaps and Bounding

Sadie continue to tall-up. She was adorable and sweet and fun, just different. Maybe not so smart, but sometimes smarter than us. We solved the litter-box raids by putting up a baby gate at the door to the laundry room. For the first few days, she’d do a double-take whenever she passed it.

A few days later Sadie seemed to realize what she was missing. She’d stop and sit, stare longingly into the laundry room for a few seconds, huff and then hoof it. She was also obsessed with the red ball.

She really loved that cheap dollar-store firm foam orb. As far as toys go, Sadie never touched the kong. Squeaky toys were instantly dismantled; pieces strewn about were discarded. Somehow, she always managed to hide the squeaker part somewhere obscure. We’d look for them, but never once found one. There’d suddenly be a squeeze frenzy days later. Many times, while one of us was on the phone and often after we’d been asleep for a bit.

Jeff discovered he could keep her entertained longer by sending her on longer indoor fetches. He had perfected a double bounce that would propel the ball into the dining room. He achieved that by launching the ball toward the right wall of the hallway, where it angle-bounced to the left wall. From there it flew it into the dining room and if Jeff and Sadie were lucky, the ball would deflect off a chair and travel toward the living room.

That worked well until the day Sadie bounded after her red ball as it bounced off the hall wall into the laundry room. I watched in fascinated dread as it seemed she would easily clear our brilliant barrier. Sadie flew after it, naturally jumping right over our stop-gap.

“Sadie! No!” I cried out. But my sudden loud outburst hadn’t slowed her down at all. When she didn’t reappear, I slammed the recliner footrest down, stumbling away from a startled Jeff.  He hadn’t quite processed what was going on, partly because he couldn’t see around the corner and mostly because I hadn’t filled him in.

“Oh, no! No, no, no no no!” I wailed in dismay. By the time I arrived at the entry door, Sadie was snout deep in Miss Fred’s refuse.

Jeff was halfway out of his chair with alarm, yelling back, “What? What?”

Sadie smiled happily at me, picked up her ball, took a running start and just as easily re-cleared the gate on her way back to Jeff.

“You bounced the ball into the laundry!” I huffed. “She jumped the gate and got into the litter again.”

“Oh, that’s no big deal,” Jeff poo-poo’ed me. “That’s what dogs do.”

“Just now!” I emphasized. “Right before she picked up that … that ball with her POTTY mouth and gave it to you.”

Jeff looked down at his hand. “Arrrgghhhh!” His situational assessment was shortly followed by “EEWWWWWWW!” and a forceful arm catapult as the ball went whizzing by my head.

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Fancy Doggie: Gates

Patent Baby: Gate

Safety: Gates

Leaps & Unexpected Bounds

I learned that runt meant Sadie was just behind the doggie curve… not destined to remain inherently mellow.

Miss Fred learned she could hide under the wooden rocking chair, shoot her left paw out and slap Sadie’s face as our tireless pup ran by in pursuit of her red ball.

We doggedly tried to get that on video tape, sure we could with $10,000 on America’s Funniest Videos. Back then video meant a large clunky machine with a blinding light near the lens. It didn’t help that it needed to be retrieved from the office closet, either. We left it out on the dining room table for a very long time. Freddie never cooperated.

Jeff learned something, too. “Hmm,” he said self-quizzically one day, after Sadie got into what Jeff humorously named the “no-bake doggie buffet.” She’d root around in Fred’s box and stealthily eat the crunch-coated brown stuff. The thing is she wasn’t as stealth as she thought, but by the time we saw the cat litter impacted in her nostrils, the deed had already been done. “Ya know,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’d ever heard you yell – before we got a dog.”

At about 6 months old Sadie had appropriately doubled her width, but something wasn’t quite right.

As she grew, her legs grew to twice the expected height. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with her long limbs, either. Instead of a low-to-the-ground JR scoot, Sadie pranced around like Bambi.

I said to Jeff, “I don’t think she’s normal.” Jeff glanced over at me and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean… her legs, and her tail…” I pointed to where Sadie stood smiling. “She shouldn’t be that tall. She’s like a Jack Russell on stilts! And her tail? Is it supposed to be that long….?”

 Jeff tilted his head to that doggie-don’t-understand angle. After a beat, he peered over his glasses at me. “I told ya she looked different and probably wouldn’t get adopted…”

I tilted my head to an unnatural angle even for a dog and said, “What?”

“Yeah,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “She didn’t look like the other ones…. and her tail didn’t get docked because she was too tiny and weak.”

I struggled with this news. “She was weak?” I asked. “Sickly?” I asked. “We got a defective dog?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jeff said eyeballing me cautiously. He gnawed on his bottom lip, took a big breath and sighed. Looking at the floor, he pressed his lips together like he was trying to come up with the just right thing to say. Nodding once to himself, he looked up and continued on patiently, “That’s what runt means.…”

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The First: Dictionary

Word of The: Day

Definitions: Runt

 

 

The Switch

I held the quiet girl for a little bit. She was content to stay there. Then I set in her down into my cross-legged lap. She was content to stay there. The other one was alternately exploring and then running back full speed that usually ended with him crashing into me.

Little Miss Mellow stood up at the sound of Jeff’s voice, reporting. “Well, they’re both healthy and vaccinated, that but one probably won’t go,” he said. “She’s the runt, and she looks different.” Her white fur was all-over dotted with rusty-reddish spots and a few large black and brown cow patches laid over. She looked like a regular JR to me.

I watched the other possibility tearing around performing frantic puppy antics, and glanced back down at the placid little lap dog. I scooped her up, handed her up to Jeff and lifted myself off the ground. He cradled her in his large arms, but she had other ideas. She crawled up his chest, snuggled up to his ear, offered a few licks, and with a serene sigh, closed her eyes.

We named her “Sadie.” There were a few other choices, but after a bit of name-calling testing that seemed to be the one she liked. Yes, we ‘asked’ her through testing and response rate. It was Jeff’s idea. He said it helps to name a dog something they’ll respond to.

Her name confused my mother a little. “I thought you said she was a girl,” she commented. “She is a girl,” I replied. “Oh, you know that’s Yiddish for ‘grandfather’ right?” she asked. “No, no,” I clarified, “Sadie! Not Zayde.” Jeff got a knee-slapping kick out of that.

She was sweet and social but strangely low-key. I mean veeerrrryyy low-key. She had a good appetite for such a petite pup. She stayed near us and moved at good walking pace whenever one of us left the room. She wasn’t a barker or a whiner and she had no interest in Miss Fred, at all.

She happily and quietly greeted me when I came home. Mostly, though, she followed Jeff. Mostly, because he was the one with her all day.

“I don’t think she’s normal,” I said to Jeff after she’d been with us a week.

“She’ll catch up,” he said. “Remember she’s the runt.”

Sadie’s first real play visitors were Jeff’s sister’s girl and boy. Used to having dogs of their own, the two got right down on the floor with her. Through the ear scratching and belly rubbing and tickling and the children making whelping puppy noises, Sadie widened her eyes, but stayed put.

She seemed confused, and didn’t seem like she was enjoying any of it all that much. I was just about to ask them to give her a break. Before I could get the words out, though, Sadie barrel-rolled away from them, jumped to her feet, gave a small hoarse bark (her first) and took off running. In between flat out sprints from one end of the house to the other, she’d circle the kids, drop to her front elbows and startle herself by barking.

Sadie’s hyper switch had been activated.

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Find Your:  Happy

Get Your: Happy

Be Your: Happy

 

 

In Decision

The medications weren’t really helping, so his doctors decided to try alternative measures. TENS units, TED hose and PT were added to Jeff’s mix. None were working as well as hoped. When a sleep study proved he had alarming apnea, an oxygen concentrator and a PAP machine arrived in our home.

After our dog excursion, Jeff mentioned the puppies a few times. I shook my head each time. I thought we had enough troubles.

More than two weeks had passed and I couldn’t get the pups off my mind. Jeff was bored and lonely and, according to his doctors, beginning to show signs of depression.

As far as I could tell, Jeff was still Jeff. Still, I began thinking maybe a dog wasn’t such a bad idea. It’d keep him busy, provide companionship.  I was a little worried about what a puppy would put Miss Fred through, but then again, it was a big house. Freddie wasn’t fazed by much. She wasn’t a constant attention grabber or a snuggler. With the exception of drive-by leg-bumping, she wouldn’t get that close. She’d sit near you – maybe close enough for a pet, maybe not, and definitely not often. 

On my way out the door to work each morning, I left Jeff his daily list of to-do tasks jointly devised as a way to keep him occupied and helpful. We’d talk about it the night before and hand note what was needed on a pre-printed form I created. On Thursday night we wrote: make a grocery list, make dinner, wash bedding. Friday morning, finally in decision mode, I added an extra line item: call to see if any puppies are left. 

Within hours, he found out there were only two puppies left. On our weekend way back to the farm, Jeff of the Big Heart said, “You know… I’ve been thinking… maybe we should take them both, because they’re the last ones, and then one wouldn’t have to be lonely.”

I said, “I’m not even sure about one. I don’t think two is a good idea.”

“Well, how will I decide?” he asked. “You’ll just have to,” was my answer.

There was no commotion in the kennel, this time. Inside the barn, two babies slept peacefully in a hay-lined, low-sided wooden crib. Jeff lifted one in each hand, and set them both down both in the morning sun. While their tiny eyes adjusted into squints, I decided I’d try the ‘Kelsey’ test and plopped myself down on the ground to see what would happen. The next thing I know, I was playfully attacked by a little black and white streak. He ran around me in circles, jumping in and out of my lap and zealously yapping. Continually, and quite normal for a Jack.

The other simply one laid down near Jeff’s feet. The yapper bumped into her a few times, so Jeff picked her up to get her out of the way.

“Is she sick? Could she be contagious?” I asked, comparing her docile demeanor to her energetic brother. “I don’t think so,” Jeff answered. Because I was me, I adamantly encouraged him to ask. Because he was Jeff, he handed her off to me and set out for the house.

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Apple: Facts

Apples: Applause

Puppy Diseases: To Watch For